include the novel P ossession (Fayard), the essay S ens et N on- S ens de la R e volte (Fayard), rience litte raire

re (Gallimard), w hich has been translated and L e tem ps sensible: P roust et lexpe into English under the title T im e and S ense .

Experiencing the Phallus as Extraneous, or Womens Twofold Oedipus Complex

Julia Kriste va

bisexuality [ ] com es to the fore m uch m ore clearly in w om en than in m en. Sigmund Freud, `Female Sexuality, 1931

The Phallic Kairos

A t a tim e w hen m any practitioners and theorists view psychoanalysis as a transaction of organs and drives, w hile others m ake of it a m athem atical form ula of the signi er or a theory of `mind, or yet again a cognition, it seems necessary to m e to uphold that the originality of Freuds discovery lies in discerning a co - presence betw een the developm ent of thought and that of sexuality. It is an attentiveness to this twofold expression (thought-sexuality) of speaking-being that form s the very core of the analytical experience and w hich therefore, far from representing hum an essence in biological terms, centers the study of the psychical apparatus, its operations and its blockages, in the bi-univocal dependence of thought-sexuality/sexuality-th ought. Such an interaction takes place w ithin language and accord ingly, it is in this m edium that Freud w as to explore that `other scene, the unco nscio us , w hose contents (representatives of the drive) and logic ( prim ary process) nevertheless fundam entally di er from conscious linguistic com munication. In de ning m y psychoanalytical approach and practice as the study of the co-presence betw een sexuality- and -thou ght, m y aim is not sim ply to dissociate m yself from the two trends currently in favour (the cognitivist and the phantasm atic-organicist approaches). It is also to indicate at the outset of m y talk the basis on w hich the follow ing rem arks, concerning fem ale psychical bisexuality as viewed from the perspective of the relationship of w om en to the phallus, are founded. The question to w hich I shall therefore address m yself is that of the relationship of the fem ale subject to the phallus. A s a certain `phallic m onism is constantly draw n to our attention in clinical experience, I w ou ld rst of all like to present a couple of particularly acute exam ples of the kind of adherence to the phallus that characterizes certain w om en: an adherence that e ectively structures them , but at the price of often traum atic su ering.
parallax 29

Mystery And The Unbearable

A rm elle occupies a high-ranking post in an international organization. M other, w ife, m istress and author, she w ou ld seem to lack nothing, unless it be a personal satisfaction w hich, she insists, is not of a sexual nature: `I am not frigid, she speci es. This dissatisfaction is accom panied by the feeling of being like a little girl w hom no-one takes seriously and w ho never realises her true capacities. A dditionally, A rm elle is led to take on all sorts of tasks and chores, even the m ost tiring and thankless, as though setting herself superhum an goals. A veritable m artyr, A rm elle has m ade for herself a bed of nails upon w hich to lie and impale the esh of her back and stom ach. The m artyrology of saints that her fam ily background has handed dow n to her is superimposed here upon the structural jo uissance , or com plex pleasure, of the Freudian phantasy, `A child is being beaten: A rm elle is being beaten, A rm elle beats A rm elle, A rm elle pierces A rm elle, `til the blood ows; her entire body is a phallus-penis nding its pleasure in sado-m asochism by w ay of punishm ent for clitoral pleasure and to avoid recognition as a pierced-castrated body. A rm elle is xated at the pivotal point situated b etw een w hat I term Oedipus-1 and Oedipus-2. 1 H er professional success, her phallicism in the sym bolic order, has been acquired at the price of denying her bisexuality: she aspires to be all phallus. H er perverse pleasure is at the expense of the physical and m ental exhaustion of the superw om an . Dom inique is characterized by a slender, boyish body and by a w ay of talking m arked by allusion, secrecy and om ission. H er com puter skills do not su ciently account for such a discreet m anner. It is w ith di culty that I nd out that she has sexual relationships w ith w om en but that the relationship to w hich she gives m ost importance is w ith a m an, w ith w hom she adopts a m asochistic role. M uch later, Dom inique w ill reveal that this m an is her imm ediate superior at her place of w ork and, even later yet, that he is black. Dom inique had greatly admired her brother w ho w as a year older than herself and w ith w hom she had lived a m irror-re lationship, as though doubles or twins, before the arrival of a baby-sister, born ve years after Dom inique. The idyll lived by Dom inique, in her role as boy-double, cam e to an end at adolescence w hen her brother w as killed by a car. `I don t believe w om en have sex. W hen m y brother died, it becam e apparent to m e that the area betw een m y legs w as smooth, like a plastic doll. W ithout a penis, w ithout a clitoris, w ithout a vagina: Dom inique lives the failure of her psychical bisexuality by o ering her anus as a hollow ed-out penis to her sadistic partner. A nother variant of phallic m onism . I shall com e back later to w hat these exam ples have show n us of phallicism s unbearable nature for w om en. For the m oment, I w ou ld like to insist upon the universality of the phallic reference w hich m akes its appearance in both sexes, although in a som ewhat di erent w ay, w ell before the phallic phase and the Oedipus com plex that this phase announces. A s a result of language, of the paternal function and of the m other s desire for the father (for her own as w ell as for that of her child), the trace of the phallus (what Lacan terms `a phallus w ithout incarnation 2 ) alw ays-already organizes the subjects psychosexuality. Prim ary identi cation, narcissism , sublim ation, idealisation, the setting-up of the ego-ideal and of the superego are but som e of the w ell-known stages that m ark this organization.
K ristev a 30

