… in order to secure a coherent heterosexual identity, a primary homosexual desire must be overcome (Salih 2002. p 81).<\/p>\n
The dictionary definition of \u2018morphology\u2019 is \u2018the science of form\u2019, and in the psychoanalytic accounts under discussion, \u2018morphological\u2019<\/strong> refers to the form assumed by the body in the course of ego formation. \u2018Imaginary\u2019 in this context does not simply mean \u2018imagination\u2019 or \u2018imagined\u2019, but is part of Lacan\u2019s three-fold distinction between the imaginary, the symbolic and the real:<\/p>\n (Salih 2002. p 84-85). Lacan moves from Freud\u2019s body as known through experience (specifically, the experience of pain) to an analysis of the body as it is signified in language. Butler sees this as a \u2018rewriting\u2019 of Freud, whereby Lacan theorizes the morphology of the body as a psychically invested projection and idealization (BTM: 73). One\u2019s morphology or bodily form is fantasized by an ego that doesn\u2019t exactly precede the body since \u2018the ego is that projection [and] . . . it is invariably a bodily ego\u2019 (BTM: 73). In other words, the body and the ego cannot be theorized separately, since they are simultaneous projections of one another. Certain body parts are given significance in this fantasized body, and Butler uncovers the masculinism of Lacan\u2019s positioning of the phallus as the privileged bodily signifier, arguing that it is possible to <\/strong>appropriate and recirculate the phallus<\/strong> <\/span>so that it is no longer necessarily or intrinsically connected to the penis. Butler focuses on two important essays by Lacan, \u2018The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience\u2019 (1949) and \u2018The Signification of the Phallus\u2019 (1958).<\/p>\n In \u2018The Mirror Stage\u2019, Lacan claims that an infant acquires a notion of its bodily integrity when it perceives its reflection in the mirror. Up until that point, the infant\u2019s bodily self-perception has been chaotic, scrambled, in pieces, what Lacan calls a \u2018homelette\u2019, but when it sees its reflection it gains a sense of its bodily contours and its physical differentiation from others. Butler argues that, in the Lacanian account of the body, it is not experiences such as pleasure and pain that constitute the body, but language. This is because the mirror stage coincides with the infant\u2019s entry into language or the symbolic order. Language does not simply name a pre-existing body, but in the act of naming it constitutes the body<\/strong><\/span>; at this stage it would be useful to recall the definition of performativity as that aspect of discourse having the power to produce what it names, even though Butler is not specifically talking in terms of performativity here. She mentions \u2018the performativity of the phallus\u2019 only in passing (\u2018briefly\u2019, as she herself acknowledges), but in her discussion of the lesbian phallus it becomes clear that both penis and phallus are retroactively constructed by, and in, discourse<\/strong> <\/span>\u2013 in other words, they are performative. Butler and Lacan part theoretical company over the issue of the phallus (although they largely seem to have been in agreement up until this point):<\/p>\n whereas Lacan installs the phallus as a privileged signifier that confers meaning on other bodily signifiers, Butler regards the phallus as \u2018the effect of a signifying chain summarily suppressed\u2019 \u2013 in other words, it does not have a privileged or inaugural status on a signifying chain that does not make itself evident (BTM: 81). However, Lacan and Butler concur on one point: for both of them, penis and phallus are not synonymous, since the phallus is what Butler calls \u2018the phantasmatic rewriting of an organ or body part\u2019<\/span> (BTM: 81). More simply put, the phallus is the symbol of the penis<\/span><\/strong>,<\/span> it is not the penis itself. Butler and Lacan\u2019s theorizations of the phallus may be seen as a struggle between the two theorists over the signification and symbolization of both penis and phallus: whereas Lacan asserts the primacy of the phallic signifier, Butler topples the phallus from the privileged position Lacan gives it. The disconnection of phallus and penis is crucial for Butler, since, if the phallus is no more than a symbol, then it could just as well symbolize any other body part<\/strong><\/span>,<\/p>\n and those who neither \u2018have\u2019 nor \u2018are\u2019 the phallus (an important distinction for both Butler and Lacan) may \u2018reterritorialize\u2019 this symbol in subversive ways (BTM: 86). The disjunction between signifier (phallus) and referent (penis) allows Butler to remove the phallus from an exclusively male domain and to collapse the distinction between \u2018being\u2019 and \u2018having\u2019: in fact, no one \u2018has\u2019 the phallus, since it is a symbol, and disconnecting phallus from penis means that it may be redeployed by those who don\u2019t have penises (Salih 2002. p 84-85).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … in order to secure a coherent heterosexual identity, a primary homosexual desire must be overcome (Salih 2002. p 81). The dictionary definition of \u2018morphology\u2019 is \u2018the science of form\u2019, and in the psychoanalytic accounts under discussion, \u2018morphological\u2019 refers to the form assumed by the body in the course of ego formation. \u2018Imaginary\u2019 in this … Continue reading “lesbian phallus”<\/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":[78,86,16,96,94,114,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butler","category-gender","category-ontology","category-phallus-butler","category-sexual-difference","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771","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=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1775,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions\/1775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n\u2018Although Freud\u2019s language engages a causal temporality that has the body part precede its \u201cidea\u201d, he nevertheless confirms the indissolubility of a body part and the phantasmatic partitioning that brings it into psychic experience\u2019, Butler claims (BTM: 59). In other words, a body part and the imagining of that body part (the \u2018phantasmatic partitioning\u2019 of the body) are inseparable, so that the \u2018phenomenologically accessible body\u2019 (i.e. the body that is knowable by being perceived) and the material body are one and the same entity.<\/p>\n