genital stage

1. According to psychoanalysis, the third social and sexual stage of a young child's development (after the oral stage and the anal stage). In the genital stage, interest in the child's own sex organs and in other people's replaces the earlier focusing on satisfaction of hunger and control of bowel movements. A genital personality is mature and no longer dominated by early drives for pleasure.

The Oedipus complex is most often observed during the genital stage.

Example Sentences

That which appears masculine to us in the activity of this phase, observed from the standpoint of the later genital stage, is the expression of an instinct to mastery, which may border on cruelty.

From Project Gutenberg