Riding Instincts,Even to Die

This paper develops the concept of riding instincts, even to die through a queer reading of Winnicott’s “Primary Maternal Preoccupation.” Primary preoccupation narrates the ongoing establishment of what Winnicott calls “instinctual life.” Turning to queer social history and a clinical case, a relational-structural similarity between pederasty and primary preoccupation is proposed, and the concept of pederastic enactments is used to capture the fraughtness of this similarity. A patient’s deadened instinctual life is explored in relation to his family history and queer identity, and the difficulty of riding instincts, even to die in the treatment is connected to the neoliberalization of desire.