The Baby Duck
Many people know about the phenomena in nature where a new born bird 'imprints' on the first moving object it sees - ideally its mother, but sometimes a human, or even an inanimate object. The imprinting forms a bond with the mother figure, and shapes the baby bird's understanding of its own identity.
A similar thing happens in humans in relation to our erotic desires. At some point in our development, an incident occurs that our minds experience as arousing for the first time. We are imprinted by this episode, just like a baby duck. This erotic incident could be a traditionally sexual experience, or something more tangential, such as a woman bending over to put something in the bin, or an aunt sucking a baby's dummy clean. It could be a group of boys accidentally seeing up a girl's skirt, or a particular expression on another's face. What matters is that for whatever reason, this incident becomes the crux of our libido. It is our personal baby duck, which we try to recreate in fantasies or reality.
The controversial Professor John Money described this process in the 1980s, using the term 'lovemap' to describe a person's internal blueprint of their ideal erotic situation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovemap ). Our lovemap, or baby duck, is highly personal and idiosyncratic. We are not always fully aware of our particular baby duck however, until something in our experience (e.g. pornography, or a random encounter) triggers it again.
We all have a baby duck, and it is integral to our individual personality. Whilst there may be almost as many versions of baby ducks as there are humans, in itself it is normal, whatever form it takes. We do not consciously control or choose our baby duck; it is something that imprints on us without full explanation, but which we are tied to for life. Of course society has expectations and norms when it comes to sex, and for many people, their baby duck will not fall within 'socially acceptable' boundaries. This could be for good reason, such as someone whose baby duck requires they harm another without consent; but for the vast majority, it is not their baby duck that is the problem, but the pressure of social stigma. For years, certain sexual tastes have been referred to as kinks, fetishes, or clinically diagnosed as paraphilias. This causes so many people to feel shame, to repress their desires, and to inhibit them from finding partners whose baby duck happily matches their own.
Sometimes though, a baby duck is developed in a situation that is threatening, coercive, or as an auto-erotic reaction to some form of physical or mental attack. We may be uncomfortable with our baby duck as it triggers unpleasant associations, or seems to legitimise the original transgression. (‘Apotemnophilia’ for example, is a baby duck where achieving orgasm is dependent on being an amputee; ‘Autassassinophilia’ is a baby duck where arousal and orgasm are dependent upon 'stage-managing the possibility of one's own masochistic death by murder’). Baby ducks that intrude upon our lives in a distressing way are clinically referred to as paraphilias (see https://bit.ly/2zqkw5c ). Our baby duck may not be straightforward, it may even be extreme, but it is also not our fault.
At the heart of our baby duck sits a specific event. David Lynch uses the term 'the eye of the duck' to describe the scene in a film around which all else revolves. It is the key to the film itself.* For our erotic baby duck, the eye of the duck is that event which first imprinted us; the event which made such an impact on us that we try to replicate it in encounters and fantasies. It is the key to us reaching the heights of personal arousal. A man who was imprinted by his aunt seductively licking clean the dummy of a young sibling, develops a baby duck tied to women sucking dummies, or sucking the dummy himself after using it on a woman. At the eye of his baby duck is the scene of him witnessing his aunt and becoming aroused for the first time. Why this event and not another? This is the mystery we all carry.
* "A duck is one of the most beautiful a****ls... The key to the whole duck is the eye and where it is placed. It’s like a little jewel... When you’re working on a film, a lot of times you can get the bill and the legs and the body and everything, but this eye of the duck is a certain scene, this jewel, that if it’s there, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s just fantastic.” - David Lynch
A similar thing happens in humans in relation to our erotic desires. At some point in our development, an incident occurs that our minds experience as arousing for the first time. We are imprinted by this episode, just like a baby duck. This erotic incident could be a traditionally sexual experience, or something more tangential, such as a woman bending over to put something in the bin, or an aunt sucking a baby's dummy clean. It could be a group of boys accidentally seeing up a girl's skirt, or a particular expression on another's face. What matters is that for whatever reason, this incident becomes the crux of our libido. It is our personal baby duck, which we try to recreate in fantasies or reality.
The controversial Professor John Money described this process in the 1980s, using the term 'lovemap' to describe a person's internal blueprint of their ideal erotic situation (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovemap ). Our lovemap, or baby duck, is highly personal and idiosyncratic. We are not always fully aware of our particular baby duck however, until something in our experience (e.g. pornography, or a random encounter) triggers it again.
We all have a baby duck, and it is integral to our individual personality. Whilst there may be almost as many versions of baby ducks as there are humans, in itself it is normal, whatever form it takes. We do not consciously control or choose our baby duck; it is something that imprints on us without full explanation, but which we are tied to for life. Of course society has expectations and norms when it comes to sex, and for many people, their baby duck will not fall within 'socially acceptable' boundaries. This could be for good reason, such as someone whose baby duck requires they harm another without consent; but for the vast majority, it is not their baby duck that is the problem, but the pressure of social stigma. For years, certain sexual tastes have been referred to as kinks, fetishes, or clinically diagnosed as paraphilias. This causes so many people to feel shame, to repress their desires, and to inhibit them from finding partners whose baby duck happily matches their own.
Sometimes though, a baby duck is developed in a situation that is threatening, coercive, or as an auto-erotic reaction to some form of physical or mental attack. We may be uncomfortable with our baby duck as it triggers unpleasant associations, or seems to legitimise the original transgression. (‘Apotemnophilia’ for example, is a baby duck where achieving orgasm is dependent on being an amputee; ‘Autassassinophilia’ is a baby duck where arousal and orgasm are dependent upon 'stage-managing the possibility of one's own masochistic death by murder’). Baby ducks that intrude upon our lives in a distressing way are clinically referred to as paraphilias (see https://bit.ly/2zqkw5c ). Our baby duck may not be straightforward, it may even be extreme, but it is also not our fault.
At the heart of our baby duck sits a specific event. David Lynch uses the term 'the eye of the duck' to describe the scene in a film around which all else revolves. It is the key to the film itself.* For our erotic baby duck, the eye of the duck is that event which first imprinted us; the event which made such an impact on us that we try to replicate it in encounters and fantasies. It is the key to us reaching the heights of personal arousal. A man who was imprinted by his aunt seductively licking clean the dummy of a young sibling, develops a baby duck tied to women sucking dummies, or sucking the dummy himself after using it on a woman. At the eye of his baby duck is the scene of him witnessing his aunt and becoming aroused for the first time. Why this event and not another? This is the mystery we all carry.
* "A duck is one of the most beautiful a****ls... The key to the whole duck is the eye and where it is placed. It’s like a little jewel... When you’re working on a film, a lot of times you can get the bill and the legs and the body and everything, but this eye of the duck is a certain scene, this jewel, that if it’s there, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s just fantastic.” - David Lynch
1 year ago
