{
TNTRODUCTION-I Juliet Mitchell
I object to all of you (Horney, Jones,Rado, etc.,) to the extent that you do not distinguish more clearly and cleanly between what is psychic and what is biological, that you try to establish a neatparallelism between the two and that you, motivated by such intent, unthinkingly construe psychic facts which are unprovable and that you, in the processof doing so, must declareas reactiveor regressivemuch that without doubt is primary. Of course,these reproaches must remain obscure.In addition, I would only like to emphasizethat we must keep psychoanalysisseparate from biology just as we have kept it scparatefrom anatomy and physiology (Freud,letter to Carl Miiller-Braunschweig, 1935)
f.rr ques Lacan dedicatedhimself to the task of refinding and re- l,rrnulating the work of Sigmund Freud.Psychoanalytic theory totlay is a variegateddiscipline. There are contradictionswithin I rt'ud's writings and subsequentanalysts have developedone .rrpcctand rejectedanother, thereby using one theme asajump- rrrlioff point for a new theory. Lacanconceived his own project ,lrlii'rcntly: despitethe contradictionsand impasses,there is a , .hcrqnt theoristin Freudwhose ideas do not needto be diverged Irorrr; rather they should be setwithin a cohesiveframework that rlrt'y :rnticipatedbut which, for historicalreasons, Freud himself ,.rrltl not formulate. The development of linguistic science l,r,rvitles this framework. It rs certainly arguablethat from the way psychoanalysishas f,fo\\,1'rduring this century we have gained a wider range of rlrrr.rpcutic understanding and the multiplication of fruitful r,lr',rr,btrt we have lost the possibilityof a clarificationof an ''.'t'rrtiel theory. To say that Freud's work containscontra- Ir,t rorrsshould not be the equivalentof arguingthat it is hetero- r'rn('otrs and that it is thereforelegitimate for everyoneto take rlrr'rrPick arrddevelop it as they wish. Lacanset his faceagainst 1 FeminineSexuality Introduction- I { what he saw as such illegitimate and over-tolerant notions of r,achother asin the sequentiallogic of consciousnessbut by con- more-or-less peacefully co-existent lines of psychoanalytic tlensingonto eachother or by.6eing displacedonro something thought. From the outset he went back to Freud's basic concepts. clse.Because it is unconscious,direct i.."ri to it is impossibt. u"t Here, initially, there is agreernent among psychoanalysts as to its manifestationsare apparent most notably in dreams,everyday the terrain on which they work: psychoanalysis is about human slips,jokes, the 'normal' splits and divisions within the h,r-"r, sexuality and the unconscious. subjectand in psychoticand neuroricbehaviour. The psychoanalytic concept of sexuality confronts head-on all Lacanbelieved that though all psychoanalystssubscribe ro rhe popular conceptions. It can never be equated with genitality nor rnrportanceof rhe unconsciousand to the piivileged position of is it the simple expression of a biological drive. It is always psycho- scxualitywithin the dewelopmentof the human ,ib1.it, the way sexuality, a system of conscious and uncottscious human fan- rn which many post-Freudians have elaborated tireir theories tasiesinvolving a range of excitations and activities that produce rrltimately reduces or distorts the significanceeven of these pleasure beyond the satisfaction of any basic physiological need. furda.mental postulates.-fo Lacan most current psychoanalytic It arisesfrom various sources, seekssatisfaction in many different rhinking is tangledrp in popular ideologiesand ih,r, missesihe ways and makes use of many diverse objects for its airn of rcv.olutionary nature of Freud'swork and replicateswhat it is its achieving pleasure. Only with great difficulty and then never t.rsk to expose: psychoanalysisshould not subscribeto ideas perfectly does it move from being a drive with many component .rb.ut how men and women do or should live as sexuallydiG parts - a single 'libido' expressed through very different pheno- It'rcntiatedbeings, but insteadit should analysehow thev .o-. mena - to being what is normally understood assexuality, some- to be such beingsin the first place. thing which appearsto be a unified instinct in which genitality [.acan'swork has always to be seenwithin the context of a predominates. rwo.-pronged polemic. Most simply he took on, sometimesby For all psychoanalyststhe development of the human subject, .xplicit, named reference,more oft.n by indirect insult or im- its unconscious and its sexuality go hand-in-hand, they are causa- l'lrcetion, almost all analystsof note since Freud. Both inter- tively intertwined. A psychoanalyst could not subscribe to a rr.rtionallyand within France,Lacan's history was one ofrepeated currently popular sociological distinction in which conflict a person is 'rstitutional and ceaselessopposition to .ttrblirh.d born with their biological gcnder to which society - gencral 'r('ws. Outside Francehis targetswere the theoriesof American ,l'rrr.inated environment, parents, education, the media - adds a socially ego-psychology, of Melanie Klein and of object- "and defined sex, masculine or feminine. Psychoanalvsiscannot make rr'l,rrions analysts,l most