Signifiers of the ideal are a constant of psychic life and serve as a buffer between ego and reality, bridging, soothing, stabilizing and inspiring through a reminiscence of completeness. In certain pathological conditions, however, the ideal changes inform and function. No longer acting as a buffer, emanations of the ideal attempt to foreclose on the very possibility of loss and lack and assume a materialized, fetishized form that strives to plug the hole brought about by narcissistic rupture. This paper examines such fetish-making in two male patients, both of whom compulsively turned to the pornographic in order to disavow primal fears through a split in the ego. The author describes the defensive and addictive role of the ideal in such instances and its function in maintaining the narcissistic economy of the cases described.