(Salih, 2002. p 86).<\/p>\n
\u2018The question, of course, is why it is assumed that the phallus requires that particular body part to symbolize, and why it could not operate through symbolizing other body parts\u2019, writes Butler, and she argues that the \u2018displaceability\u2019 of the phallus, its ability to symbolize body parts or body-like things other than the penis is what makes the lesbian phallus possible (BTM: 84).<\/p>\n
Women can both \u2018have\u2019 and \u2018be\u2019 the phallus, which means that they can suffer from penis envy and a castration complex at the same time; moreover, since \u2018the anatomical part is never commensurable with the phallus itself\u2019, men may be driven by both castration anxiety and penis envy, or rather, \u2018phallus envy\u2019 (BTM: 85). The phallus is \u2018a transferable phantasm\u2019 (BTM: 86), \u2018an imaginary effect\u2019 (BTM: 88), part of an imagined morphology (or a \u2018morphological imaginary\u2019) that can be appropriated and made to signify\/ symbolize differently.<\/p>\n
Such \u2018aggressive reterritorializations\u2019 (BTM: 86) deprivilege the phallus as both symbol and signifier, as well as revealing its status within a bodily schema, which, like language, is a resignifiable signifying chain with no \u2018transcendental signified\u2019 at its origin. Butler makes the most of this resignifiability in her ascription of the phallus to other body parts:<\/p>\n
\u2018Consider that \u201chaving\u201d the phallus can be symbolized by an arm, a tongue, a hand (or two), a knee, a pelvic bone, an array of purposefully instrumentalized body-like things\u2019, she writes. \u2018[T]he simultaneous acts of deprivileging the phallus and removing it from the normative heterosexual form of exchange, and recirculating and reprivileging it between women deploys the phallus to break the signifying chain in which it conventionally operates\u2019 (BTM: 88). Butler claims that the phallus is a \u2018plastic\u2019 signifier that may \u2018suddenly\u2019 be made to stand for any number of body parts, discursive performatives or alternative fetishes (BTM: 89).<\/p>\n
And yet it would appear that the phallus remains somewhat elusive, since Butler does not specify exactly how such resignifications can \u2018suddenly\u2019 happen, or why women would want to make their arms, tongues, hands, pelvic bones, etc. into phallic signifiers. The subversive potential of the resignifiable phallus resides in Butler\u2019s insistence that you do not need to have a penis in order to have or be a phallus, and that having a penis does not mean that you will have or be a phallus. \u2018[T]he lesbian phallus offers the occasion (a set of occasions) for the phallus to signify differently, and in so signifying, to resignify, unwittingly, its own masculinist and heterosexist privilege\u2019, she writes (BTM: 90).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Again we return to the idea that anatomy is discourse or signification rather than destiny, which means that the body can be resignified in ways that challenge rather than confirm heterosexual hegemony. In her conclusion to the second chapter of Bodies, Butler states that she is not suggesting that a new body part is required, since she has not been talking about the penis as such; instead she calls for the displacement of the symbolic heterosexual hegemony of sexual difference and the release of alternative imaginary schemas of erotogenic pleasure<\/strong> (BTM: 91). It would indeed appear that Butler has wrested this hitherto privileged signifier from Lacan\u2019s discursive control (BTM: 82\u2013 3), and yet the lesbian phallus she \u2018offers\u2019 in her description of alternative bodily schemas (BTM: 90) will be equally open to appropriation and resignification by those who do not identify as \u2018lesbians\u2019. Indeed, we might well wonder who can \u2018have\u2019 and \u2018be\u2019 a lesbian phallus that is presumably vulnerable to subversive reterritorialization by men who, among other complexes, may also suffer from \u2018lesbian phallus envy\u2019 (Salih, 2002. p 86).<\/p>\n
WIELDING THE LESBIAN PHALLUS<\/p>\n
The lesbian phallus is not a dildo and it is not something one keeps in one\u2019s desk drawer (see GP: 37). The morphological imaginary is the morph or form the body takes on through imagined or fantasized projections, and Butler\u2019s rewriting of Lacan\u2019s morphological imaginary displaces the phallus from its privileged significatory position. Asserting that penis and phallus are not synonymous, Butler shows how the phallus may be \u2018reterritorialized\u2019 by people who do not have penises.<\/strong> This is because the phallus is a symbol of a body part whose absence or \u2018vanishing\u2019 it signifies. To disconnect sign (phallus) from referent (penis) in this way allows Butler to displace the privilege Lacan accords this phallic signifier. \u2018Of course there\u2019s also a joke in \u201cThe Lesbian Phallus\u201d because to have the phallus in Lacan is also to control the signifier\u2019, Butler states in an interview. \u2018It is to write and to name, to authorize and to designate. So in some sense I\u2019m wielding the lesbian phallus in offering my critique of the Lacanian framework. It\u2019s a certain model for lesbian authorship. It\u2019s parody\u2019 (GP: 37) (Salih 2002. p 87).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Salih, 2002. p 86). \u2018The question, of course, is why it is assumed that the phallus requires that particular body part to symbolize, and why it could not operate through symbolizing other body parts\u2019, writes Butler, and she argues that the \u2018displaceability\u2019 of the phallus, its ability to symbolize body parts or body-like things other … Continue reading “lesbian phallus pt 2”<\/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":[78,102,24,40,82,96,94,114,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butler","category-iterability","category-lacan","category-lack","category-performativity","category-phallus-butler","category-sexual-difference","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780","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=1780"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3333,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1780\/revisions\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}