A particular ideal of femininity which has long been popular in our culture is the image of the esthetically perfect but behaviorally

compliant woman. By comparing two clinical cases, I have attempted to show that this stylized image is sometimes part of a specific defensive structure, enacted in extreme forms as part of a perverse ritual. The idealized image is a secondary formation with roots in early transitional representations. As an adult defense, it isolates devalued attributes, particularly anal attributes, from an esthetic ideal and enables the narcissistically disturbed individual to effect an illusion of separation while maintaining compulsive control over a needed object.