ABSTRACT
If one looks through psycho-analytical literature for references to genital love, to one's surprise two striking facts emerge. First, much less has been written on genital love than on pregenital love. Second, almost everything that has been written on genital love is negative, like Abraham's description of his famous term 'postambivalent phase'. Harmonious love can only be established where the individual differences are not too great, where mutual identification between the two partners is possible without causing undue strain. Thus harmonious genital love requires a constant testing of reality in order that the two partners may be able to discover, and to satisfy, as much as possible of each other's needs and wishes in the fore-pleasure. To sum up: 'genital love' in man is really a misnomer. We can find genital love in the true sense only in animals which develop in a straight, undistorted line from infantile ways of behaviour to mature genital sexuality—and then die.
