Pornography: The Oedipal Promise
Abstract
Scrolling through explicit online material today, the theme of motherhood may be striking. While more popular than it’s ever been, the trend is not a new one. The maternal (and to a lesser extent, paternal) undercurrent of pornography is age-old. But why? Why is the mother the object of sexual fantasy among men? What are the consequences? For men? Women? This paper turns to the Freudian Oedipus Complex in hopes of contextualizing and potentially explaining this phenomena. It is an exploration of the Oedipus Complex in relation to not only pornography but the modern virtual landscape more broadly, ultimately arguing that pornography is the deferred, misplaced and unresolved action of the Oedipus Complex. This paper, while written through a Freudian lens, also builds itself on the work(s) of Jacques Lacan and Carl Jung.
Introduction
The Golden Age was the most popular pornographic trend of 2023. The term is a common way of referring to menopause, affecting women aged between 40-60. In the context of pornography, The Golden Age content mainly involves sex between an older woman and younger man. Associated with the genre are search terms like “mature" and “mature cougar”, which grew by roughly +80% in 2023 and became the 2nd most popular category among men. But there is yet another layer to the trend: the mother. The taboo of incest has been present in pornography for years. However, there has been an estimated 40x increase in the number of videos involving a “step”-family member in the last decade: a trend that is, clearly, currently topping charts worldwide. In particular, “MILF” became the 2nd most searched term on Pornhub in 2023. Likewise, paternal search terms like “DILF” increased by +71%. Perhaps more striking is the +168% increase in the search for “GILF” porn, involving “grandmothers” or women aged +70%.
Academic research on the incestual undercurrent in pornography remains sparse and limited in scope. Instead, the question is most commonly tackled in investigative journalism and informal online discussion forums, where personal testaments and and unprofessional conversations take place. While these spaces are important, they underscore the lack of academic and medical research into the causes and effects of incest-related porn. In the context of this literary gap, it is both relevant and intriguing to turn to the work of Sigmund Freud to explore the question through the lens of the Oedipus Complex.
Despite being a cornerstone of psychoanalysis, Freud’s Oedipus Complex is an illusive concept in the ocean of his work. The renowned Austrian neurologist died without ever dedicating an entire article or book to his most sophisticated and puzzling theory. Rather, the Oedipus Complex permeates nearly all of his writings in some way, evolving substantially over the course of his career and across his work. This essay nonetheless draws primarily from his book Group Psychology & The Analysis of The Ego, in addition to the following chapters of The Standard Edition of The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: “The Dissolution of The Oedipus Complex”; “The Ego & The Id”; “The Interpretation of Dreams”; “The Theme of The Three Caskets.”
Drawing on these works, I will nonetheless make a brief attempt here at summarizing the Oedipus Complex. Named after Oedipus Rex, the complex makes reference to Sophocles tragic play. In it, Oedipus Rex unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother. Freud’s theory claims children feel an attraction towards their opposite sex parent while simultaneously feeling as though they are in competition with their same-sex parent. This competition is driven by the child’s demand for attention and affection from the so-called “preference-parent”, from whom the child feels the same-sex parent is also demanding attention and affection.
Freud went further to outline the five-stage process through which children psychosexually develop. Each stage sees the fixation of libido on a different part of the body. The first stage is the Oral stage (0-18 months), in which the mouth is fixated upon, experiencing the pleasures of sucking, licking, chewing, and biting. This is followed by the Anal stage (18 months - 3 years), during which the body fixates on the ability to control bathroom habits. The third stage is the Phallic stage (3 years - 5 years), in which children develop healthy substitutes for their libido towards their opposite sex parent. This stage is followed by the Latency stage (5 years - 12 years). During this period, children learn to develop healthy libido for the opposite sex (of their own age). The fifth and final stage is the Gential stage (puberty - adulthood). This stage sees the maturation of healthy sexual feelings and behaviors, as well as the integration of the other stages into the brain.
In attempting to situate pornography in the work of Freud, this essay will ultimately argue that porn is the deferred and repressed action of the Oedipus Complex. This paper will make an attempt to explore both the causes and consequences of the Oedipal presence in pornography. The first part of the essay will examine the causes and consequences of “Oedipal pornography” for men, while the second part will explore the role of and repercussions for women.