notably, Balint, Fairbairn such a distinction: a person is formed through their sexuality, it w rrrrricott. Lecan was more kindly disposed to the clinical could not be 'added' to him or her. The ways in which psycho- rr^rghrsof some than he was towaids thore of others but he sexuality and the unconscious are closely bound together arc ,.rpitrcd that they areall guilty of misunderstandingand debasing complex, but most obviously, the unconscious contains wishes rlrc thcory inauguratedby Freud. that canrrot be satisfied and hence have beerr rcpressed. Prc- : lt dominant among such wishes are the tabooed incestuons desircs ts tmPortant to keep-psychoanalytic object-relations theory distinct from of childhood. l".rtlrological or sociological accounts to which it might bear sorne super- trr r.rl rcscmblance. The'object'in question is, of course, the human obj".t; The unconscious contains all that has been repressed fronr I'rtr, tt)t)re importantly, it is its internalisationby the subject that is the issie at cotrsciot-tsness,but it is not co-terminous with this. There is arr "t'rkt'. lt is never only an actual object but also always the fantasies of it, that it as an internal fbr evident lack of continuity in conscious psychic life - psycho- "lr.rPc lmgse the subject. Object-relations rheory origi- ,, rr.rl analysis concerns itseli with the gaps. Frend's contribution was .rsan attcmpt to shift psychoanalysis away f.om. one-pcrson to a two- r\()tr l''| theory stressing that there is always a relationship Letween at least to demonstrate that thesegaps coltstitute a system that is entirely r\\,' l)('()plc. In objcct-rclations theory thc objcct is active in relation diffcrent front that of consciousncss:the lrnconscious. Thc trn- ro tl-re '111r;r'ttwho is formed in complex interaction with it. This contrasts with conscious is governed by its owll laws, its images do not follow I r, .ru's :rccount of the objcct, sce p. 31 bclow. FeminineSexuality Introduction- I 5
The secondprong of Lacan'spolemic relatesto a mistake he comesinto being'(Freud, xxu, 1933,p. 116:italics added). felt Freud himielf initiated: paradoxically,while chcrishing thc Lacan dedicated himself to reorienting psychoanalysisto its wounds ofhis rejectionby a lay and medicalpublic, Freudstrove task of deciphering the ways in which the human subjectis con- to be easilyundlrstood. The preposterousdifficulty of l.aca.n's structed - how it comes into being - out of the small human style is a challengeto easycomprehension, to the popularisation animal. It is becauseof this aim that Lacanoffered psychoanalytic and secularisationof psychoarralysisas it has occurred most theory the new scienceof linguistics which he developed and notably in North America. Psychoanalysisshould aim to show :rltered in relation to the concept of subjectivity. The human us that we do rrot krrow thosethings we think we do; it therefore .rnimal is born into language and it is within the terms of cannotassault our popular conceptionsby usingthe very idiom it languagethat the human subject is constructed. Language does is iptendedto confront; a challengeto ideology cannot rest oll a not arise from within the individual, it is always out there in the linguistic appealto that sameideology. dominant ideology world outside, lying in wait for the neonate. Language always Th. 'bclongs' of ioday, il*tt ofthe time andplacervhen psychoanalysis was to another person. The human subjectis createdfrom a "t establis'hed,is humanism. Humanism believesthat man is at the gcnerallaw that comes to it from outside itself and through the more or of other people, though this speechin its turn must relate centreof his own history and of himselfi he is a subject 'pcech lessin control of his own actiotls,exercising choice. Humanistic to the generallaw. of seeing the patient as Lacan'shuman subject is the obverseof the humanists'. His psychoanalytic practice is in _danger io-.on. who his lost control and a sense of a real or true self srrbjectis not an entity with an identity, but a being createdin the (identity) and it aims to help regain these. The matter and marlner fissure of a radicalsplit. The identity that seemsto be that of the of all Lacan's work challenges this notion of the human subject: rrrbjectis in fact a mirage arising when the subjectforms an image thereis uone such. In the sentetrcestructure of most of his publi .'l'itself by identifying with others' perceptionof it. When the addressesand of his written style the grammatical subject rs htrmanbaby learnsto say 'me' and 'I' it is only acquiring these either absentor shifting of, at most, only passivelycotrstructcd. ,lcsignationsfrom someoneand somewhereelse, from the world At this level,the difficulty of Lacan'sstyle could be saidto mirro rvhich perceives and names it. The terms are not constants in his theory. lr,rrmonywith its own body, they do not come from within itself The humanistic conceptionof mankind assumesthat the su I'rrtfrom elsewhere.Lacan's humatr subjectis not a'divided self' t I .ring)that in a different society could be made whole, but a self ject exists from the beginning. At lcast by- implication.eg psychologists, object-relations theorists and Kleinians ba .r'hich is only actually and necessarilycreated within a split - a ih.mr"lrrlt ott the iamc premise.Fbr this reason,Lacau considc lrr'urgthat can only conceptualiseitself when it is mirrored back that in the lastanalysis, they aremore ideologuesthan theorists
