{"id":4253,"date":"2009-10-27T10:26:12","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T14:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=4253"},"modified":"2011-03-23T13:23:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-23T18:23:51","slug":"campbell-sexuation-phallus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2009\/10\/27\/campbell-sexuation-phallus\/","title":{"rendered":"campbell sexuation phallus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology<\/em>. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 60.<\/p>\n

The later Lacanian epistemology also presents a subject that is sexually neutral, because\u00a0 the master, academic, hysteric and analyst are positions without gender. Since both men and women have to enter the intersubjective relations of discourse in order to become subjects, the subject as such does not have a sex. … The Master is sexless because all must enter the Discourse of the Master in order to become subjects. That discourse produces all speaking subjects<\/strong>, such that \u2018[i]n the final analysis, the \u201cperson\u201d always has to do with the master\u2019s discourse\u2019 (S20: 69). Lacan makes his claim that the Discourse of the Master forms all subjects in Encore, (S20) the same seminar in which he also proposes that feminine sexuality and subjectivity are in excess of, rather than determined by, the phallic function. In his later work, Lacan repeatedly returns to the question of women\u2019s knowledge (60).<\/p>\n

The figure of the knowing woman is both difficult and fascinating for the later Lacan. This difficulty reflects the paradox of the classical account of sexuation: the phallus is a sexually neutral signifier which produces all subjects, but men and women become sexed subjects because of their different relation to the phallus. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In Lacan\u2019s work, a different relationship to the phallic signifier defines the sexual difference of masculinity and femininity. In the description of the formation of the subject presented in \u00c9crits, the child becomes an I and takes up a subject position in language after the intervention of the Law of the Father in the Oedipus complex<\/strong>. After the resolution of the Oedipus complex, subjectivity is assumed in the Symbolic order and the subject sexually differentiated by its relation to the phallus (\u00c9: 320\u2013 321).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Similarly, Lacan\u2019s later account argues that the subject\u2019s relation to the phallic signifier produces it as sexed. As Lacan describes it in Encore, each speaking being must line up on one side or the other of the Graph of Sexuation<\/strong> (S20: 79).<\/p>\n

In this way, Lacan\u2019s account of the production of the subject turns on his concept of the phallus. This pivotal role of the phallus in the formation of sexed subjectivity gives rise to the most strenuous feminist critiques of Lacan\u2019s work. Generally, the accusation of phallocentrism<\/span> contains two objections:<\/p>\n

– first, that Lacan ties his concept of the phallus<\/span> to the biological organ of the penis<\/span>,<\/p>\n

– second, by doing so Lacan privileges masculinity and the male body as his model of sexual difference and its formation. For example, Elizabeth Grosz contends that in the phallocentric model, \u2018[s]exual difference becomes codified into the presence or absence of a single feature \u2013 the male sexual organ\u2019 (1990: 188).<\/p>\n

In reply, Lacanians commonly accuse feminists of misreading this concept of the phallus. Typically, Bruce Fink argues that feminist authors such as Jane Gallop \u2018have thus provided the reading public with patently or partially false interpretations\u2019 (1995: 98). …<\/p>\n

Following the \u2018Function and Field of Speech\u2019 (1953), Lacan\u2019s concept of the phallus<\/span> becomes increasingly complex and central to his theory of sexed subjectivity. For Lacan, the phallus<\/span> operates in the three registers of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. In the Symbolic order, the phallus \u2018is the signifier for which there is no signified\u2019 <\/strong>(S20: 80); in the imaginary order it operates as a narcissistic object of the phallic image which fulfils that lack (\u00c9: 354); and in the real as the real phallus, the organ of the penis (\u00c9: 320). …<\/p>\n

By implication, the \u2018lack\u2019 to which Lacan refers is the anatomical difference of woman, which he renders as the absence of a penis. Kaja Silverman argues that we should expect this confusion of phallus and penis because:<\/p>\n

in any [theoretical] passage centrally concerned with elaborating a lack specific to woman…that lack can only be elaborated through reference to the penis. The Lacanian phallus depends for its libidinal centrality upon the anatomical distinction between the sexes, and it cannot, consequently, be rigorously distinguished from the penis. (1992a: 96) <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this way, Lacan\u2019s account of ontological loss is predicated on the assumption of a body that suffers anatomical \u2018loss\u2019<\/strong>. For this reason, reference to a social signification of the body secures the Lacanian account of sexed subjectivity.<\/p>\n

Lacan emphasizes the contingency of the relation between biological and psychic sexual difference in his argument that the subject can have either masculine or feminine structures, regardless of biological sex<\/strong> (S20: 71). However, while sexuation may be contingent, the socio-symbolic field which assigns masculinity and femininity to male and female bodies also produces them as sexually different.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sexual subjectivity is not so contingent that it becomes possible to sever its production from the signification of the biological body.<\/strong><\/span><\/em> A concept of biological sexual difference thus secures which bodies come to be \u2018masculine\u2019 and \u2018feminine\u2019 <\/strong>(63).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While biological sex does not determine sexed subjectivity, sexuation signifies what it is to have a \u2018male\u2019 or \u2018female\u2019 body. Because \u2018masculine\u2019 and \u2018feminine\u2019 refer to a relation of the subject to the phallus, sexuation operates as the signification of biological sex in relation to the phallic signifier<\/strong>. For example, Lacan understands the Hysteric as a position of both men and women. Both sexes can be hysterics and, as analysands, become hysterical subjects. However, he repeatedly identifies this position of the subject with the feminine. The Hysteric has a \u2018feminine\u2019 structure because it symbolizes the primary dissatisfaction of castration (S17: 84). Lacan acknowledges that \u2018there are many more women hysterics than men \u2013 this is a fact of clinical experience \u2013 because the woman\u2019s path to symbolic realization is more complicated\u2019 (S3: 178). Conversely, the male hysteric has access to \u2018both phallic and the Other jouissance\u2019 (Fink 1995: 108). He is therefore still structured by reference to a masculine structure, that is a masculine relation to the phallic signifier, because otherwise he would not have access to the phallic jouissance which is linked to the male organ (S20: 7). The terms \u2018masculinity\u2019 or \u2018femininity\u2019 do not have content without reference to the description of bodily sexual difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Lacan\u2019s account, subjects have a masculine or feminine structure, which provides a signification of anatomical sexual difference. The relation to the phallic signifier that produces the subject also gives meaning to biological body. In this theory, the socio-symbolic order assigns masculinity and femininity to particular bodies and in particular ways. That assignation may be contingent; such that pace Fink men can have feminine psychic structures and women can have a masculine relation the phallus. Nevertheless, Lacan does not describe those women as men, but as phallic women. Lacan\u2019s theory assumes that \u2018order and norms must be instituted which tell the subject what a man or woman must do\u2019 (1964b: 276), and that most commonly the normative position for men is masculinity and for women is femininity (64).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 60. The later Lacanian epistemology also presents a subject that is sexually neutral, because\u00a0 the master, academic, hysteric and analyst are positions without gender. Since both men and women have to enter the intersubjective relations of discourse in order to become subjects, … Continue reading “campbell sexuation 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":[124,24,94,114,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-discourses","category-lacan","category-sexual-difference","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253","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=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7440,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions\/7440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}