ABSTRACT
The processes of attachment are more or less the same for boys and girls. The issues around narcissism, even if they do present gender-specific content, are relatively similar. What is more, those who have written about these developmental issues have, for the most part, spoken of the infant, or of the child or of the baby. In general the first two developmental issues that we have looked at up to now have been “unisex” or at least pre-differentiated in the area of sexuality. O. Kernberg considers the full integration of genitality in the romantic relationship as a characteristic of adults that are healthy in terms of eroticism. As Kernberg writes, “The foundation of eroticism is the capacity to represent oneself as the participant in the orgasm of the other". In 1987, when F. Alberoni wrote he could safely say that sentimental novels are a typical manifestation of feminine eroticism in the same way that pornography is for men.