That the castration complex operates as an external event, a rlr.rt follow. law, can be seen too from a related pr€occupation of Freud's. when Freud started to elevate the con'ceptof castration to its Some time around 7976,Freud becameinterested in the ideas rhcoretical heights, resistance started. It seems that infantile Lamarck. This interest is most often regarded, with condescen- .r'xtrality and the Oedipus complex were unpalatableideas for sion, as an instance of Freud's nineteenth-century scientific nr;rny outside the psychoanalytical movement, yet it would anachronism. But in fact by 1916 Lamarck was already out- rl)pcar that there was something even more inherently un- moded and it is clear that Freud's interest arose not from .rt'ccptableabout the notion of a castration complex and what it ignorance but from the need to account for something that he .rssumedin the girl child, penis envy, even for psychoanalysts. observedbut could not theorise. The question at stakewas: how Alter this point, Freud's emphasis on the importance of the does the individual acquire the whole essentialhistory of being r.rstrution complex comes not only from his clinical observa- human within the first few short years of its life? Lamarckian u()ns, his growing awarenessof the contradictions of his own notions of cultural inheritance offered Freud a possible solution rvork, his increasing interest in the foundations of human to the problem. In rejecting the idea of cultural inheritance, hrstor|, but to e degree as e response to the work of his Freud's opponents may have been refusing a falsesolution but in r olleagues. doing so they missed the urgency of the question and thereby l-ou Andreas-Salom6,van Ophuijsen, then Karl Abraham and failed to confront the problem of how the child acquiresso early ArrgusteStarcke inl92l initiate the responseto the notion. Franz and so rapidly its knowledge of human law. Karen Horney's Alcxander, Otto Rank, Carl Mtiller-Braunschweig, andJosine 'culturalist' stress- her emphasison the influenceof society- was Mtiller continue it until the names that are more famous in this an attempt to put things right, but it failedbecause it necessitated t ont€Xt Karen Horney, Melanie Klein, Lampl-de Groot, an implicit assumptionthat the human subjectcould be setapa I lr'lene Deutsch, Ernest Jones - are added in the mid-twenties from societv and was not constructed solelv within it: the chil .rrrdthirties. others join in: Fenichel, Rado, Marjorie Brierley, and society were separateentities mutually affecting eachother. f.:rn Rividre, Ruth Mack Brunswick, but by 1935 the positions For Horney there are men and women (boys and girls) alread Ir.rveclarified and the terms of the discussion on sexual dif- there; in this shetakes for granted exactly that which sheinten ft'rcnces do not changeimportantly, though the content that goes to explain. r.r fill out the argument doesso. Freud's conceptof the castrationcomplex completely shift Karl Abraham's work is crucial. He died before the great the implications ofthe Oedipus complex and altered the meanin ,lt'batewas in full flow, but his ideas,though often not acknow- of bisexuality. Before the castration complex was given its fi k'rlged,were central to it - not least becausemost of Freud's significance, it seems that the Oedipus complex dissolv .frporents believedthat Abraham's views were representativeof naturally, a passingdevelopmental stage. Once the castrati l rcud's.As Abraham is ostensiblyamplifying Freud'swork and complex is postulatedit is this alone that shattersthe Oedipu rvriting in support of the concept of the castrationcomplex, this complex. The castration complex institutes the superego as i \\'.rsan understandablebut completely mistakenassumption. In representative and as representative thereby ofthe law. Toget rhcir letters Freud and Abraham are always agreeing most with the organising role of the Oedipus complex in relation to 1'.litely with one another and this makes it rather hard ro desire, the castration complex governs the position of eac r'ltrcidatethe highly significant differencesbetween them. onc personin the triangle of father, mother and child; in the way i .lrlfc'renceis that Freud arguesthat girls envy the phallus, Karl doesthis. it embodiesthe law that founds the human order itself. A braham believes that both sexes in parallel fashion fcar Thus the question of castration, of sexual difference as t ,.rstration- which he describesas lack of sexual potency.2 In 'fhis product of a division, and the concept of an historical a ' difference was to be taken further by other writers, most notably by symbolic order, all begin, tentatively, to come together. It is l:rnestJoneswho in arguing againstthe specificityof phallic castration;rrrrl their interdependence that Lacan bases his theories in the tex lirr the general fear of an extinction of sexual desire, coined the tcrnr t6 FeminineSexuality Introduction- I t7
