俄狄浦斯情结，又称恋母情结，由西格蒙德·弗洛伊德于1899年首次提出，得名于希腊神话中的悲剧英雄俄狄浦斯无意中杀父娶母的故事。俄狄浦斯情结表明，每个孩子都会经历一个阶段，通常是三到五岁之间，受到父母中异性一方的吸引，同时想要取代之竞争的父母中同性一方，独占其爱。据说每个小孩或多或少都有一点恋母情结，其实不管是恋母情结还是恋父情结，都是正常的。那么，如果父母没有正确应对孩子的性启蒙，会造成什么样的影响？
How Freud's Oedipus Complex Can Help Your Sex Life
The Oedipus Complex is one of the strangest and most counter-intuitive concepts in psychoanalysis. First formulated by Sigmund Freud in 1899, and taking its name from the mythical Greek tragic hero Oedipus (who in the eponymous play by Sophocles unknowingly sleeps with his mother and then kills his father), this suggests that every child goes through a phase, normally between the ages of three and five, of physically desiring its opposite-sex parent while wishing to do away with, or kill, its rivalrous same-sex parent.
俄狄浦斯情结是心理分析中最为奇特也最为反直觉的概念之一，由西格蒙德·弗洛伊德于1899年首次提出，得名于希腊神话中的悲剧英雄俄狄浦斯（在索福克勒斯创作的同名剧作中，俄狄浦斯在不知情的情况下与母结合，后又弑父）。俄狄浦斯情结表明，每个孩子都会经历一个阶段，通常是三到五岁之间，从身体上受到父母中异性一方的吸引，同时想要摆脱或杀死与之竞争的父母中同性一方。
Expressed bluntly like this, the Complex tends to arouse immediately puzzlement, ridicule – or disgust: children aren’t generally to be witnessed expressing any kind of sexual desire and we are unlikely to remember anything in our own lives remotely resembling what Freud insistently describes as a universal truth.
如此直白的表述，俄狄浦斯情结自然立刻引发了困惑、嘲笑乃至厌恶：人们通常认为儿童不会展现任何一种性欲，我们也回想不起一生中有任何事例贴近这种情结，而弗洛伊德还坚称俄狄浦斯情结为宇宙真理。
However, the explanatory power of the Oedipus Complex is likely to increase – as is often the case with Freud’s ideas – the less literally we take it, in other words, the more we view it as providing us with an overall picture of the genesis of human sexuality rather than as a concrete event in a given child’s mind.
然而，如果我们不仅着眼于字面含义，换句话说，不要将俄狄浦斯情结看作某个孩子内心的切实想法，而是将其看作对人类性行为起源的总体概述，那么俄狄浦斯情结似乎又有解释现状的能力了——弗洛伊德的种种理念总是如此。
We might think of the Oedipus Complex as offering us a guiding narrative about how we come, through the varied experiences of childhood, to have our own distinctive approach to sexuality. The Complex shines a light on a range of questions:
我们或可认为俄狄浦斯情结为我们提供了一种指导性的理论，关乎我们如何通过童年的各色经历建立起自己独有的对待性的方式。俄狄浦斯情结进一步解释了系列问题：
How confident do we now feel in our powers of attractiveness?
我们对自己的吸引力有多自信？
Are we disgusted or broadly at peace with our sexuality?
我们对自己的性抱有的是厌恶还是平常心？
Do we think that other people are likely to reject or accept our advances?
我们认为别人会拒绝还是接受我们的挑逗？
And how much are we intimidated by our desires?
我们有多畏惧自己的性欲？
What is telling is that a huge range of responses are to be found here: some of us labour under critical degrees of shame and terror. Others have no particular difficulty making our appetites known and acting on them in reciprocal situations. Sex may be a source of exceptional joy – or the locus of boundless masochism and paranoia.
这些问题的回答五花八门：有的人备感羞耻和恐惧。有的人能够坦陈癖好并在你情我愿的场合按心意行事。性是极乐之源，也是受虐癖和妄想症多发的场域。
With Freud’s ideas in mind, rather than imagining that we actually wanted to sleep with anyone as children, we might say that we went through a phase of exploring what it might mean to prove attractive to a man or a woman. Importantly, we did so in the form of a game, one in which we no more wanted things to become real than we would – when we played pirates or jungle explorers in the kitchen – have wished to join an actual Caribbean drug cartel or a trip down the Amazon.
了解弗洛伊德的理论后，我们与其说会去想象自己孩提时确实想和谁发生性行为，不如说会觉得自己经历了一个探索的阶段，探知向一个男人或女人证明自己的魅力意味着什么。重要的是，我们是以游戏的形式去探索，而就像在厨房假扮海盗和丛林探险家时，没人曾真的希望加入现实中的加勒比贩毒集团或是真的沿亚马逊河漂流而下那样，我们并不想让游戏成真。
Little boys and girls will, in a limited way, try out what happens if they attempt to charm mum or dad; at a given point, they might pull a highly endearing smile and say they want to spend the rest of their life with only one parent, or send the other one away or muse that it might be nice if they could have a little wedding ceremony with one parent only.
