Description
This book expands the symbols of the phallus and vagina into cosmic symbols, not by reference to myths but by his interpretations of embryonic, physiological, psychological facts. It develops the view that the whole of life is determined by a tendency to return to the womb, equating the process of birth with the phylogenetic transition of animal life from water to land, and linking coitus to the idea of "thalassal regression": "the longing for the sea-life from which man emerged to primeval times".
Table of Contents
Introduction -- Ontogenesis -- Amphimixis of Erotisms in the Ejaculatory Act -- Coitus as an Amphimictic Phenomenon -- Stages in the Development of the Erotic Sense of Reality -- Interpretation of the Individual Phenomena in the Sex Act -- Genital Functioning in the Individual -- Phylogenesis -- The Phylogenetic Parallel -- Evidence for the “Thelassal Regressive Trend” -- Coitus and Fertilization -- Epicrisis -- Coitus and Sleep -- Bioanalytic Conclusions -- Male and Female
