Conflict with male's become heated (4)
I believe the answer is:
warm
'heated' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'conflict with male's' is the wordplay.
'conflict' becomes 'war' (war is a kind of conflict).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'male' becomes 'm' (common abbreviation).
'war'+'m'='WARM'
'become' is the link.
(Other definitions for warm that I've seen before include "Cordial" , "Affectionate - balmy" , "Showing affection" , "(Of a scent) fresh" , "On the brink of making discovery" .)