Abraham's thesis, boys and girls - becausethey are already f r.rr the penis being given significancefrom the father's pro- different - responddifferently to an identical experience;in Freud lrrlrrtion;but sometimes he suggeststhat the girl's penis envy the same experience distinguishes them. By implication for , .nrcS from a simple perception that she makes; she seesthe Abraham, but not for Freud, by the time of the castration rr rurl penis, realisesit is bigger and better and wants one. Clearly complexthere must alreadybe'boys'and'girls'. This important .rr,h inequity in girls' and boys' accessto meaningis untenable: distinction apart, the real divergence between Abraham's hy 'r should the girl have a privileged relationship ro an under- argumentsand thoseof Freud can best be glimpsed through the ,r.rr(ling of the body? In fact there is evidencethat Freud was shift of emphasis.In the work of both writers incest is taboo | \\'.rrc of the discrepancyin his account;his published statements ('castratior');but only for Freud must therebe someonearound r,'.(l to be confusing, but in a letter he wrote:'the sight of the to forbid it: prohibition is in the air. I'r'rnsand its function ofurination cannot be the motive, only the In Freud'swork, with its emphasison the castrationcomplex rrrl',rlcrof the child's envy. However, no one has stated this' as the sourceof the law, it is the father who alreadypossesses the I rt'rrd, 1,935,1971, p.329). LJnfortunatelyneither Freud nor any mother, who metaphoricallysays 'no'to the child's desires.The rrrl,scquentanalyst stated this clearly enough in their published prohibition only comes to be meaningful to the child because \\ rtultgS. there are people- females- who have beencastrated in the par- I rt'ud referred to Abraham's article on the female castration ticular terte that they arewithout the phallus.It is only, in oiher ,,'f nPlex (1920)as 'unsurpassed'.But absolutelynorhing in the words, through 'deferredaction' that previous experiencessuch rlrr''rcticalframework of Freud'swriting confirmed Abraham's as the sight of female genitals become significant. Thus, for ;'r'rrpr'6tlvs. Freud certainly talks of the woman's sense of Freud, contained within the very notion of the castration ,,rt1.rrr-inferiority'butthis is never for him the motiuefor the complex is the theory that other experiencesand perceptions , rrtr;rtion complex or hencefor the dissolution of the Oedipus only take their meaning from the law for which it stands. In ,,'nrl)lcx; it is thereforenot causativeof female sexuality,femi- Abraham's work, to the contrary, the threat of castrationarises ,rrr rn v or neurosis.For Freud the absenceof the penisin women is fronr an actual perception that the child makes about a girl's .r,nrficant only in that it makes meaningful the father's pro- body: no one intervenes,there is no prohibiting father whose lrrlrrrronon incestuousdesires. In and of itselfi the femalebody threatis the utteranceof a law; hereit is the'real' inferiority of the .rrrrlr('r indicates nor initiates anything. The implication of the female genitalsthat once comprehendedinitiates the cornplex in ,lrllt'rcntstress of Freud and Abraham is very far-reaching.If, as both sexes. .', Alrraham'swork, the actualbody is seenas a motivefor the Here, however, within Freud's work, we come across e ''n\rrtution of the subjectin its maleor femalesexuality, then an further and most impclrtantcontradiction; it was one he did not hrrrorical or symbolic dimension to this constitution is pre- have time fully to resolve. It is a contradiction that explains , lrr.lt'tl.Freud's intention was to establishthat very dimensionas subsequentreadings of Abraham's and Freud's work as co- rfrr 'rr,('qua non of the constructionof the human subject.It is on incident. Freud is clear that the boy's castrationcomplex arises rlrr,.,limension that Lacan baseshis entire account of sexual lrllr'r(.ncc. aphanisi.tto cover his idca. Tlris rrotiorr is rrot dcvclopcd irr Abraharn's work f t I reud considered that the actual body of the child on its own but it clid, however, set a future trend. Lacan returns to it, arguing thatJoncs 'r rr Ir rclcvant to the castration complex, so too did he repeatedly so ncarly hit thc trtark that his failurc is thc morc grorcsquc for his ncrr- ,r1,(' that the actual situation of the child, the presence or irtsiglrt. To Lacatt, aphanisisrclatcs to thc csscrrtial clivision of thc subjcct rl,,.r'nt(' of the father, the real prohibition against masturbation wltcrcas, lrc writcs,Jorrcs'tnistook it for sorrrcthirrg ratlrcr abstrrd, thc fcar of sccirtg dcsirc disappc'ar. Now aphanisisis to bc situatcd in a nrorc radical w:ry ..,,1 rrr ()n, could be insignificant compared with the ineffable at thc lcvcl at which thc subjcct manifc'sts hirnsclf in this movcrncnr I dcscritrc {,.".('n('c of a symbolic threat (the 'event') to which one is as lcthal. Irt a quitc differcnt way, I havc callcd this movcrrrcrrt thc.fidinq of tlrt r,, \rr.rtrly subjected as the price of being hunran. Unable to strbjcct.' 