It is important to further clarify that this essay will largely speak about the consumption of pornography by men. This is due to the paper’s focus on visual pornography (i.e. photography and videography). I mainly cite data from the world’s largest online pornographic streaming sites, namely PornHub.com and Xvideos.com. The global audience of the former, for example, consists of 79.96% men and 20.04% women. When factoring in written pornography, the percentage of female consumers rises to 60%. It is notable that parental-related storylines are likewise common among erotica consumed by women. Nonetheless, due to the essay’s focus on visual pornography, the male demographic will remain the object of study here.
The Masculine Experience: Causes & Consequences
According to Freud, the development of healthy sexual desires and behaviors is built on the healthy completion of all five stages laid out above, that is, the overcoming of the conflicts presented at each sexual epoch. Specifically, if the Oedipus complex is left unresolved in any way during the Phallic stage of development, compulsive fixations on the opposite-sex parent may linger. The most direct consequence of this appears in the choice of sexual and romantic partners made later on in life. Attraction, then, is commonly developed for partners who resemble the figure of the opposite-sex parent.
Castration, a fundamental pillar to Freud’s psychosexual development theory, is the central way that young boys find necessary healthy resolve in the Phallic stage. Defined as the subconscious fear experienced by young boys of their fathers severing their genitals, Castration is the imagined form of punishment taken against the boy for his desire for the mother, for whom the child and father have been (up until this point) competing for. Castration importantly encompasses the prohibition of incest, murder, cannibalism, and, later, masturbation. It often appears in young boys in the form of anxiety, termed “castration anxiety.” The female equivalent is what Freud labels “penis envy.” A necessary step toward the development of female gender identity, this is the point at which young girls believe they are castrated boys, and thus wish for a male genitalia of their own, ultimately initiating the Oedipus Complex for the young girls. It is in this context that girls are confronted with their sexual identity - that is, being sexually inferior. This identity - centered around a “lack” - is what gives birth and assigns meaning to the patriarchy - the world’s very structure as we know it - according to Lacan.
Incestual pornography, then, may be a way to escape, avoid, and/or reverse male Castration. Through the screen, it becomes possible to achieve the Oedipal fantasy - originally prohibited during Castration. In this way, pornography focusing on the mother figure is most likely the result of an incomplete Castration, or its undoing. In either case, the search for the sexual mother is rooted in the repressed desires of the Oedipus Complex, leftover by an incompleteness of the psychosexual development. However, the problem becomes muddier when acknowledging that the sexual maternal archetype is now an embedded facet of culture. Integrated into media and mainstream humor, it is difficult to assess the varying extents to which individual cases are affected by authentic psychosexual dysfunction as compared to cultural and social dysfunction.
Having established the gender dynamics that lead to maternally-charged pornography, it is relevant to examine the gender dynamics that emerge from the consumption of this pornography. We may classify the very process of consuming porn as sexual. This is to say the very nature of the consumption of pornography is feminine in nature. To better understand this, we may turn to Carl Jung’s typology of the anima and animus. Jung defines the former as the unconscious feminine side of a man and the latter as the unconscious masculine side of a woman. Said another way, the animus is the “masculine thinking in a woman”, and vice versa.
Applying the Jungian vocabulary, the archetypal energy present in consuming porn is the feminine, or anima. This refers not to who-watches-what, but the passive nature of the media itself and its consumption. More concretely, the feminine is associated with observation and input. In this way, porn taps into the anima in all men, shifting them away from their conscious masculine characteristics/content (animus). Characteristics associated with the so-called “displaced anima” are the following: “Uncontained, constantly seeking external affirmation; Lack of creativity; Poor relatedness, behaviour in relationships designed to isolate the person from others; Masochistic; Greedy, grasping; Self-centered.”
This libidinal dynamic is heightened by the addictive aspect of pornography. Addiction, submissive in nature, is a product of anima. The submissive (male) addict is the embodiment of excessive anima. The addicted individual exists in comfort and “devilish security.”
This security is key to any addiction, but particularly associated with the space offered by the internet, otherwise referred to as “The Digital Anima.” There is a parallel to be drawn between this Digital Anima and the “devouring mother”. It is illuminating to know the word matrix comes from matriarch, and can also mean womb. Like the womb, the Digital Matrix keeps the individual fixated on the false comfort of the online (sex) space, safe from the “true world of possibility, danger, and rejection.” The Digital Anima thrives on the passivity and submission of its users. Those that are psychologically fused to the Digital Matrix tend to exhibit the signs of imbalanced anima.
