1.) Penis envy as outlined briefly a few days ago below (January 4) is what seems to have been called by Carl Jung the Electra complex. Freud rejected this title because it "seeks to emphasize the analogy between the attitude of the two sexes." Jung proposed the title, deriving the name from the Greek myth of Electra, who wanted her brother to avenge the death of the siblings' father Agamemnon, by killing their mother, Clytemnestra.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_complex

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2.) Vagina dentata (the toothed vagina): Freud never mentions the term in any of his psychoanalytic work and it runs counter to his own ideas about castration. For Freud, the vagina signifies the fear of castration because the young (male) child assumes that women once had a penis that is now absent. The vagina, then, is the result of castration, not the cause of it.

Castration anxiety literally means the fear that one's penis will be chopped off, but more profoundly it may symbolize the child's fear that he will, like Oedipus (see Oedipus Complex) lose his power (and his love object as well - ie. his mother). Thus the boy harbours an unconscious wish to kill the father.

The vagina dentata appears in the myths of several cultures, most notably in several North American Indian tribes. Erich Neumann relays one such myth in which "A fish inhabits the vagina of the Terrible Mother; the hero is the man who overcomes the Terrible Mother, breaks the teeth out of her vagina, and so makes her into a woman."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration_anxiety
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

3.) What happens when vagina dentata is somewhat physically possible? See here for information on the RapeX, for example.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

4.) Oh Canada. There was some discussion of changing the name of Northwest Territories after the separation of Nunavut, possibly to a term from an Aboriginal language. One proposal was "Denendeh" ("our land" in Dene). The idea was advocated by former premier Stephen Kakfwi, among others. As well, a popular radio station began to promote changing the territory's name to "Bob".

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territories#History

~ ~ ~ ~ ~



5.) From my basic understanding, the Id is the basic human drives/instinctual impulses, the Ego is the mediator between Id and Super-Ego (the rider on the horse of the Id), and the Super-Ego is the internalized father figure/the Thou Shalt dragon Campbell speaks of/cultural norms/conscience. When the Super-Ego criticizes the Ego with such moves as guilt, anxiety, etc., the Ego responds with Defense Mechanisms, such as: denial, displacement, intellectualization, fantasy, compensation, projection, rationalization, reaction formation, regression, repression and sublimation ... however, his [Sigmund Freud's] daughter Anna Freud clarified and identified the concepts of: undoing, suppression, dissociation, idealization, identification, introjection, inversion, somatization, splitting and substitution.

Something about this seems rooted in an odd kind of essentialism (I don't know if that's a word or the correct usage if it is). Like his theory proves itself. Or that it's an interesting myth, in Campbell's sense. Additionally I don't know the theories well enough to successfully make the claim that the super-ego is like the Thou Shalt dragon of Campbell (ie can you "slay" the super-ego?). etc. In short, as with everything I post on this website, some detritus from my day.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego%2C_super-ego%2C_and_id

---

---

---