'Thc subjcct .lppcars on thc orrc sidc'as rncanins arrclon thc othcr rt f ' , l'r tlrc notion of cultural inheritance, other analysts, agreeing ladiw - disappcarancc (SXI, pp. 189, 199, pp.207-8, 218). ' 18 FeminineSexuality ) Introduction- I 19 I with Freud that an actualoccurrence could not account for the ,.rstrationcomplex could use it as a model. Freud's accountis omnipresent castrationanxiety they found in their clinical work, fearing phallic castration 'recollect' 1 '('rroactive: the child may had to look elsewherefor an explanation.In all cases,they con-l I'rcvious losses, castration gives them their relevance. In the sideredthe castration complex not as sornething essentialto the r ,'rlrt:r accounts it is these separationsthat make castration very constructionof the human subjectbut as a fear that arises rclt'vant; here the scheme is prospective: early lossesmake the from the internal experiencesof a belingwho is already, even ifl , lrrld fear future ones. For Freud, history and the psychoanalytic only in a primitive form, constituted as a subject. As a , r is always a reconstruction, a retrospective account: -.""-i ltcrience sequence,ln none of thesealternative theories can castration have ] rlrt' human subject is part of such a history. The other any fundamental bearing on sexualdifference. I .'\l)lanations make him grow developmentally. If one takes Thus Starckefound the prevalenceof castrationanxiety in thel ,.rstrationitself back to the womb, then the human subjectwas loss of the nipple from the baby's mouth, so that daily weaningf rlrrrcfrom the outsetand it canonly follow that what makeshim accounted for the universality of the complex. As a furtherl f'\ychotic, neurotic or 'normal' is some arbitrarily selected instancehe proposed the baby's gradual ability to see itself asl , r'nstitutional factor or some equally arbitrary environmental distinct from the external world: 'The formation of the outerl , \ l)crience. world is the original castration;the withdrawal of the nipplel ( )nce more, Lacan underlines and reformulates Freud's posi- forms the root-conceptionof this' (Starcke,1921, p. 180).Franzl tff,fr. The castrationcomplex rs theinstance of the humanisation Alexanderand Otto Rank took castrationback to the babv's lossl ,'f thc child in its sexual difference. Certainly it rejoins other of the womb, which was once part of itself. Freud took up hisf rr'\'t'rrrrces,in fact it gives them their meaning. If the specific colleague'sideas on separationanxiety (as he ternred it) mostl rrrrrkof the phallus,the repressionof which is the institution of fully in Inhibitions,Symptoms and Anxiety written in 1,925,but twol rlrr'law, is repudiatedthen therecan only be psychosis.To Lacan yearsearlier he had addedthis footnote to the caseof Little Hans:l rll other hypothesesmake nonsenseof psychoanalysis.For him rlrcyonce againleave unanswered the questionwhence the sub- While recognizingall of theseroots of the complex, I havel 1'rt originates,and, he asks,what hashappened to the language neverthelessput forward the view that the term 'castrationl ,rr,lsocial order that distinguisheshim or her from other mam- complex' ought to be confined to those excitationsand con-l ,rr.rls- is it to have no effbct other than a subsidiary one, or sequenceswhich are bound rrp with the loss of the penis.Anyl Irrlsllxgisn? Above all, how can sexualdifference be understood one who, in analysing adults, has become convinced oi thel * rrhinsuch a developmentalperspective? invariablepresence of the castrationcomplex, will of course.l ll it is argued that there is nothing specificabout the threat of find difhculty in ascribingits origin to a chancethreat - of al ;'fr,rllic castration; if birth, weaning, the formation of the outer kind which is not, after all, of such universaloccurrence; h{ *.rrld are all castrations,then something elsehas to explain the will be driven to assumethat childrenconstruct this dangerforl ,lrflt'rence between the sexes.If castrationis only one among themselvesout of the slightesthints. . . (Freud,x, 1.909,p. S,l ,'rlrt'rseparations or is the sameas the dreadof the lossof sexual n2, 1923) ,f'urc common to men and women alike (Jones'saphanisis), | rlrt'rr sexes? I what distinguishesthe two All the major con- T'hercis a fundamentaldistinction between recognising thar rhel rrrlrrrrors to this field at this period, whether they supplemented castrationcomplex may refer back to other separationsandl ,f .pposed Freud, found the explanation in a biological pre- actually seeingthese separatiorls as castrations.To Freud thel lrr1''1r5isisn.This is the casewith Freud's biologistic defender, castrationcomplex divided the sexesand thus made the humanl I lr'lcrrcDeutsch, as it is with his culturalist opponent, Karen being, human. But this is not to deny the imporranceof earlicrl I lr rt ilCy. l lrc demoting of the castration complex from its key role in il::JffiII ;,iffi 1# T:: ii*fi l,l?n ::* $::, ',}:,:H. :i :ff rhr't t)nStructionof sexualdifference, and the subsequentreliance | 20 Feminine Sexuality Introduction- I 2I I on biological explanations, was accompanied by a further ,lrrcctly with the biological male and female, wrore of a 'rrr;rsculine change. In the mid-twenties the focus of discussion shifted and a and feminine id'. There is now not only an original new epoch began. The crisis of the concept of the castration rrr:rsculinityand femininity