It is necessary to underline the importance of w hat Freud calls the phallic phase w hich, structurally, plays the m ajor role in organizing, in both sexes, the co-presence of sexuality-thought of w hich I have spoken. M any authors have called attention to the particular characteristics that determine the penis being cathected (or invested libidinally) by the two sexes and becom ing the phallus , that signi er of lack of lackin-being, or of desire, and, in consequence, signi er of the sym bolic law. Its visibility and ability of erection, the narcissistic grati cation and erotogenic sensations that it o ers, as w ell as its `detachability and, therefore, `severability: all perm it the penis to becom e the m ark of di erence, functioning as the pivot of the binary distinction, 0/1, upon w hich all m eaning is based, and, in this sense, operate as the organic (i.e. real and imaginary) elem ent of our psychosexual com puter. The G reek term K airos (`propitious m oment or encounter 3 ) m ight w ell seem a tting designation to give to this em inently subtle and, in this sense, m ysterious encounter of m eaning and desire that, e ectuated during the phallic phase all in being prepared for in advance therein shapes the destiny of the hum an being qua speaking-cum -desiring being. The sub ject w hether anatomically m ale or fem ale is form ed by this phalli c K airos : such is the revelation that psychoanalysis, long after the G reek m ysteries, announces. Our psychical destiny is, essentially, to bear the consequences that can aptly be quali ed as tragic of this m ystery. A veiled m ystery indeed. For, given its very structure and under the threat of castration, the phallicism of both sexes succumbs to repression and is succeeded by the latency period. Phallic prim acy is for this reason the hallm ark of `infantile genital organization: i.e. it is precisely the factor di erentiating infantile genitality from adult genitality, w hich in principle recognizes the existence of tw o sexes.4 A nd yet, phallic m onism w ith its recognition of one sex alone (the penis), of one libido alone (the m asculine) and of a sole sym bol for the activity of thought (the phallus) rem ains, for the two sexes, a fundam ental datum of the unco nscio us . A s such, phallic m onism can be understood as an infantile illus ion that subsists as an unconsc ious reality serving to structure the psyche. The transform ation of an illusion into an unconsc ious reality: is this not a case of an illusion destined to a ne future? Indeed, w e are confronted here w ith the basis of w hat Freud, in one of his later w orks, w ou ld name `the future of an illusion , inasmuch as every religion truly draw s upon the cult of the phallus. This fact that phallic m onism is a residue of the infantile phallocentrism conditioning the Oedipus com plex is an aspect of the Freudian theory of sexuality that has received insu cient attention. Nor, in a sim ilar m anner, has it been su ciently grasped that, as a consequence of the repression of this phallicism into the unconsc ious, the unconscious as such is phallic. This m eans that the unconsc ious lacks `genitality in the sense of an acknow ledgement of sexual di erence. Or, to put it m ore abruptly, there is no unconsc ious psychical genitality: w hile one can speak of a biological instinct of procrea tion and of the advent, at puberty, of a desire for the other sex, nothing in Freudian theory indicates that there exists an unco nscio us psy chical representative of the other sex as such. To these rst two aspects of phallic prim acy (i.e. its central role in the organization of the unconsc ious and its character as an infantile illusion), a third m ust be added. Namely, in the case of m ale sexual developm ent, the Oedipus com plex, determined
parallax 31

