ABSTRACT
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality is one of Sigmund Freud’s most important, original, and well-known writings. It soon attracted attention and eventually became a landmark text in the history of Freudian psychoanalysis and beyond. It was relatively short text compared to the various contemporary studies on sexuality published by scholars in neurology, sexology, and psychiatry. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a historically and systematically contextualized reading of the first and later editions of Three Essays that explores the central concepts and compositions of ideas. It explores that Freud develops a non-oedipal theory of infantile sexuality; that is, a theory that in principle cannot be articulated or translated in oedipal terms. The book focuses on the 1905 theory of sexuality that presents a radical critique of the contemporary functional and heteronormative perspective on sexuality by highlighting the polymorphous perverse and autoerotic character of sexuality.