but a natural heterosexuality.In complex may well have contributed to a change of emphasis l')26, Karen Horney spoke of the'biological principle of hetero- away from itself and towards a preoccupation with femalej rcxurl attraction' and argued from this that the girl's so-called sexuality. When the well-known names associated with theJ rrr;rsculinephase is a defbnce against her primary feminine I discussion - Horney, Deutsch, Lampl-de Groot, Klein, Jones .rnxietythat her father will violate her. Melanie Klein elaborated join in, their concern is less with the construction of sexual thc increasinglyprevalent notion that becauseof her primordial difference than it is with the nature of female sexuality. It is from rrrfantilefeminine sexuality, the girl has an unconsciousknow- this time that we can date what has become known as the'greatr h'tlge of the vagina. This naturalisr perspective, exemplified in debate'. The debate was to reach its peak when in 1935, Ernest] rlrc work of ErnestJones,posits a primary femininity for the girl Jones, invited to Vienna to give some lectures to elucidate the fastl l'.rsedon her biological sex which then suffers vicissitudesas a growing differences between British and Viennese psycho-.1 rt'sult of fantasiesbrought into play by the girl's relations to analysts, chose as his first (and, as it turned out, only) topic,i ,rtr jects. f'he theoristsof this position do not deny Freud'snotion fernale sexuality. While female sexuality of course is central t{ rh:rtthe girl has a phallic phase,but they argue that it is only a our collcerns, we can see that something highly important wa{ rr':rction-formation against her natural feminine attitude. It is a lost in the change of emphasis. Retrospectively one can perceiv{ rt'condzryformation, a temporary statein which the girl takes that the reference point is still the distinction between the sexe{ rt'fugewhen she feelsher femininity is in danger.Just asthe boy (the point of the castration complex) but by concentrating on th{ rvith his natural maic valuationofhis penisfears its castration,so status and nature of female sexuality, it often happens that this i{ rhcgirl with her natural femininity will fear the destruction ofher treated as an isolate, something independent of the distinctiod rrrsidesthrough her father's rape. The presenceor absenceof that createsit. This tendency is confirmed within the theories o{ r'.rrlyvaginal sensationsbecomes a crucial issuein this context- a those opposed to Freud. The opposition to Freud saw the conl r onteXt in which impulses themselves,in a direct and unme- cept of the castration complex as derogatory to women. Id ,lr:rtedwt), produce psychological characteristics.Freud argued repudiating its terms they hoped both to elevate wonlen and t{ \trcnuously againstsuch a position. In a letter that, read in this explain what women consisted of- a task Freud ruled as psycho.{ r t)nt€Xt,is not ascryptic asit at first appears,he wrote to Mtiller- analytically out-of-bounds. But from now on analysts who cam{ lfraunschweig: in on Freud's side also saw their work in this way. Women, so td speak, had to have something of their o!vn. The issue subtlf I object to all of you (Horney, Jones,Rado, etc.,) ro rhe extent shifts from vvhat distinguishes the sexesto what has each sex go{ that you do not distinguish more clearly and cleanly between of value that belongs to it alone. In this conrexr, and in th{ what is psychicand what is biological,that you rry to establish absenccof the determining role of the castration complex, it isl r neatparallelism between the two and that you, motivated by inevitable that there is a return to the very biological explanationsi such intent, unthinkingly construe psychic facts which are from which Freud deliberately took his deparrure - where elsel unprovable and that you, in the processof doing so, must could that sonlething else be found? l cleclareas reactiveor regressivemuch that without doubt is For Freud it is of course llever a question of arguing thatl primary. Of course,these reproaches must remain obscure.In anatomy or biology is irrelevant, it is a question of assigning :rddition, I would only like to emphasizethat we must keep them their place. He gave thcm a place- it was outsidc the field ofr psychoanalysisseparate from biology just as we have kept it psychoanalytic enquiry. Others put them firmly within it. Thusl separatefrom anatomy and physiology . (Freud, 1935, Carl Muller-Braunschweig, assurnirrg,as did others, rhat therc] 1971,p.329)... was an innate masculinity and femininity which corrc)spondedl I I I -ciffid"-dffi 22 FeminineSexuality Introduction- I 23 T However, therewere thoseopponents ofFreud's position wh ,lrstinguishesboys and girls. The mother herself in these did not want to lean too heavily or too explicitly on a biologica r( counts has inherited a great dealof the earlierinterest in female explanation of sexualdifference; instead they stressedthe signifi tcxuality - her own experiences,the experiencesof her, have canceof the psychological mechanism of identification with i hccn well documented, but she is already constirured- in all her dependence on an object. In both Freud's account and those