Sexuation

Renata Salecl; Ed.

Description

Contemporary discourse seems to provide a choice in the way sexual identities and sexual difference are described and analyzed. On the one hand, much current thinking suggests that sexual identity is fluid-socially constructed and/or performatively enacted. This discourse is often invoked in the act of overcoming an earlier patriarchal era of fixed and naturalized identities. On the other hand, some modern discourses of sexual identity seem to offer a New Age Jungian re-sexualization of the universe-"Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus"-according to which there is an underlying, deeply anchored archetypal identity that provides a kind of safe haven in the contemporary confusion of roles and identities.In this volume, contributors discuss a third way of thinking about sexual identity and sexual difference-a direction opened by Jacques Lacan. For Lacan, what we all recognize as sexual difference is first and foremost representative of a certain fundamental deadlock inherent in the symbolic order, that is, in language and in the entire realm of culture conceived as a symbol system structured on the model of language. For him, the logical matrix of this deadlock is provided by his own formulas of sexuation. The essays collected here elaborate on different aspects of this deadlock of sexual difference. While some examine the role of semblances in the relation between the sexes or consider sexual identity not as anatomy but still involving an impasse of the real, others discuss the difference between sexuation and identification, the role of symbolic prohibition in the process of the subject's sexual formation, or the changed role of the father in contemporary society and the impact of this change on sexual difference. Other essays address such topics as the role of beating in sexual fantasies and jouissance in feminine jealousy.Contributors. Alain Badiou, Elizabeth Bronfen, Darian Leader, Jacques Alain Miller, Genevieve Morel, Renata Salecl, Eric L. Santner, Colette Soler, Paul Verhaeghe, Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic

Sujets

• Cultural studies
• Human sexual activity
• Gender studies

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 24 juillet 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822381082
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

sexuation

SIC

A

series

edited

by

Slavoj

Žižek

and

Renata

Salecl

SIC stands for psychoana- lytic interpretation at its most elementary: no dis- covery of deep, hidden meaning, just the act of drawing attention to the litterality [sic!] of what pre- cedes it. A ‘‘sic’’ reminds us that what was said, in- clusive of its blunders, was effectively said and cannot be undone. The series SIC thus explores different connections of the Freud- ian field: each volume pro- vides a bundle of Lacanian interventions into a speci- fic domain of ongoing theoretical, cultural, and ideologico-political battles. It is neither ‘‘pluralist’’ nor ‘‘socially sensitive’’: unabashedly avowing its exclusive Lacanian orienta- tion, it disregards any form of correctness but the inherent correctness of theory itself.

sic 3

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

sexuation

Renata Salecl, editor

Durham and London 

©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States

of America on acid-free paper 8

Typeset in Sabon by Tseng

Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

Introduction

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 

   

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Contents

  Jacques-Alain Miller,On Semblances in the Relation Between the Sexes Geneviève Morel,Psychoanalytical Anatomy Colette Soler,The Curse on Sex

  Eric L. Santner,Freud’sMosesand the Ethics of Nomotropic Desire Darian Leader,Beating Fantasies and Sexuality Paul Verhaeghe,The Collapse of the Function of the Father and Its Effect on Gender Roles

  Geneviève Morel,Feminine Jealousies Elisabeth Bronfen,Noir Wagner Slavoj Žižek,The Thing from Inner Space

viii

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Contents

 Alain Badiou,What Is Love? Alenka Zupančič,The Case of the Perforated Sheet Renata Salecl,Love and Sexual Difference: Doubled Partners in Men and Women

Notes on Contributors Index 



Renata Salecl

Introduction

Sexual difference seems today a slightly outdated topic. Is not the lesson of the postmodern political practices and of deconstructionist theory, as well as of modern digital media, that male and female sexual identities in these arenas are socially constructed and/or even performatively en- acted? Sexual identity is thus, according to these perspectives, the result of complex discursive practices and of the interplay of power relations: what has been constructed in concrete historical constellations can also be deconstructed and radically changed. The only serious alternative to this notion that we are passing from the patriarchal era of fixed, natu- ralized identities to a new era in which our sexual identities and ori- entation are more and more becoming something fluid and dispersed, a matter of playful choices, is the New Age Jungian resexualization of the universe (‘‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’’). Accord- ing to it, there is an underlying, deeply anchored archetypal identity which provides a kind of safe haven in the flurry of contemporary con- fusion of roles and identities; from this perspective, the ultimate origin of today’s crisis is not the difficulty of overcoming the tradition of fixed sexual roles, but the disturbed balance in modern man, who places ex- cessive emphasis on the male-rational-conscious aspect, neglecting the feminine-compassionate aspect. But is this choice between social constructivism and New Age obscur- antism really all embracing? Does not Lacan’s paradoxical statement that ‘‘there is no such thing as a sexual relationship’’ point in a wholly