An infant can’t get her own food. She is totally dependent on whether a nipple (artificial or real*) will come from nowhere and feed her. She has no control over the nourishing nipple. Every time the nipple walks away, the infant faces the terror of it never coming back. The nipple is the center of the infant’s world, the only possibility for it to survive.
If the nipple behaves badly (doesn’t arrive when needed, offers too little food, or too much), this has an enormous influence on the way the infant learns to relate to the world. For the rest of her life, she will unknowingly repeat her relationship with the all-important nipple.
In stressful situations, she will self-soothe by using an equivalent to the nipple. She will suck on a cigarette, bite her nails, eat her hair or paper, stuff her mouth with food and / or alcohol, etc. because they will be her “kind nipple.” This kind nipple will be controlled by her and will never abandon her. The panic of a smoker who is out of cigarettes and can’t find a place to buy a fresh pack is the panic of an infant whose nipple went away.
Oral traumas are all about dependence. The infant feels completely dependent on the goodwill of the nipple. This dependence is unpleasant and painful but it is the feeling that is the most familiar to the infant. And as we know, human psyche values nothing more than stability. In adulthood, a person with oral traumas will develop complex methods of depending on others**. She will feel heart-broken, demolished, and miserable at the smallest sign of rejection because, to her, being rejected in a professional or personal context is a way to relive the situation where the capricious nipple subjects her to the emotional roller-coaster of losing it forever and then recovering it.
There is also a curious way of deriving power from manufacturing such situations. For example, an academic submits an article she knows is subpar***. When the article predictably gets rejected, the academic experiences extreme pain (“My nipple went away!”) but she also knows she will survive the situation (because what adult doesn’t?) and will finally demonstrate to the mean, nasty nipple that she is not destroyed by its abandonment.
*It is entirely unimportant whether the nipple in question is real or artificial since the infant is not equipped to distinguish them.
** People or physical objects, it doesn’t really matter.
*** Falls in love with a man who will dump her, develops an attachment to a friend who will betray her, etc.
Clarissa's Blog 
The poor infants! If the mother doesn’t come running, the child is doomed for life.
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Why necessarily mother? The father can easily feed his child from a bottle.
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Indeed. May both the parents come running to reduce the chances of the child’s nerves shattering.
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Obviously.
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Sounds good. I’m happy to let them run as I am not a breeder.
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I discovered pickpocketing and vending machines at a young age. 🙂
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What happens when the nipple provides too much food?
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These are the “too much, can’t stop” people. They suck other people dry in terms of affection, loving words, compliments, etc.
But the oral addictions (smoking, drinking, overeating) are still all there.
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Thanks for posting this!
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All of Clarissa’s psychoanalytic posts are very interesting.
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Since no nipple can be omnniscient isn’t everybody going to suffer from some oral trauma? Or does the nipple malpractice have to be systematic and/or prolonged / severe?
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This is about a view one forms about the world, as I understand it, and people tend to form such worldview even if they have had a few non-severe experiences that contradicted the worldview, I believe
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Yes, it has to be severe.
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“Omniscient nipple” sounds like the title of a feminist improv show. Or perhaps porn.
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About time somebody noticed!
I rather liked “nipple malpractice” as well if I do say so myself (and I guess I have to).
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A trauma has to be traumatic.
An example: I slipped on a hill next to the Ondatra Creek the other day and rolled down. But I didn’t hurt myself and there are no bruises or scratches. So even though there was a fall, there is no physical trauma.
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Naturally if I dream of gigantic nipples in a Monty Pythonesque fashion tonight, I shall blame you and Terry Gilliam for that. 🙂
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