"Primacy of affect" is the notion that analysis of affect (or valence) occurs rapidly, automatically, and prior to other dimensions of analysis. According to this view, valence should be analyzed even for stimuli that remain outside of awareness, such as visually masked (subliminal) words. This talk describes research that compares subliminal processing of valence (pleasant versus unpleasant meaning) with subliminal processing of the non-affective dimension of gender (male versus female name). Findings are, surprisingly, the opposite of what affective primacy would predict. Gendered names functioned as subliminal primes even when never practiced, whereas affective words did not do so even when first practiced extensively by being read aloud.