The Darkest Continent

Abstract

Psychoanalysis has paid much attention to anal sex and its interpretation, mostly pejoratively, while ignoring the pleasurable aspects of anal sex. There are numerous reports of fathers of gay men imagining their sons involved in anal sex, sometimes with disgust or horror, although the taboo is fading over time. Botticelli's (this issue) case is reconsidered from the perspective of both drive and object relations, which are not incompatible. Some enactments can result from the analyst's counterresistance to awareness of unacceptable feelings or reactions to the patient with consequent delay or avoidance of certain lines of inquiry.

Notes

¹I am giving just one or two references for each idea. There are many articles and books that discuss and elaborate each of these ideas.

²Pugisma was probably derived from pyge, which is Greek for “buttocks”; in English we have the word callipygian, which means “having beautiful buttocks.”