In Our Lady of the Flowers, Genet reveals his masturbation fantasies from which associated impulses and defenses can be inferred. Using Genet's conscious fantasies, Valeros speculates that Genet initially develops a primitive motivating anxiety akin to infantile hunger, unconsciously experienced as damage to his body. He then defensively splits his self-representation into a hungry self, represented by the mouth and a nonself, represented by the limbs. The nonself is

projected outward as a milk-giving male and then re-incorporated via a masturbation fantasy of fellatio. This re-fusion coincides with a masturbatory orgasm that results in both a repair of the damaged self-representation and a filling up, analagous to primitive satisfaction at the breast.