rurcertainty . ls a female subject. This representsan interesting these object-relations theorists, after the resolution of t .rvoidanceof the question of sexualdifference. Oedipus complex, eachchild hopefully identifies with the pa Freud acknowledged his seriousinadequacies in the areaofthe of the appropriate sex. The explanations look similar - but rtrother-child relationship. In fact his blindnesswas dictated not place accorded to the castration complex pushes them pol much 'o !y hir personalinclinations or his own masculinity - as apart. In Freud's schema,after the castrationcomplex, boys an lrc and others suggested- but by the nature of psychoanalysisas girls will more or lessadequately adopt the sexualidentity of t Ircconceived it. To Freud, if psychoanalysisis phallocentric, it is appropriate parent. But it is always only an adoption and bccause the human social order that it perceives refracted precarious one at that, as long 2go, Dora's 'inappropriate rhrough the individual human subject is patrocentric. To dare, paternalidentification had proved. For Freud, identification wi rlrefather standsin the position of the third term that mustbreak the appropriateparent ts a resultof the castrationcomplex whi the asocialdyadic unit of morher and child. VZecan seethat this has already given the mark of sexual distinction. For oth third term will always need to be representedby something or analysts,dispensing with the key role of the castrationcomplex \omeone. Lacenreturns to the problem, arguing that the relation identification (with a biological prop) is the causeof sexual dif, ,rf mother and child cannot be viewed outside the structure ference. Put somewhat reductively, the position of these the cstablish.-aUy the position of the father. To Lacan, a theory that rists can be elucidatedthus: there is a period when the girl is u rgnores the father or sees him embodied within the mother differentiatedfrom the boy (for Klein and some others, this is t (Klein) or through her eyes,is nonsense.There can be nothing boy's primary feminine phase)and henceboth love and identifi llumanthat pre-existsor exists outside the law representedby the with their first object, the mother; then, as a result of h l;rther; there is only either its denial (psychosisfor the fortunes biological sex (her femininity) and becauseher love has bee ,rnd misfortunes ('normality' and neurosis) of its terms. Ulti- frustratedon account of her biological inadequacy(she has n rnately for Kleinian and non-Kleinian object-relations theorists got the phallus for her mother and never will have), the little gi (despite the great differences between them) the distinction entersinto her own Oedipus complex and loves her father; s betweenthe sexesis not the result of a division but a facr that is then fully re-identifies with her mother and achieves her fu ,rlreadygiven; men and women, malesand females, exist.There feminine identitv. rsno surprisehere. It can be seen from this that the question of female sexualit The debarewith his colleaguesalso led Freud himself to make was itself crucial in the developmentof object-relationstheory \ome crucial reformulations. Again these can be said to stem This understanding of femininity pur a heavy srresson the fi lrom his stresson the castration complex. Time and again in the maternal relationship; the same emphasis has likewise charac hst papers of his life he underscored its significance. In re- terised the whole subsequent expansion of object-relatio rhinking his belief that the boy and the girl both had a phallic theory. When the 'great debate' evaporated, object-relati Phasethat was primary, and not, as others argued, reactive and theoristsconcentrated attention on the mother and the sexuall rccondary, he re-emphasised,but more importantly, reformu- undifferentiatedchild, leaving the problem of sexualdistincti l.rted his earlier positions. The oedipus complex as he had as a subsidiary that is somehow not bound up with rhe ver ,rriginally conceived it led to what he considered the impasses formation of the subject.This is the price paid for the reorienra ,rndmistakes of the argumentshe opposed.The natural hitero- tion to the mother, and the neglect of the father, whose pr 'cxuality it assumedwas untenablebut its simple reversalwith its hibitiorr in Freud's theory, alone can represent the mark tha streSSon the first maternal relation was equally unsatisfactory. 24 FeminineSexuality Introduction - I 25 ( Without an ultimate reliance on a biologically induced identi- ,,rl,l.t't. [t describes the formation of the ego in a moment of ficatory premise, such a position does not account for the I rrr1,,t'r(of threatened loss) which results in a primary split from differencebetween the boy and the girl. Lacan would argue that '. lrr. lr it never recovers. Freud offers the reaction to the castra- ('()mplex it is at thisjuncture that Freud- his earlierpositions now seento rr'n when a fetish is set up as its alternative, as an , be leading in false directions - brings forward the concept r,'nrplary instance o-f this split. In this paper we can see clearly rh,'position of Freud's to which desire. '\lVhat', asks Freud, 'does the woman [the little girlJ Lacan is