The first, and the most widely disseminated, is that there is no real anatomical difference between boys and girls; if the boy notices that his little sister has no obvious penis he even concludes that it is because she is too young, and the little girl herself takes the same view.

The fact that in early life the clitoris is relatively larger and more penis-like helps to confirm this view which Freud connects with the tendency in later life to erotic dream of women furnished with a penis.

This theory, as Freud also remarks, favors the growth of homosexuality when its germs are present.

The second theory is the faecal theory of the origin of babies.

The child, who perhaps thinks his mother has a penis, and is in any case ignorant of the vagina, concludes that the baby is brought into the world by an action analogous to the action of the bowels.