ABSTRACT
For most psychoanalysts, it is axiomatic that the development of male sexuality is dependent on how the little boy manages the fantasied dangers and pleasures of having a penis. This chapter presents the two theses that are derived from these beginnings of phallic awareness. The first is that the sense of maleness—the person’s unquestioned certainty that he belongs to one of only two sexes, the male—is permanently fixed long before the classic phallic stage. The second is that although the penis contributes to the sense of maleness, it is not essential. However, certain rare patients provide such an opportunity, as is shown in two boys both born without penises, who yet seem to have matured with no question of their core sense of maleness. Normally, the male external genitalia are a sign to the individual and to society that this is a male, but they are not essential to producing the sense of maleness.
