This event also precipitates an unforeseen change in Alex because their son, Alvaro, awakens Alex's sexuality. Throughout the movie, the viewer can see Alex transforming into her own person, which ultimately leads to her decision to be both sexes, instead of just female. Her becoming more independent from her family unit, developing a relationship with Alvaro and experiencing puberty directly parallels the description of Sigmund Freud's last stage of psychosexual development: the genital stage. .
The genital stage of Sigmund Freud's theory is one in five stages of his Theory of Psychosexual Development. According to Freud, puberty does not incite the beginning of sexual desire, or eroticism, in individuals; it is present from birth up to old age. His theory mainly is centered on how this desire affects an individual's mind. Each stage also has its own wants, as well as needs (Stevenson). Three areas of erotic pleasure -- mouth, anus and genitals -- also factor heavily into his theory. The first stage, which is the oral stage, starts at birth and continues up to one and a half years old. In this stage, babies have a strong oral fixation. They have a strong urge to suck their mother's breast and derive erotic pleasure from it. Around this time, babies are easily satisfied, gullible and admirable of most people. The next stage is called the anal stage and this starts around one and half and continues to age three. Children are toilet trained in the anal stage and experience pleasure releasing their feces. Another characteristic of this stage is a conflict between the id, superego and ego (Stevenson). The phallic stage is the most important stage in Sigmund Freud's theory. In the phallic stage, which spans from three to six years old, the child discovers his. Or her. Genitals and learns about how one can receive pleasure just from stimulating them. The child does not want the same-sex parent to be around and desires the opposite sex-parent, although both do it for different reasons.