by the phallic K airos, is subject to a veritable `catastrophe, w hich takes the form of the boy s turning away from incest and m urder and culminates in the institution of conscience and m orality, in w hich Freud saw `a victory of the race over the individual. 5 Throu gh the m echanism s of de-sexualization and sublim ation, the early object-cathexes are replaced by the agencies of the psychical apparatus (the id, the ego and the superego), and neuro sis alone betrays a `struggle on the behalf of the ego against `the dem ands of the sexual function . One m ight w ell w on der here as to that other form of `struggle represented by the subjects creative use of thought or language, w hich, even though show ing a proxim ity to neurosis, or indeed to psychosis, cannot nevertheless be reduced to these. Our exam ination of bisexuality m ay perhaps allow us a certain insight into this form of `struggle that Freud, for his part, did not query in these terms. A s is w ell know n, phallic prim acy w as to be taken up and invested w ith a particular value by Lacan in his rehabilitation of the function of the father and of language in tre: w hich can also be translated as the `subject of speech]. speaking-being [`parle A ttributing to the phallus the values of `seeming and `evanescence, Lacan positions it as the locu s of lack and source of anxiety, and it is for this very reason that it can function as the prim ary sym bol determining the process of sexual identi cation. `The m an is not w ithout having it, the w om an is w ithout having it. 6 It seems to m e interesting to com pare this form ula w ith the proposition m ade by W innicott concerning the m aternal elem ent w hich he speci es, m oreove r, as having nothing to do w ith the drives: the m aternal elem ent, he states, sim ply `is (the self is the breast, the breast is the self ) and does not `do anything (the breast is a sym bol of being, not of doing ).7 B eing, having, do ing : are the distinctions really as clear-cut as this? The rem arks that follow m ay be understood as both an elaboration and an in ection of these two propositions of Lacan and W innicott.

The sensible versus the signi er. The extraneousn ess of the phallus. The illusory.
In girls, the K airos that decisive encounter betw een the m astery of signs and genital excitation that forges the subject as a speaking-cum -desiring being takes a particular form in that it is the clitoris that assum es the phallic function. This function is, sim ultaneously, real (experienced), imaginary ( phantasized in the oscillation of activity-passivity) and sym bolic (as regards the cathexis and developm ent of thoughtprocesses). Infantile m asturbation and incestuous desire for the m other characterize this rst aspect of the Oedipus com plex (that I name O edipus- 1 ), by w hich girls as m uch as boys are structurally de ned before they reach O edipus- 2 , w hich causes them to change object, w ith the father taking the place that w as previously the m other s. H owever, even in this rst structuring of the subject (Oedipus-1) there are di erences betw een the phallicism of girls and boys that have perhaps not been su ciently rem arked. The attention given to the role played by language in organizing psychical life, how ever judicious it m ay be, has too often prevented us from appreciating the importance of the role played by sensuo us that is, prelinguistic or translinguistic experience . A nd yet, it is precisely the girls sensuo usness , so strong ly stimulated by the
K ristev a 32

