The author explores clinical implications of Julia Kristeva's concept of the abject. The abject describes the developmental moment when the infant is first separating from the mother, when separation of self from other is incomplete and tenuous. The other, still desired, must be made abject, extruded from the self with a lingering sense of horror and terror. The concept of the abject underlies the feelings of desire and fear directed toward the “feminine” or the maternal body by individuals and society and provides an explanation of misogyny. The author provides clinical material to illustrate this concept in men who loathe and desire the female body, and in women who hate themselves and their female bodies. The clinical cases raise issues about the primitive affect of horror, how the abject is related to early narcissism, and the inseparability of desire, affect, defence, and object.