Before proceeding, it is important to define and flesh out the archetype of the “devouring mother.” This is an all-consuming, co-dependent figure who subsumes her children, particularly her sons, on both a psychological and emotional level. The archetype is one born out of Freud’s “penis envy.” The devouring mother “compensates for her lack of penis by having a son, then devotes all of her energy toward his care and the satisfaction of his every wish.” This archetype is also touched upon by Jung, exemplified in the following quotation: “For the son, the animus is hidden in the dominating power of the mother and sometimes she leaves him with a sentimental attachment that lasts throughout life and seriously impairs the fate of the adult.”
To use the analogy presented in the stereotypical matrix plot, we may imagine the Blue Pill to be the maternal comfort to the Oedipal child, who remains latched to a safety that ultimately smothers/stunts their psychosexual development. Maintaining the (sexual) libidinal bond with the mother via pornography (in the safety of the screen) is one form of taking the Blue Pill. Meanwhile, the Red Pill may represent the maturation of individuals into adult archetypes, disassociating from those of our parents. This choice also involves being exposed to the necessary, often cruel realities of the real world, made possible only by abandoning the comfort of the mother and developing one's sense of self.
As outlined above, it is in the comfort of pornography (especially of the maternal subgenre), addiction, and the Digital Matrix, that men are bypassing “manhood”. This epidemic can be perhaps best exemplified/observed in Eastern Asian countries, namely China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, North and South Korea These cultures, with Japan at the forefront, are leaders in technological advancements - including and especially those related to sex. While birth rates continue to fall across the continent, nearly half of Japan’s millennials (18-34 years) are still virgins, and populations are shrinking. The rise of pornography - of sanctuary - works in tandem with the economic factors at play to minimally satisfy the needs of the young male population in the comfort of the virtual world, satiating basic desires while keeping them from achieving more. Epictetus’ words ring especially true here: “Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men’s desires, but by the removal of desire.” Said differently, “You satisfy your desires while losing the ability to achieve them.” The devouring mother of the virtual sex world smothers her son (the user), hindering him by keeping him from starting a family of his own. What is left is a generation of men with imbalanced anima, intimidated by creating real relationships in the apparently cruel world that lay outside of the screen, followed by a decline in families, and thus, whole populations.
But the consequences of porn extend beyond creating new gender dynamics. So intertwined with gender and intrinsically psychological, pornography is, of course, political. Generally speaking, these political consequences tend to more directly impact women, which will be discussed in the following section (i.e. gender-based violence, poverty, and prostitution). Still, it is imperative to emphasize the tragic way billion-dollar industries create and profit off the addictions of young men globally. The epidemic, too, is of course linked to the greater societal issue of the male social isolation, and the reluctance to ask for help. Unless there is intervention on a society-wide level, the problem is likely to worsen as technology becomes more pervasive, and content becomes more perverse.
The Feminine Experience: Roles & Repercussions
The previous section has established a number of questions about the role women have to play in the maternal undercurrent of pornography. In The Theme of Three Caskets, Freud draws on mythology and tragedy (theater) to ultimately argue that the woman will take three forms across a man’s life: “The mother herself, the beloved one who is chosen after her pattern, and lastly the Mother Earth who receives him once more.” The partner chosen to follow the pattern of the mother that Freud posits is not meant to too closely resemble her, and certainly is not meant to literally be her. While it may be true that men seek a partner resembling their mother, it is unlikely that Freud would support how literally this phenomenon has been taken. In other words, men today are sexually fantasizing about archetypes which resemble too closely their own mother: other mothers.
This dynamic presents another layer to the puzzle at present: the distinction between love and desire in relation to the mother. There is clearly consensus that the archetypal mother is attractive, as confirmed by the Pornhub 2023 Year in Review statistics. However, if asked, most men would claim to feel repulsed at the idea of their mother engaging in intercourse, with her son or anyone else. This way, the pornographic icon of the MILF (portrayed by a woman other than their mother) functions as a proxy for their own, yet far enough away to be the object of sexual fantasy/tool. Freud discusses at length this dichotomy, summarized in the following quotation: “Where such men love, they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love. They seek objects that they do not need to love in order to keep their sensuality at a distance from their objects of love.” It is possible that Castration was effective in convincing the young boys that intercourse with their mother is socially, morally, and biologically incorrect. However, due to the nature of the mother or dysfunction that took place during childhood psychosexual development, the attraction to the figure remains, now displaced to another, similar woman.