sym biotic bond w ith the m other during the pre-O edipal phase ( phase of prim ary hom osexuality), that enables her to evaluate as m uch the di erent capacities of the boy s sexual organ as the excessive narcissistic cathexes of w hich the boy is the object. Indeed, w hatever m ay be the degree of organic satisfaction and paternal valorisation experienced by the girl and nothing, for instance, prevents the girl from being just as satis ed and valorised as the boy her phallicism m ust be understood as displaying a structural dissociation betw een the sensible and the signi er .8 For the phallus, in its capacity as signi er of lack as w ell as of the law, is gured in the imaginary by the penis and is, therefore, perceived/conceived by the girl as som ething extraneous , and as radically heterogeneous. In other w ords, inasmuch as the girls phallic pleasure nds both its real and imaginary `support in the clitoris, that m ore inconspicuous organ, she is, at once, dissociated from the phallus, understood as a privileged signi er in that conjunction of Logos/Desire that I have named the phallic K airos. This is not to say that this conjunction is less m arked in girls than it is in boys. On the contra ry, girls often display a greater facility in the (sym bolic) register of thought. Nevertheless, the fact rem ains that the girls sym bolic in the sense of intellectual facility is at variance w ith her sensuous experience; how ever m uch pleasure the girl m ay experience, she is nevertheless deceived by the fact of perceiving her organ as less visible, less striking and less appreciated. Consequently, the dissociation betw een the signi er and the sensuous is accom panied by the b elief that the sym bolic-phallic order is illus ory . The deception felt by the girl at perceiving herself as disadvantaged (she does not have a conspicuous penis, she is not the phallus) reactivates the hall ucinati on of past experience s related to the satisfaction and/or frustration characterizing the girl-m other dyad, that m oment of M inoan-M ycenaean fusion. 9 A s such, the experiences reactivated in this m anner consist of sensuous experiences that either preceded the acquisition of language or that took place outside of language. This being the case, the discrepancy betw een w hat is perceived in the present, under the sway of the phallic K airos, and the hallucination of past perceptions, entails that the phallic m onism that is assigned to the other (the m an) that `I am not thereby m arks the being of the fem ale subject w ith a negation: `I am not w hat is, `I am, nonetheless, if only by sheer force of no t . The extraneous or illus ory character of the phallus is perhaps another w ay of designating this double negation of `nonetheless and `not . This stated, it is precisely the belief that the phallus, and consequently language and the sym bolic order, are illusory, all in being indispensable, that closes the gap betw een perception and hallucination. By `belief , I refer here to the fact that the illus ory nature of the phallus is, both consciously and unconsc iously, adhered to by w om en as som ething that is evident, w ithout any need for proof. This quali cation of `illusory (derived from the Latin ludere = `to play, and hence illude re , `to m ake fun of or `to m ock ) refers to the fact that everything the phallus gives the fem ale subject access to (nam ely: the law, pow er, and a certain pleasure as too, the possibility of their lack) is ultimately, for her, b ut a gam e . It s not entirely nothing, but it s not the be-all, either, even w ere this to be veiled, as the Phallic m ysteries claim it to be. But sim ply, there is som ething else an unde nable, ine able som ething else; and as to the phallus, w ell, by cathecting the phallus, I becom e a subject of language and of the law; w hich is w hat I am. So I play the gam e: I w ant m y part of the action too. But, it is just a gam e, just a role that `I play; a case of play-acting, of m ake-believe,
parallax 33

w hich, indeed, for the fem ale-subject, is all the so-called truth of the signi er or of the subject-of-speech boils dow n to. In stating this, I do not m ean that w om en necessarily have a playful (ludic) attitude to life, although this is the case for som e. H owever w hen they are not under an illusion, they are disillusioned; w hich is to say that the seeming `realism of w om en is based on this illusion: w om en are able to keep on going, to do all that needs to be done, b ecaus e they do n t b elieve in it , they believe it s an illusion. There are advantages to this belief in the illusory nature of the phallus. G irls can, for exam ple, cultivate a secret sensuousness that, if furtive at tim es, nevertheless spares them for the exacting task that boys m ust confront of m aking their erotic pleasure coincide w ith their sym bolic perform ance. Such a dissociation betw een sensuousness and the signi er can favor girls intellectual developm ent, for the two spheres of logical com petency and eroticism are, in being extraneous from one another, kept distinct; and, indeed, the scholastic superiority of young girls is w ell know n. On the other hand, how ever, this experiencing of the phallus as extraneous has its reverse side, w here, far from rendering things easier, it can, for exam ple, give rise to an acute phallic ambition bordering on the sado-m asochistic m artyrdom that w as highlighted by the clinical exam ples outlined at the start of this paper. Comprising one aspect of w hat is named, in too cursory a fashion, fem inine m asochism , this sado-m asochistic phallic com petitiveness can be interpreted as a form of `delirium inasmuch as it entails the denial (or disavow al) of the di erence of the phallus and, thereby, of its illus ory status. Such a disavow al, implying an identi cation w ith the phallus as such, amounts to an identi cation w ith the phallic position of the m an and to the scotom ization (or non-re cognition) of the prim ary pre-O edipal bond w ith the m other, often quali ed as `primary hom osexuality . In refusing to accept the extraneous position of the phallus and/or her psychical bisexuality, the phallic girl w ho w ants to `have it too show s the fervour of a zealot: becom ing the saint, m artyr and m ilitant of a signi er, she `organizes her erotogenic zones in such a w ay as to deny the illusoriness of the phallus, as though all the better to conv ince herself that her belief rests upon rm foundations. The result of such a quest for equality w ith m ale phallicism is exem pli ed in the gures of the fem ale paranoiac the boss, the business w om an, etc. or the virile lesbian: partisans of pow er in all of its m ore or less dictatorial form s. It is evident from w hat Ive just said that the belief in the illusory or extraneous character of the phallus seems to m e to be an index of fem ale psychical bisexuality. The reason for this follow s from the fact that the dissociation betw een sensuousness and the signi er w hich underpins the illus oriness of the phallus is, as w e have seen based on the girls persistent attachment to the pre-O edipal fusion w ith the m other. This attachment is equally an attachment to the code by w hich this fusion w as given expression: this consists as m uch of sensory interaction as of prelinguistic phenom ena, such as rhythm s and alliteration, that, preceding the acquisition of signs and syntax, form w hat I have named the `semiotic m odality. The abandonm ent of this semiotic m odality, in favour of linguistic signs, occurs in both girls and boys during the depressive position although, here again, there are probably di erences betw een the
K ristev a 34

