ABSTRACT
The missing or inadequate symbolization of male same-sex desire within a heteronormative collective consciousness shapes the formation of male subjectivities according to specific lines. This chapter considers the problem of unsymbolized psychic experiences and the ensuing attempts at repairing this lack, by drawing on inputs from cultural studies and clinical practice, within a post-Jungian understanding of the structure of the psyche and the process of individuation. Some aspects of the process leading from an Asymbolic deficit to the formation of containers for same-sex desire are here explored, such as melancholy, rage, concealment, inauthenticity, sentimentality, fantasy, excess, centrality of sex, appropriative identifications, communality of desires, experience of time. This heterogeneous mix of psychological processes, which is considered both on the personal level of individuation and on the collective level of cultural transformation, provides containers for the stirrings induced by same-sex desire and rescues them from the blind spots of the symbolic order.
