At the oral stage, the sexual pleasure is predominantly related to the excitation of the oral cavity and lips, associated with feeding.

Throughout the first 18 months of life, the characteristics of the main drive are: source=the oral zone, aim=incorporation, object=that of ingestion of food.

The object relationship is organized through nutrition and colored by phantasies that acquire the meanings of eating and being eaten (canibalistic impulses). Thus the accent falls upon an (oral) erotogenic zone and a relational mode (incorporation).

Karl Abraham suggested the term oral sadistic stage as a subdivision of the oral stage, according to two different activities:

Oral conflicts are expressed in such symptoms as distaste for food, vomiting, jaw spasm, grinding of the teeth, speech inhibitions.

An oral character structure is characterized by traits like greed, dependency, impatience, restlessness and curiosity.

The experience of satisfaction, postulated by Freud as the image of the external satisfying object (capable of ending the inner tensions of hunger), is responsible for the construction of the subject's desire and the continuous search for an object that can replicate this primal experience.