It is important to flesh-out this idea of this latter woman: the proxy mother, the object of sexual desire - what I have chosen to call the “uncastrated woman.” It is this woman I believe Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger was referring to when he said:
“[The] Woman is only sexual, man is also sexual. . . . In man, there are only a few body parts where he can be sexually aroused, and even these are strictly determined as to their location. In woman, sexuality spreads around her entire body, wherever you touch her, it excites her.... Since in man sexuality is only an appendix and is far from being everything, for men the sexuality can be psychologically distinguished (separated) from the background, and he can become aware of it. ... In woman, sexuality cannot be reflected against a non-sexual (essential) appendix: the phallus area, since it doesn’t occur in temporally limited outbursts, nor is there an anatomic organ where it could be locally seen already from the outside.”
Alenka Zupančič summarizes Weininger’s point well: “[Because] woman does not have the phallus, she does not know castration [...] her relation to enjoyment is immediate - it is all-embracing, and saturates everything.” It is critical to unpack the implications of this ever-desiring, uncastrated woman: the woman on the screen, the tool, the object of desire, the unloved maternal proxy. The most immediate and concerning repercussion of what Weininger writes is that women are unconscious - sexually and otherwise. Consciousness requires a distinction between one's reason and one's pleasure. Men are capable of such a separation because their source of pleasure is external, additional to their body. Women, on the other hand, experience pleasure throughout, and from the inside out. There is no localized appendage to attribute pleasure to, meaning it is a function of their whole body, overtaking reason. “From there it follows (for Weininger) that women do not have consciousness in the strict meaning of the word, and that they are not really capable of thinking. Since in the case of woman we cannot think of enjoyment (or see it) as excluded/excludable, she is “obviously” drawn and sunk into it entirely.”
There exist, of course, tremendous social as well as political consequences of this outdated yet common way of thinking about women. The most pressing question that arises, of course, is that of consent. How can an unconscious, irrational individual who is always desiring say “no”? Of course, they can not. Their very existence is a consenting one, due to the very nature of their physical being.
This is clear in pornography. Women are portrayed as passive participants in the act. Sex is something that happens to them, not with them. Moreover, violence is rampant in porn. This violence is built on the invalidity of the female “no.” Due to the performative nature of porn, female actresses are pressured to vocally and visibly enjoy violence. Research has shown that this mixed-messaging is formative for young boys, often solidifying their idea of what sex is and should be.
This dynamic is emphasized by the current rise of “free use” porn - involving the sexual “use” of women at any given moment, regardless of the environment or activity she may be engaged in. This only illustrates the extent to which female consent is assumed. This phenomena explicitly persists outside of the screen. A major reason for rape involves the assumption of women’s consent, sometimes related to her clothing, intoxication levels, activity, or even profession. This assumption has deep roots in the flawed (yet common) way in which Weininger thinks - something that pornography reinforces on a global scale, harming men and women alike.
Gender-based violence (i.e. rape, sexual assault, harassment) is clearly the most prominent political impact of pornography, but not the only. Statistical data has also outlined “how pornography as a social practice disregards equality by exploiting people from multiple disadvantaged backgrounds.” Both the production and consumption of pornography has strong ties to childhood abuse/neglect, as well as homelessness. In fact, poverty is one of the central reasons for entering the sex industry. This is also where the link between pornography and prostitution is forged. The increased consumption of pornography is massively correlated to the hiring of prostitutes.
To sum up, pornography exacerbates the differences between “loveable” and “desirable” women. Usually, the mother would fall into the former category, while the porn actress would fall into the latter. However, with the Oedipal influence, the situation is more complicated, as the actual mother remains the object of love, but it is her proxy (i.e. the MILF) that becomes the object of desire. It is important to keep in mind that pornography objectifies women, leaving them stuck in a cycle of oppression. It is a vicious one, only complicated by the unnatural undercurrent of incest, further blurring the lines between sexuality, desire, and love.
Conclusion
This essay has been an examination into what ways the Freudian Oedipus Complex is intertwined with the use of pornography today, ultimately arguing that the undercurrent of maternity in porn is the male attempt to realize the (unresolved) Oedipus Complex. I tried to expand this idea to encompass, even, the idea of the internet or Digital Matrix itself, as a way of bypassing Castration by living out fantasies (intended to be outgrown) and offering a sanctuary from the challenges of non-virtual reality. I also spent time detailing the consequences of the Oedipal relationship with and within porn, all of which have transformative repercussions. Ultimately, the goal of this paper was to connect seemingly-outdated Freudian concepts to current phenomena and thought in an attempt to make them feel more tangible.