sexes that have up to now been insu ciently explored. Later on, the phallic structuring of the subject w ill com plem ent and reinforce language acquisition w hile at the sam e tim e causing, in girls, w hat can now be characterized as the reactivation of the depressive position and, thereby, an accentuation of the girls belief in the illus ory character of the phallus and language. It follow s from this that the illusory position that w om en attribute to the phallus can favorise the onset of depressive regressions w hen, in succumbing to the shadowy attraction of the pre-O edipal object, the girl forsakes the extraneous sym bolic order and gives herself up to an ine able, sullen and suicidal sensuousness. Som e w om en, on the other hand, display a m aniacal investm ent (cathexis) in illusory phallicism, adhering, in this respect, to a veritable logic of exhibition, such as that exem pli ed by the alluring seductress, alw ays imm aculately m ade-up, dressed-up, pretti ed and provocative. In this gure of the fem ale `illusionist w ho is com pletely conscious of the m asquerade she em ploys, w e can recognize the `girl-phallus of w hich Fenichel and, subsequently, Lacan w ere to speak. But all w om en know this gure and all of us play on it. A s a nal and precautionary rem ark concerning the phallus illusory character, I w ou ld specify that the particular phenom enon that I am describing should be rmly understood as a m anifestation of fem ale psychical bisexuality and not be confused w ith the clinical gures of `the false self or the `as if personality , w hose aetiology alw ays entails a severe splitting of the psychical activity. I have not spoken of `splitting but of `play, `extraneousness, and `illusoriness. Wom ens adherence to the illusory character of the phallus does not impede them from functioning in the social order, w here they display a certain detached e ciency. Is this not w hat H egel referred to in speaking of w om en as `the everlasting irony in the life of the com munity?

The Girls Twofold Oedipus Complex

The illusory character of the phallus is how ever but one com ponent of the com plex con guration of fem ale bisexuality. A s is w ell know n, Freud w as to alter his initial conception of the Oedipus com plex in the light of the realization that it w as inadequate to describe the com plexity of the girls developm ent. `We have the impression here that w hat w e have said about the Oedipus com plex applies w ith com plete strictness to the m ale child only [ ] .10 W hile certain theorists have been encouraged by this rem ark to reject phallic m onism and, therefore, the phallic structuring of the fem ale subject, it is obvious that I am not of their opinion. I do how ever propose that the girls developm ent be seen to entail a twofold Oedipus com plex, by w hich I m ean that w hat I have called Oedipus-1 (that structuring of the subject inaugurated by the phallic phase and indispensable for both sexes) m ust be understood as being com plem ented, in the girls case, by an Oedipus-2, in the sense of a `re-w orking or repetition of the Oedipal organization that, for this very reason, is open-ended or `interm inable . The m echanism of this Oedipus-2 can best be grasped by rst recalling a certain num ber of factors. A s w e have suggested, it is not only under the threat of castration
parallax 35

