| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Gender, Lacan, and the Psychoanalytic Encounter - Part 3 The missing piece: Phallus Workshop with Kristopher Lichtanski, Ph.D. |
| This Workshop is offered Sunday, March 1, 2009, 10am - 2pm Flood Building, 870 Market Street, San Francisco Room 1185 ________________________________________________________ |
Workshop description:
The theory that human nature is essentially epicene and that social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed arose in
academic circles in the late 1970s following the feminist movement which dealt with societal patriarchy. In a (retrospective)
deconstruction of sex-based, male-privileged relationships, the dimorphic biology of sexual difference came to indicate essentially one’s
potential for childbearing/childbirth while the binary female/male gender “kind” division was exposed as socially constructed stereotypes
of femininity and masculinity. Gender identity and gender role came to denote a particular position one occupies in relation to one’s
sexual anatomy in the context of the other’s gaze, and the function one performs in the context of expected gender stereotypes.
Sexuality and sexual performance/orientation, once denoting gender-appropriate erotic attributes and behaviors, was also no longer
clear-cut. The resulting sexual identity/orientation - gender identity/role matrix permitted a spectrum of fluid identifications and positions
one can have/occupy with a potential for reorganization of the gender-based hegemony.
At the same time, it is interesting to note, perhaps, that with the relinquishing of fixed gender-based identities, the importance of sexual
orientation status became only so much more pertinent (if only in academic circles as well); while asserting one’s womanhood or
manhood became somewhat unfashionable or irrelevant, the insignia of sexual orientation appeared to have become that much more
important. There is certainly no argument that the queer movement has been (at lest politically) an important step in asserting equality
for all and in dismantling homophobia and heteronormativity (as the feminist movement has been an important step in dismantling the
societal patriarchy), but it also points to the impossibility of the epicene human nature (at least at this point in time). Through the
identification of the object of sexual attraction - same-sex, opposite sex, either sex, neither sex - there seems to exist a demand to
gender the other, however momentarily and regardless of how fluid the gender identity may be. It seems that even if we all did look and
behave the same, we would still have to account for the differences among us, just as we do now account for differences among women
and among men (especially once we move beyond the stereotype of a “typical” man and a “typical” woman).
Interestingly, Freud addressed this issue at the beginning of the 20th century, by demonstrating that the seemingly simple act of sexual
love actually involves complex psychical mechanism which can give expression to a range of sexualities (and sexual object choices).
Lacan further elaborated that sexual identity is a question of the structuring function of language, not anatomy/body; it is constituted in
response to the Oedipal experience of symbolic castration and resides, along with many other identifications, in the subject’s position to
the phallus with regard to each subject’s particular configuration of imaginary, symbolic, and real registers. In other words, for Lacan,
the unconscious subject who desires is constituted as masculine or feminine in response to the oedipal experience of (symbolic)
castration with the phallus signifying what one seeks at the level of desire in compensation for what one lacks. As Ellie Ragland points
out, “Lacan proposes that humans are nullisexuel – troubled by the void (nulle) that [Lacan] aligns with the order of the real that inserts
the impasses and holes that perforate the seemingly smooth narratives of the symbolic and (pseudo)-consistencies of the imaginary.”
Thus, the one constant in the sexuality of males and females, and in the sexuation of both, is the phallus – the signifier of desire that
has been submitted to castration. In this sense – as Alexadre Leupin points out – the whole of sexual dialectics are made ex-centric
regarding the phallus and no gender can claim superiority over the other: ” …all men have an unconscious – that is, a feminine – ‘side’
(beyond words), and all women speak, so that inasmuch as they are speaking beings, they are submitted to the phallo-excentric
logic.” In this sense, Leupin elaborates, “sexual difference plays itself out not by opposing a female individual to a male individual, but
first and foremost by dividing each subject in a singular way.” We are all split by sexual difference inside ourselves and “men and
women live and dream this inside split in a different manner.”
In this workshop we will focus on Lacan’s formulas of sexuation and explore the phallic function in relation to object a and jouissance as
“lived and dreamt” by the gendered, split subjects.