to return. A primor- want?' All answersto the question, including 'the mother' are ,lrrlly split subject necessiratesan originally lost object. Though false:she simply wants.The phallus- with its statusas potentiall I r,'rrtldoes not talk of the object as a lost object as Lacan does, he ,o .rlrs.lutely absent - conles to stand in for the necessarily missing object clear that its psychological significance arisesfrom desireat the level of sexualdivision. If this is so, the Oedipus ,rr .rl)scr1ce,or as he put it in the essayon'Femininity'from the rrr complex can no longer be a static myth that reflects the real I rhat it could never satisfy: '. . the child's avidity for its situation of father, mother and child, it becomes a structure , l lrt'stnourishment is altogether insatiable . . . it never gets over revolving around the questionof where a personcan be placedin rlr,' 1r;1ipof losing its mother's breast' (Freud, xxII, 1933, p. 122). relation to his or her desire. That 'where' is determined bv t I r.rr the tribal child, breastfed well beyond infancy, is unsatis- rr,,l castrationcomplex. pain and lack of satisfactionare the point, the triggers that , ln his 1933essay 'Femininity', Freud puts forrvard the solu r ,,kt' desire. tions of his opponents on the issueof female sexuality as a seri I r.ud's final writings are often perceived as reflecting an old ,rr ff r Sdespair. But for Ltcan of questions.He asks 'how does [the little girl] passfrom her their pessimism indicates a clarifrca- I nrasculine phase to the feminine one to which she is biologicall r''r r ,uld summation of a theory whose implications are and must destined?'(Freud, xxn, 1933,p. 119)and contrary to the answers l,r , .rrrti-humanist. The issue offemale sexuality always brings us 1,.r. of his opponents, he concludes that: 'the constitution will n k to the question of how the human subjeci is constit.rt.I. In adaptitself to its function without a struggle' (Freud,xxrr, 7933, rlr. theories of Freud that Lacan redeploys, the distinction p. 117)and that though'lt would be a solution ofideal simplicit l,r t \\'ccrr the sexesbrought about by the castration complex and ,lr,' if we could suppose that from a particular age onwards th rlifferent positions that must subsequently be taken up, elementary influence of the mutual attraction between the sexes , 'rr lirrES that the subject is split and the object is lost. This is the ,lrllrt'ulty makes itself felt and impels the small woman towards men . . . at the heart of being human to which psychoanalysis are not going to find things so easy .' (Freud, xxrr, 7933, ,".1 the objects of its enquiry - the unconscious and sexuality - .f p. 119).The biological femaleis destinedto become a woman, f ,fr witness. To Lacan, a humanist position offers only false but the questionto which psychoanalysismust addressitself, is fr,f r1'son the basis of false theories. how, if she does manage this, is it to happen?His colleagues' lr is a matter of perspective - and Lacan would argue that the excellent work on the earliest maternal relationship, from a ;,,'rrpective pf post-Freudian analysts is ideological in that it ,'rrlirrns psychoanalyticpoirrt of view, leavesunanswered the problem o the humanism of our times. In the view of Kleinians sexual differentiation. As Freud puts it: 'LJnlesswe can find rrr,lother object-relations theorists, whether it is with a primitive ()f somethingthat is specificfor girls and is not presenror not in the r f'r) as an initial fusion with the mother from which differen- ,,rrr()n same way presentin boys, we shall not have explainedthe ter- gradually occurs, the perspective starts from an identi- fr,,rrirJD mination of the attachmentof girls to their mother. I believewe rvith what seems to be, or ought to be, the subject. The r, have found this specific factor . . in the castrationcomplex' r 'blcm these theorists address is: what does the baby/person do (Freud, 1933,p. Qa). 'rrlr its world in order for it to develop? Then the question is Freud endedhis life with an unfinishedpaper: 'splitting of t 'rvt'rtedrhas the human environment been good enough for the r.rlrv Ego in the Processof Defence'(xxttt, 1940).It is about the castra- to be able to do the right things? In theseaccounts a sexual tion complex and its implication for the constructiorl of the l.rrtity is first given biologically and then developed and con- 26 FeminineSexuality firmed (or not) asthe subjectgrows through interaction with real objects and its fantasiesof them, on its complicated road t maturitv. Lacan takes the opposite perspective: the analysand's un consciousreveals a fragmented subject of shifting and uncertai sexualidentity. To be human is to be subjectedto a law which d centresand divides:sexuality is createdin a division, the subj is split; but an ideologicalworld concealsthis from the conscio subject who is supposed to feel whole and certain of a sexu identity. Psychoanalysisshould aim at destruction of thi concealment and at a reconstruction of the ^subiect's constructi in all its splits. This may be an accuratetheory, it is certainly precariousproject. It is to this theory and project- the history the fracturedsexual subject - that Lacandedicates himself.