ABSTRACT
The popular view of human sexual life is that it consists essentially in each person's impulse to bring his own genitals into contact with those of a person of the opposite sex. The main findings of psycho-analysis on this subject may be summarized in three points. First, sexual life does not start at puberty. Its first manifestations may be clearly seen shortly after birth. Second, it is a mistake to restrict the idea of sexuality to activities connected with the genitals. Sexuality is a wider concept and embraces many activities which have no connection with the genitals. Third, the fundamental function of sexuality is to obtain pleasure from zones of the body. This function is later brought into the service of reproduction, but the two functions often fail to coincide completely. Freud's conclusion is that satisfaction of what remains in the ego of the death instinct seems not to produce feelings of pleasure.
