Glossing Jacqueline Rose and 'Feminine Sexuality' PART 2.

Whereas Freud instates The Oedipal and Incest as governing forces in our relations with our parents and which produce us as Subjects, Lacan rather sees there The Symbolic and The Imaginary.

Whereas Freud may have insisted our identities are determined by a traumatic past, Lacan sees them rather determined by the present Order which is always under negotiation (by e.g. more or less liberal regimes.)

It is a classic Structuralist turn to say that: 'The concept of the Symbolic states that the woman's sexuality is inseparable from the representations through which it is produced'.

Rose says that Lacan says sexuality appears to offer satisfaction but in fact it only offers desire. Just as language has no positive terms and the Subject is determined by lack, loss and castration, so desire can never be completed of fulfilled.

The Other -in terms of the other of a divided pair of sexes (Male-Female) is mistakenly perceived as offering the possibility of satisfaction -the fantasy of completion by another.

The Other wields law or power over us as the promised answer to our inherent incompletion and desire.

Thus Desire and drive must be recognised only for their process - it is a folly to hold out for or live a life according to what they may or may not achieve.

In terms of sexual difference it may seem hard to escape from anatomical, biological differences between male and female, but Rose insists that Lacan insists this is NOT the primary site of difference. In fact Lacan states that the importance of the Phallus (as symbolic) is that its status in determining human sexuality CANNOT BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY NATURE.

If we argue that the Phallus-as-seen-to-be-missing in the female is what gives the phallus power and priority Lacan reminds us that the problem is rather the idea of 'missing'. i.e. it is not the Phallus itself which has power but the false construction that determines this 'missing'. It is already positivised and prioritised in order for it to be considered as 'missing'.

The woman's 'lack' of phallus seems to suppress and subjugate her in the Symbolic Order, but Rose feels that Lacan is working at a sophisticated level to reveal woman's special position within the Symbolic Order which is in fact most powerful if it can only be seen to be so.

Because sexual difference is NOT primarily anatomical we can cross over from one side to the other, but what mostly keeps us in our places is the fear of the Law of the Symbolic Order - the codes which force us to line up in front of one term or another (Male - Female). It is the divide itself which has the authority, the difference, the lack, the absence and not either of the terms.

A clue to this is the way in which our sexual drives can be sublimated (diverted into different pursuits, expressions, occupations). i.e. as sexuality itself can be diverted so can sexual difference be negotiated or become nomadic if we are wiling to break the Law and re-negotiate the codes.

TO BE CONTINUED ...