ABSTRACT
Issues of nature versus culture are, of course, at the centre of more "scientific" arguments but, be it as it is, the shared view is that something different is inhabiting the field of male-female interactions. Many men, however, reacted to feminist critique with a serious revision of their own traditional gender values. Long-standing social conventions which considered it normal for a man to have extramarital affairs, allowed—with minimum conflict—for this internal scenario to be syntonic with external reality. Moreover, a widespread conception of manhood, confirmed through permanent conquest of sexual objects, allows for the reinforcement of defensive splitting of the object choice. A crucial issue that needs to be further explored is the problem of aggression underlying male impotence. Men may relinquish primary identification and fusion with the mother more easily through identification with the father, but regressive merging experiences, during intercourse with a woman, can always risk bringing them closer to indifferentiation in which the fear of total reingulfment is reactivated.