小男孩和小女孩们会以有限的手段去试验吸引了妈妈或爸爸之后会发生什么；某些时刻，他们会扬起可爱至极的微笑，然后表白说只想和父母中的一个度过余生，或者要把另一个送走，又或者深思熟虑地说如果可以和爸爸或妈妈举行一场小小的婚礼就再好不过了。
And here – for better and for worse – the games can unfold very differently according to the emotional maturity of the parent. In an optimal scenario, when a small child initiates a game, the adult will be exceptionally careful neither to shame nor to excite them. They won’t say “Don’t be so silly” or “How repulsive”. They won’t get furious or punishing. They will be resolved enough about their own sexuality, not to take fright at its first echoes in their child. They will notice what’s going on, smile indulgently and go along with the game just long enough for the child to feel acknowledged and heard. And yet they will naturally not do anything remotely seductive back. They will, with great kindness, ensure that the game always stays very much a game.
此时，根据那位家长的情绪成熟程度，游戏会以极为不同的方式展开，这既是好事，也是坏事。好的情况下，当孩子发起游戏，成熟的家长会慎之又慎地对待，既不羞辱孩子，也不刺激孩子。他们不会说“别犯傻”或者“真恶心”。他们不会大发雷霆，也不会施以惩罚。他们对自己的性足够坚定，不会因为自己的孩子第一次受到性启蒙而惊慌失措。他们会注意到当下发生的事，宽容地报以微笑，让游戏进行下去，直到孩子感觉受到了认同和倾听。自然，他们不会对孩子做任何带着一丁点引诱意味的事情。他们以极大的善意确保游戏始终只是游戏。
So much is, however, liable to go wrong. There are mothers and fathers too fragile internally to allow a child to flex their faculties of attraction; they get bitter or snide, dismissive or angry; there can only be one chief or one queen bee. There are parents too deeply swallowed up in cares and depression to allow themselves to be charmed. And then there are parents whose loneliness and confusion means they mistake a child’s game for some form of genuine desire for sexual contact – with all the obvious tragic life-long repercusions that ensue.
然而，大部分情况下事态都会变糟。有的父母内里太过脆弱，无法接受孩子展示其吸引他人的能力；他们变得怨愤或刻薄，鄙夷或恼怒；家里只能有一个男主人或女主人。有的父母太过沉浸于忧虑和抑郁而无法允许自己受到吸引。有的父母因为孤独和困惑，误以为孩子的游戏是某种形式的对性接触的真实渴望。显而易见，由此导致了种种伴随终身的悲剧后果。
If we as adults have difficulties around sex, we might – with Freud’s Oedipal concept in mind – ask ourselves some of the following:
如果我们作为成年人依然处理不好性相关的问题，我们也许可以记住弗洛伊德的俄狄浦斯情结。问自己几个下面的问题：
How much did I, as a child, feel able to charm my mother or father?
我小时候在多大程度上感到能够吸引我的母亲或父亲？
Did they seem to take pleasure in my existence?
他们像是因为我的存在而愉悦吗？
Were they angry, sad or simply elsewhere?
他们是愤怒、悲伤还是产生误解？
Was my same-sex parent able to tolerate my games or did they respond with bitterness or bullying?
和我性别相同的家长是能够忍受我的游戏，还是报以怨恨和霸凌？
Concurrently, how much did my parents give me a sense that they knew boundaries and would stop any game when it needed to be stopped?
在多大程度上，我的父母给我的感觉是他们知道边界在哪，并且会在游戏需要停止的时候叫停？
Freud understood that adult mental health depends on the early expressions of our desire having been handled with particular skill by those around us: without excessive punishment or licence, without neglect or enticement, without anger or shame. The healthy adult is someone who can feel potent without being terrified or guilty. Their games went well; now their reality can follow suit.
弗洛伊德明白，成人的心理健康靠的是幼时对欲望的表达得到身边人带有技巧的应对：没有过度的惩罚或许可，没有忽视或引诱，没有愤怒和羞耻。健康的成年人知道自己可以把控局面，不会为之感到恐慌或内疚。他们幼时的游戏开展顺利；如今在现实中只需效仿游戏即可。
Freud’s Oedipal Complex becomes a source of valuable insight once we separate it from its more literal formulations. It might show us why sex has ended up a lot more complicated for us than it should ever have been.
抛开字面表述，弗洛伊德提出的俄狄浦斯情结是非常有价值的洞见。俄狄浦斯情结揭示了，为什么性对我们而言会显得比其本来面目复杂得多。
本期译制团：
翻译：Yashu
总校：小良哥
source: The School of Life