Sexuation: SIC 3 ([sic] Series

329 Pages·2000·7.31 MB·English

by  Renata Salecl

Sexuation
Renata Salecl,
Editor
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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SIC stands for psychoana-
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l lytic interpretation at its
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le most elementary: no dis-
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S covery of deep, hidden
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drawing attention to the
litterality [sic! ]ofwhat 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-
SIC
vides a bundle of Lacanian
A interventions into a speci-
fic domain of ongoing
series
theoretical, cultural, and
edited ideologico-political battles.
It is neither ‘‘pluralist’’
by nor ‘‘socially sensitive’’:
Slavoj unabashedly avowing its
exclusive Lacanian orienta-
Žižek tion, it disregards any form
and of correctness but the
inherent correctness of
Renata theory itself.
Salecl
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Renata Salecl,
editor
sic
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DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham and London 
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©  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.
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Contents
Introduction 
  
 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’s Moses and 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 
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IO  
T
UA  Alain Badiou, What Is Love? 
X
E
S  Alenka Zupančič, The Case of the Perforated Sheet 
/
l  Renata Salecl, Love and Sexual Difference: Doubled Partners
c
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al in Men and Women 
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6 Notes on Contributors 
Index 
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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
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