Citation

Calvo L. Int. J. Psychoanal. 2008; 89(1): 55-70.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Institute of Psychoanalysis, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1745-8315.2007.00001.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The primal scene, theorized by Freud in his case history of the Wolf Man, is a fantasy scenario thoroughly embedded in social relations. While pursuing his analysis of oedipal structures in the Wolf Man’s case history, Freud overlooked social relations, downplaying the importance of racial and class difference in the Wolf Man’s sexual etiology. In this essay, I trace the circulation of two fantasy structures: ‘the primal scene of miscegenation’ and ‘A black man is being beaten,’ both of which structure desire in both Freud ’s era and our own. I interpret Fanon’s work on racial subjectivity alongside Freud ’s theory of fantasy to elucidate the interconnected nature of racial and sexual difference in both Freud and Fanon’s theories. The racial fantasies proposed in this essay have application to clinical settings, where they may structure transference and countertransference.