{"id":11020,"date":"2013-05-21T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T15:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=11020"},"modified":"2014-04-11T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T14:35:09","slug":"zupancic-sexual-difference-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/05\/21\/zupancic-sexual-difference-lecture\/","title":{"rendered":"zupan\u010di\u010d sexual difference pt 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sexual Difference<\/a>\u00a0 Her lecture at EGS 2011 Summer course<\/p>\n

Goto part 2<\/a><\/p>\n

And sex does not function as a stumbling block of meaning (and of the count) because it is considered morally naughty. It is considered morally naughty because it is a stumbling block of meaning.<\/p>\n

This is why the moral and legal decriminalization of sexuality should not take the path of its naturalization (“whatever we do sexually is only natural behavior”).<\/p>\n

We should instead start from the claim that nothing about (human) sexuality is natural, least of all sexual activity with the exclusive aim of reproduction.<\/p>\n

There is no “sexual nature” of man (and no “sexual being”). The problem with sexuality is not that it is a remainder of nature that resists any definite taming; rather, there is no nature here \u2014 it all starts with a surplus of signification.<\/p>\n

If we now return to the question of what this implies in relation to ontology in general, and, more specifically, to the performative ontology of contemporary gender studies, we must start from the following, crucial implication: Lacan is led to establish a difference between being<\/span> <\/strong>and the Real<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The real is not a being, or a substance, but its deadlock.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is inseparable from being, yet it is not being. One could say that for psychoanalysis, there is no being independent of language (or discourse) \u2014 which is why it often seems compatible with contemporary forms of nominalism.<\/p>\n

All being is symbolic; it is being in the Other. But with a crucial addition, which could be formulated as follows: there is only being in the symbolic<\/span><\/strong> \u2014 except that there is real<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There “is” real, but this real is no being<\/strong>. Yet it is not simply the outside of being; it is not something besides being, it is \u2014 as I put it earlier \u2014 the very curving of the space of being.<\/p>\n

It only exists as the inherent contradiction of being<\/strong>. Which is precisely why, for Lacan, the real is the bone in the throat of every ontology: in order to speak of “being qua being,” one has to amputate something in being that is not being<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That is to say, the real is that which the traditional ontology had to cut off<\/span><\/strong> in order to be able to speak of “being qua being.” We only arrive to being qua being<\/em> by subtracting something from it<\/span> <\/strong>\u2014 and this something is precisely that which, while included in being, prevents it from being fully constituted<\/span> as being<\/em><\/strong>. The real, as that additional something that magnetizes and curves the (symbolic) space of being, introduced in it another dynamics, which infects the dynamics of the symbolic, makes it “not all.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is because sexual difference is implicated in sexuality that it fails to register as symbolic difference.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, psychoanalysis doesn’t try to de-essentialize sexual difference. What de-essentializes it most efficiently (and in the real) is its implication in sexuality as defined above; that is, as the out-of-beingness of being<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And this is what psychoanalysis brings out and insists upon \u2014 as opposed to the gender differences, which are differences like any other, and which miss the point by succeeding too much, and by falling in the trap of providing grounds for ontological consistency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It might seem paradoxical, but differences like form- matter, yin-yang, active-passive\u00a0 … belong to the same onto-logy as “gender” differences.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even when the latter abandon the principle of complementarity and embrace that of gender
\nmultiplicity, it in no way effects the ontological status of entities called genders. They are said to be, or to exist, emphatically so. (This “emphatically” seems to increase with numbers: One is usually timid in asserting the existence of two genders, but when passing to the multitude this timidity disappears, and their existence is firmly asserted.)<\/p>\n

If sexual difference is considered in terms of gender, it is made \u2014 at least in principle \u2014 compatible with mechanisms of its ontologization.<\/strong><\/p>\n

De-sexualization of ontology (its no longer being conceived as a combinatory of two, “masculine” and “feminine” principles) coincides with the sexual appearing as the<\/span><\/strong> real\/disruptive point of being.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And taking the sexual away (as something that has no consequences for the ontological level) opens again the path of the ontological symbolism of sexual difference.<\/p>\n

This is why, if one “removes sex from sex,” one removes the very thing that has brought to light the problematic and singular character of sexual difference in the first place. One doesn’t remove the problem, but the means of seeing it and eventually tackling it.<\/p>\n

Continued in pt 4 the final part<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sexual Difference\u00a0 Her lecture at EGS 2011 Summer course Goto part 2 And sex does not function as a stumbling block of meaning (and of the count) because it is considered morally naughty. It is considered morally naughty because it is a stumbling block of meaning. This is why the moral and legal decriminalization of … Continue reading “zupan\u010di\u010d sexual difference pt 3”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,94,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-performativity","category-sexual-difference","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11020"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12697,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11020\/revisions\/12697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}