but also due to the experience of the extraneousness of the phallus that the little girl rejects her clitoral m asturbation, renounces it and turns away from both her real phallicism (from the belief `I have the phallus) and her imaginary phallicism (the belief `I am m asculine potency/impotency). W hile cultivating her position as a subject of the phallic signi er (with the particular stamp of otherness and illusoriness that she gives it), the little girl, in this phase of Oedipus-2, change s ob ject . She starts by hating the m other w ho had previously been the object of her phallic desire but w ho is now viewed w ith hostility as responsible for her castration, as w ell as for the illusion, w ith all that this implies of deception. Despite this hatred how ever, the girl still identi es w ith the m other and, even m ore, she rem ains identi ed w ith the preOedipal m other w ith w hom she had shared the M inoan-M ycenaean paradise. It s from this position of an identi cation that exists in spite of, and beyond, the hatred for the m other that the girl changes object and desires from then on, not the m other, but w hat the m other desires: namely, the fathers love. M ore precisely, the girl desires that the father m ake her the gift of his penis/phallus in the form of baby that the girl w ill have just as if she w ere the m other. The girls phallic aspiration takes therefore a new form and continues during this phase of Oedipus-2, and one can understand that Freud postulated that, in opposition to w hat happens in the case of the boy w here the Oedipus com plex is dem olished under the in uence of the castration com plex, the girls Oedipus com plex w hat I call Oedipus-2 is not only not dem olished but in fact only really com mences w ith the castration com plex. In other w ords, it is `made possible and `led up to by the castration com plex.11 The taking-up of this fem inine position towards the father is not w ithout its ambiguities. On the one hand, given that it results from an identi cation w ith the castrated/ castrating m other, at rst abhorred and then accepted, it is accom panied by a `marked low ering of the active sexual impulses and `a repression of her previous m asculinity, w ith the concom itant e ect that `a considerable portion of her sexual trends in general is perm anently injured too .12 Does this m ean that the `illusoriness is supplanted by a passivation ? A nd yet, parallel to this rise of passive trends (or, in som e cases, to a depression), the desire of having the penis ( penis- envy ) persists as a variant of phallicism: w hich proves that active sexual trends are far from having been abolished. This penis-envy can take the form of either a m asculine protest, m anifested in the w om ans behaviour or professional pursuits, or, alternatively and m ore `naturally, in a desire for a child and m otherho od. It is at this point perhaps that the w orld as an illusory w orld for w om en com es to an end and that there opens up the w orld of real presence . Representing the real presence of the phallus, the child becom es the object of a cathexis on the part of the m other in a w ay that no sign or sym bol even if these w ere phallic can be. This w as evidently understood by the last religion, Christianity, w hen it m ade a child its god and, in this w ay, de nitively w on w om en over to its cause in spite of their profou nd tendency to disillusionm ent, w hich, indeed, amounts to so strong an incredulity w hen faced w ith ideals and disincarnated superegos that Freud w as led severely to criticize w om en s poorly developed sense of m orality. The child m ay therefore be seen to incarnate, in the case of w om en, the nal phallic revolt m arking that open-ended, and therefore interm inable, phase of Oedipus-2 (`I
K ristev a 36

w ant a penis = real presence) and, in this w ay, the w om an nds in the child another expression of her bisexuality for, quite sim ply, the child is her penis and thus she does not renounce her m asculinity. A t the sam e tim e, how ever, it is via the child that the w om an acquires the quality of being `other than the m an: that is, w om an w ho has given her child, w ho has em ptied herself of it, separated herself from it. This does not m ean that m otherho od is lived or perceived as a disequilibrium of the identity or, even less, as an open structure; on the contra ry, it is m ost often lived and perceived as a state of co m pleteness , for w hich the term of `androgyny is nally m ore tting than that of `bisexuality. M oreover, w ith the incarnation of the sym bolic order in the child-phallus, the w om an is presented w ith the conjunction of her sym bolic essence (qua phallic thinking subject) and of her corporeal essence (encom passing her pre-O edipal sensuality and the sensual m other-d aughter dyad, as w ell as the reduplication of m other and daughter in the m aternal function). For this reason, and given continuation of her bisexuality in the androgyny m arking her ever-renew ed Oedipus-2, the w om an-m other can be seen as the guardian of both the social order and the continuity of the species. Wom ens character as social beings, rem arked upon by Freud, culminates in the gure of m aternal om nipotence. Today, this gure w ou ld seem to nd a new vigour in its relaying of the function attributed to the m other as the guarantee of the social and biological order. For m odern genetics and gynaecology contrib ute to w hat m ay be understood as the m other s aspiration to repair real presence; abetted by science and technology, the m othering w om an phantasizes that she is capable of doing all that is necessary, and often exhausts herself in her e orts, to not only bring into existence but equally to improve by m eans of her child the real presence of the phallus. A nd yet, this image of a hypersocial, ultrabiological and avowedly restorative fem ininity, w hile not entirely false, seems to m e to overlook two sources of fragility. The rst consists of the perm anence, in w om en, of the structure of illusion/disillusionment as regards each and every signi er, law or desire. The second concerns the vulnerability that necessarily characterizes the w om an-m other inasmuch as, in delegating her real presence to that of her child (to an other), she accord ingly relives the terrors of castration or, w orse, undergoes a violent crisis of identity each tim e that her child s w ell-being is threatened. In this w ay, w e nd once again that w hat is com monly called fem inine sado-m asochism is perhaps precisely the experience of the structural extraneousness of the phallus; for these two sources of fragility a ecting the structuring of the fem ale subject are indeed the expression of two form s of this experience and are based respectively on Oedipus-1 (as regards the disillusionm ent) and on Oedipus-2 (as regards the threat to the w om ans real presence as delegated to her `other , the child). It w ou ld indeed seem that w hen fem ale bisexuality is not securely anchored in the belief in om nipotence, it falls prey to such ordeals of sado-m asochism . W hich is, of course, but to say that the various gures of fem ale bisexuality that w e have outlined are to be understood as so m any variants of the position of the fem ale subject in relation to phallic m onism . It is perhaps the structural di culties of this positioning, m ore than the historical conditions as such although these are, of course, an added
parallax 37