(Participation in part 1 and part 2 of this workshop series is not a prerequisite)
Fee:
$80 professionals / $60 interns / $40 students
The theory that human nature is essentially epicene and that social distinctions based on sex are arbitrarily constructed arose in
academic circles in the late 1970s following the feminist movement which dealt with societal patriarchy. In a (retrospective)
deconstruction of sex-based, male-privileged relationships, the dimorphic biology of sexual difference came to indicate essentially one’s
potential for childbearing/childbirth while the binary female/male gender “kind” division was exposed as socially constructed stereotypes
of femininity and masculinity. Gender identity and gender role came to denote a particular position one occupies in relation to one’s
sexual anatomy in the context of the other’s gaze, and the function one performs in the context of expected gender stereotypes.
Sexuality and sexual performance/orientation, once denoting gender-appropriate erotic attributes and behaviors, was also no longer
clear-cut. The resulting sexual identity/orientation - gender identity/role matrix permitted a spectrum of fluid identifications and positions
one can have/occupy with a potential for reorganization of the gender-based hegemony.
At the same time, it is interesting to note, perhaps, that with the relinquishing of fixed gender-based identities, the importance of sexual
orientation status became only so much more pertinent (if only in academic circles as well); while asserting one’s womanhood or
manhood became somewhat unfashionable or irrelevant, the insignia of sexual orientation appeared to have become that much more
important. There is certainly no argument that the queer movement has been (at lest politically) an important step in asserting equality
for all and in dismantling homophobia and heteronormativity (as the feminist movement has been an important step in dismantling the
societal patriarchy), but it also points to the impossibility of the epicene human nature (at least at this point in time). Through the
identification of the object of sexual attraction - same-sex, opposite sex, either sex, neither sex - there seems to exist a demand to
gender the other, however momentarily and regardless of how fluid the gender identity may be. It seems that even if we all did look and
behave the same, we would still have to account for the differences among us, just as we do now account for differences among women
and among men (especially once we move beyond the stereotype of a “typical” man and a “typical” woman).
Interestingly, Freud addressed this issue at the beginning of the 20th century, by demonstrating that the seemingly simple act of sexual
love actually involves complex psychical mechanism which can give expression to a range of sexualities (and sexual object choices).
Lacan further elaborated that sexual identity is a question of the structuring function of language, not anatomy/body; it is constituted in
response to the Oedipal experience of symbolic castration and resides, along with many other identifications, in the subject’s position to
the phallus with regard to each subject’s particular configuration of imaginary, symbolic, and real registers. In other words, for Lacan,
the unconscious subject who desires is constituted as masculine or feminine in response to the oedipal experience of (symbolic)
castration with the phallus signifying what one seeks at the level of desire in compensation for what one lacks. As Ellie Ragland points
out, “Lacan proposes that humans are nullisexuel – troubled by the void (nulle) that [Lacan] aligns with the order of the real that inserts
the impasses and holes that perforate the seemingly smooth narratives of the symbolic and (pseudo)-consistencies of the imaginary.”
Thus, the one constant in the sexuality of males and females, and in the sexuation of both, is the phallus – the signifier of desire that
has been submitted to castration. In this sense – as Alexadre Leupin points out – the whole of sexual dialectics are made ex-centric
regarding the phallus and no gender can claim superiority over the other: ” …all men have an unconscious – that is, a feminine – ‘side’
(beyond words), and all women speak, so that inasmuch as they are speaking beings, they are submitted to the phallo-excentric
logic.” In this sense, Leupin elaborates, “sexual difference plays itself out not by opposing a female individual to a male individual, but
first and foremost by dividing each subject in a singular way.” We are all split by sexual difference inside ourselves and “men and
women live and dream this inside split in a different manner.”
In this workshop we will focus on Lacan’s formulas of sexuation and explore the phallic function in relation to object a and jouissance as
“lived and dreamt” by the gendered, split subjects.
(Participation in part 1 and part 2 of this workshop series is not a prerequisite)
Fee:
$80 professionals / $60 interns / $40 students