ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the nature of a masculine 'ideal', and how the impossibility of this ideal can foster rigid psychic states. It argues that the unattainable nature of a masculine ideal can predispose boys and men to inflexible psychic states that can give way to seemingly capricious symptoms and crises of confidence. The chapter reviews to the symptoms as gremlin-like in order to capture their subjective experience as capricious and trouble-making, for instance the seemingly mysterious loss of an erection, or the ability to speak or sleep. It considers a rigid view of masculine ideals that predisposes itself to splitting. The chapter also considers some gender theorists' ideas about masculine ideals and then offer several examples in order to reflect upon the symptoms that beset and attend it. It emphasizes that the break-through of gremlin-like symptoms also has to do with the excessive nature of masculine ideals.
