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I must admit that I was reluctant at first to comment on this paper because Dr. Bein's first statement hit me the wrong way. However, I became interested in the content as I went on reading. I know that psychoanalytic thinking assimilates female sexuality favorably as negative equipment, and she starts with the same knowledge in her first sentence: “I feel that a little girl's primary sexual problem is inability to conceptualize her genitalia.” I would have preferred it if she had omitted the word “primary” and had added “often” so that the implication of always would not be so blatant. Then, in the same paragraph, she states that this is a “lack of internal ego boundaries.” I doubt that such generalization is justified.
Of course, many women are afraid, as Dr. Bein suggests, that they “… will be split open … will get hurt. …” If Dr. Bein's contention about the relationship between the inability to conceptualize the genitalia and lack of ego boundaries were correct, women would almost never have reliable ego boundaries—a notion which is not acceptable to me. Nor do I think we should underestimate the safety factor which results from the internal seat of female genitalia and the lack of safety often witnessed in men because of their unprotected genitalia.
I have had a number of male patients for whom their genitals were external bodies, never integrated as a whole, so that their penis was personalized, as in “me and the prick.” If some men have a hard time carrying around their highly prized, unprotected genitals, constantly afraid that they might be injured or robbed, I would not venture to say that is then the fate of all men. Although, come to think of it, perhaps there is something to it—and therefore, there might also be something to what Dr. Bein has to say!