Ted Rogers: Up Karen's ass

Anal eroticism remains infantile. Society does not accept it because it is a phase of development through which the person must pass. Intelligent and enlightened people see no harm in it among children, but it does not belong in adult life. Those who remain anally erotic as adults are fixated; they have become stuck at an early state of childhood development in this particular area of life, and, since no aspect of life can be divorced from others, it produces a certain type of character.

The anal erotic adult may very possibly be a very important and useful person in society, precisely because of his anal eroticism. His frustrations may lead him to be highly creative or active as a social reformer. He may be uncommonly responsible. But the golden age lies behind him; he has been expelled from Eden, and, above all, he detests children because they occupy the realm he himself would prefer. Nothing that adult life offers makes up for what he has lost. On the other hand, since deviation is a major spur in his life, should psychotherapy successfully remove his yearning for the impossible, the other worthy and creative aspects of his personality will be sacrificed as well. He may conceivably win peace of mind, but at the price of his usefulness.