factor that nally explain the tribulations that have been w om en s lot throu ghout history. Thinking back to the phallic adherence dem onstrated in the exam ples of A rm elle and Dom inique evoked at the start of this paper, their su ering can now be understood as a denial of bisexuality in favour of the phantasm of androgynous com pletion. In presenting you w ith these ashes of certain striking aspects of the `tribulations of the fem inine condition , m y aim w as to highlight that it is only by avoiding such impasses w hich are, alas, only too frequent that w hat w e m ight w ell call, by w ay of contra st, the `mystery of fem ale bisexuality can be realized. Inasmuch as the experience and the `jouissance , or pleasure of bisexuality is properly `transphallic , in the sense not of being less phallic but of being m ore-than-phallic, it m ay be described as `mysterious, in the strict sense of this term (which derives from the G reek m uo =`hidden , `enclosed ; from the Sanskrit m ukham = `m outh , `hole, `enclosure, w hich has given in Slavonic languages m uka =`pain , `mystery). Rather than w anting to conclu de that pain w ou ld be the ultimate m ystery, w hat I am suggesting is that, if there is a resolution to fem inine m asochism , then it m ay perhaps precisely be by w ay of the achievem ent of fem ale bisexuality. Certainly, as w ith all instances of success, fem ale psychical bisexuality is a phantasm , or if you prefer a prom ised land that w e have yet to attain. For not only does it presuppose the positioning of the fem ale subject in the phallic signifying order (Oedipus-1), w ith all the accom panying pleasures and sym bolic grati cations that this extraneous and illusory order procures, but it requires additionally that, via a reconciliation w ith prim ary hom osexuality, a transform ation of castration, of depression and of sexual devalorisation takes place, w ith a consequent revalorisation of the m aternal role and, thereby, of the w om ans role. A nd yet this is not all. For, nally, it implies a cathexis of the real presence of the phallus-child; this constituting an experience both of achievem ent and of castration w hich, w hile less illusory, still rem ains som ewhat `estranged . One can gauge the enorm ous amount of psychical e ort required by such a process, w hich, although never entirely accom plished, explains the strange, disillusioned and yet lively and reliable air that characterizes certain w om en. Correspondingly, a re-cathecting of orality and anality takes place in w om en by w ay of a regressive counterb alance to phallic deception. Language can then itself becom e cathected in the oral and anal register as a narcissistic pleasure, in distinction to its cathexis in the register of phallic com petitiveness. It should be noted that this dynam ic can lead to a greater importance of `tender or `a ective tendencies, in opposition to `phallic-erotic tendencies. The discovery of the vagina as an `interiority and `unrepresentable volume, that is `other than the phallus, is probably also to be situated on this line of developm ent, w ith the vagina thereby becom ing that enigmatic `dark continent that as m uch challenges phallic pow er as it stimulates the imaginary. Consisting of a veritable vortex of adherence and non-adherence to the phallus (the the signi er, to desire), fem ale bisexuality w ere this indeed to exist w ou ld be no less, and no m ore, than an experience of m eaning and its gestation, of language and its erosion, of being and its concealm ent. But in other w ords, I have just named w hat
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is truly at stake in the aesthetic experience, our contem porary and lucid version of the sacred. In this w ay, I w ou ld like to suggest one w ay of considering w hy it is the bisexuality of the G om orrhean A lbertine that Proust, in his search for things past, situates as the focal point of the narrator s phantasm s. M ight fem ale bisexuality not indeed be the object par excell ence of literature and art? A t the sam e tim e the structural relation that I am indicating betw een fem ale bisexuality and aesthetical experience can also be seen to open up another avenue of exploration that I w ou ld like to brie y exam ine by w ay of conclu sion. For it is m y conv iction that fem ale psychical bisexuality allow s us to glim pse the psychical m echanism underpinning atheism, at least inasmuch as w e can talk of an atheism that does not entail, on the part of the subject, a m ilitant anti-religious cathexis. This follow s from w hat w e have seen of fem ale psychical bisexualitys position in relation to phallic m onism : for, far from constituting a cult of the phallus, far from going beyond or, even less, falling short of such a cult, this bisexuality, in its very estrangem ent , m aintains the illusion as an illusion. A m I positing in this m anner the `future of an illusion ? But of course. W hatever one m ight say, Freud, that inveterate rationalist, w as quite right in stating that everyone w ants his/her part of illusion, even w hile obstinately refusing to recognize it for w hat it is. Wom en are, how ever, structurally better placed than are m en w hen it com es to exploring the possibilities opened up by illusion. A nd I am not sure that atheism can ever m ean anything else than leaving the Other its place and exploring all its di erent facets, all its possibilities, and putting these into perspective. This stated, it is upon the m ainspring of such an atheism that I w ou ld like to insist one last tim e. For the psychical e ort required to produce a subject of speech that no m ore adheres to the illusion of being than to the being of illusion is extraordinary. Such is the e ort that is required of that psychically bisexual being that is a w om an. A nd thereupon, I m ust acknow ledge that w hat I have said to you today is perhaps but an illusion. T ranslated b y L ouise B urchi ll
N otes
1 2

