The intention in this article is to describe how Freud faces the problem of castration in three decisive stages of the course of his theory on female sexuality. The three parts of the article seek to describe this course. The first discusses the problem of biological castration of women and their consequent sexuality, which Freud considers inferior to male sexuality. The second shows the importance and consequences of symbolic castration in the structuring of the psychism and in the task of becoming a woman, although this does not clearly appear in Freud’s text. Finally, the third part relates femininity to helplessness in a register that could be called ontological, based on Freud’s article of 1937 on “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”, where Freud stresses the “solid rock” of castration, without, however, giving it what we would consider the most adequate interpretation.
Female sexuality; castration; femininity; helplessness