The cannibalistic lust is a means of protecting the virgin son from Medusa, the ultimate maneater with many heads. The closeted homosexual erotictis are the snakes that project from her head engrossing a discomfort of its swollen appetite of unhealthy or destructive directions to deprive him of energy. All the outer and inner determinations which impede or hold at a distance the attainment of normal sexual aim, such as impotence, costliness of the sexual object, and dangers of the sexual act, will conceivably strengthen the inclination to linger at the preparatory acts, and to for them into new sexual aims to take place of the normal. On closer investigation it is always seen that indications of what seems the most peculiar of these new aims have already existed in the normal sexual act. At least a certain amount of touching is indispensable for a person in order to attain the normal sexual aim. It is also generally known that touching of the skin of the sexual object causes much pleasure and produces a supply of new excitement. Hence, the lingering at touching can hardly be considered a perversion if the sexual act is forthwith accomplished. The same hold true in the end with looking, which is analogous to touching.  

The manner in which the libidinous excitement is frequently awakened is by optical impressions, and selection takes account of this circumstance—if this teleological mode of thinking can be permitted—by making the sexual object a thing of beauty. Covering of the body, which keeps abreast with civilization, continuously arouses sexual curiosity and serves to supplement the sexual object by uncovering the hidden parts. The tendency to linger at this intermediary sexual aim of the sexually accentuated looking is found to a certain degree in most normal; indeed, it gives them the possibility of directing a certain amount of their libido to a higher artistic aim. On the other hand, the desire for looking becomes a perversion when it is exclusively limited to the to the genitals; when it becomes connected with the overcoming of loathing (voyeurs and onlookers at the functions of excretion); and when instead of preparing for the normal sexual aim, it suppresses it. Medusa and her snakes have a playful expression of sexual desire and passion, but it is a tense, ambition, desperate longing.  

The latter, if I may draw conclusion from a single analysis, is in a most pronounced way true of exhibitionists, who expose their genitals with the idea of bringing to view the genitals of others. Analysis reveals that this perversion—just as most others—has an unexpected multiplicity of motivations and meanings. Exhibitionism, for instance, is strongly dependent upon the castration complex; it would emphasize again the integrity of one’s own (male) genitals and repeats the infantile satisfaction of the lack of the penis in the female. In the perversion which consists in striving to look and be looked at, we are confronted with a very remarkable peculiarity which will occupy us even more intensively in the following aberration. The sexual aim exists here in a two-fold formation, in an active and passive form. The force which opposes the desire for looking and through which the latter is eventually abolished is shame (like the former loathing). 

Eroticist, by which I mean an excessive or obsessive interest in the sexual activity, opportunity, or possibility, is very common in contemporary culture, having become all but normalized. Frequently mistaken for healthy, robust sexual interest or a strong libido, eroticists is commonly taken to be a sign of manliness, except in its uglier or clearly abusive extremes. Eroticist’s disproportionate focus on things sexual both marks it and keeps it in business—and also provides a potent distraction from whatever wounding underlies and catalyzes the “need” for it. Our task is not to repress whatever eroticists we may have, but to stop giving ourselves to it, to stand back far enough from it to see it clearly, to relate to it rather than from it. This takes, this task done for pleasure, not reward, does not desexualize or suppress us, but helps liberate our sexuality from the expectations with which we have saddled it (like “Make me feel like more of a man” or “Make me feel special”). If we are to truly free ourselves sexually, we have to understand, deglamorize, and outgrow eroticists. Eroticists makes the sexual excitation and its amplification far too important, overly attaching us to what most successfully fuels such excitation. This intensifies not only our sense of internal pressure (getting seriously heated up), but also our urge for energetic discharge, with a special emphasis on the release provided by orgasm.  

However, such release, whatever its cultural hype, is neither ecstasy nor liberation, but at best only brief relief, akin to the sensation felt when you at last remove an extremely tight pair of pants. Repeatedly putting such paints back on, in order to later have—no, necessitate—as pleasurable as possible an energetic discharge, is fundamental to the practice of eroticists. The longer we leave the pants on, the more satisfying the release when we take them off. Sadism and masochism is the tendency to cause pain to the sexual object and its opposite, the most frequent and most significant of all perversions, was designated in its two forms as sadism for the active form and masochism for the passive form. Also known as algolagnia, which emphasizes the pleasure in pain and cruelty, whereas the sadism places the pleasure secured in all kinds of humility and submission in the foreground. The concept of sadism fluctuates in everyday speech from a mere active or impetuous attitude towards the sexual object to an absolute attachment of gratification to the subjection and maltreatment of the object. Strictly speaking, only the last extreme case can claim the name of perversion. 

Similarly, the designation masochism comprises all passive attitudes to the sexual life and to the sexual object; in its most extreme form the gratification is connected with suffering of physical or mental pain at the hands of the sexual object. Masochism as a perversion seems further removed from the normal sexual goal than its opposite. It may even ne doubted whether it ever is primary and whether it does not more often originate through transformation from sadism. Later reflections which can be supported by definite evidence concerning the structure that masochism is nothing but a continuation of sadism directed against one’s own person in which the latter at first takes the place of the sexual object. Clinical analysis of extreme cases of masochistic perversion show that there is a cooperation of a large series of factors which exaggerate and fix the original passive sexual attitude (castration complex, guilt). Castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense. The fear of castration is an integral part of our psychosexual development. The castration complex is closely associated with the reaction to the threats against the child aimed at putting a stop to his early sexual activities attributed to his father.  

A father encourages his virgin son to life and engage in sexual activity, but when he brings a young lady to the house, the father discourages any sexual activity. As the young man gets to know the girl, he sees she has a drug addiction and saved her from an abusive relationship. He then takes her to a party, where he leaves her with his sister, who allows her to drink, not knowing she has a drug problem, then the young lady meets an older man and goes back to his apartment, and they have the sex and she overdoses on cocaine. The young man gets jumped at the supermarket for defending her honor, the young lady is sent to rehab. Everyone is afraid that the young man is suicidal, and when they cannot find him the next morning, the family is afraid. The young man is actually found sleeping in the closet, by his sister. This is symbolic of the young man with primitive desires, in coming face to face with the laws and conventions of society. The pain which is here overcome ranks with the loathing and shame which are the resistance opposed to the libido. The prohibitions against incest and murder will tend to align prohibition with castration (something that is sometimes reinforced by parents if they warn against masturbation by saying that the child will in some way be punished bodily by going blind). This is concept in defining the Law of the Father, which is a remnant of cannibalistic lust.