I shall com e bac k to these terms later on. Jacques Lac an, L e S e m inaire, livre V II I: L e T ransfert (Paris: Seu il, 1991). 3 M ore speci cally, this term sign i es w hat com es at the right m om ent or touches its goal; that w hich is tim ely, advantageous, or app rop riate; the dangerous critical point. In m odern G reek, it m ean s `tim e or `ep oc h . W hile its etym ology is uncertain, it is thought to deriv e from `en counter or `to cut. 4 Sigm und Freu d, `The Infantile G enital O rganization , (1923), T he P elican F reud L ib rary , vol. 7, Jam es Strac hey (trans.) (Harm on dsworth: Penguin, 1977). 5 Sigm und Freu d, `Som e Psy chical C onseq uences of the A natom ical Distinction B etw een the Sexes , (1925), T he P elican L ib rary , vol. 7, Jam es Strac hey (trans.) (Harm on dsworth: Penguin, 1977), p.341.

6 7

Lac an, L e T ransfert , p.274. See for exam ple, D.W . W innicott, H o me is W here W e S tart F rom : E ssay s b y a P sy cho analy st , C . W innicott (ed .) (Harm on dsworth: Penguin, 1986); and P laying and R eality (Harm on dsworth: Penguin, 1971 (1982)), p.95. 8 These rem ark s m ay be put into relation w ith rec ent discoveries suggest ing that the right hem isphere plays a greater role in the exerc ise of lan gu age in w om en than in m en. In being m ore lateralised , m en s brain s w ould therefore treat lan gu age in a m ore logical m anner, as though dealing w ith a logical system , w hereas, given that the right hem isp here is m ore implicated in perception-sen sation , lan gu age-use in w om en w ould be m ore assoc iated w ith sen su ou sness. It is necessary parallax 39

how ever to interpret such data w ith the greates t circum sp ection, given not only the interconnection of neu ron es but the fac t that biologic al discoveries are alw ay s open to rev ision. 9 Sigm und Freu d, `Fem ale Sexu ality, (1931), T he

P elican F reud L ib rary , vol. 7, Jam es Strac hey (trans.) (Harm on dsworth: Penguin, 1977), p.372. 10 Freu d, `Fem ale Sexu ality, p.375.
11 12

Freu d, `Som e Psy chical C onseq uences , p.341. Freu d, `Fem ale Sexu ality, p.387.

Q & A

T oril M oi ( D uke U niversity) T he q uestion is a very sim ple one. I have listened to this talk, and read the text as w ell . I know that a q uestion that m any w om en w ill w ant to ask im m ediately after listening to this is this: w hat w ould y ou say to w om en w ho do no t w ant to experience m aternity , or do no t or canno t have children? Y our talk sounds as if y ou are say ing there has to b e the phy sical, psy cho lo gical and pheno m enolo gical experience of m aternity for any w om an to get the chance of even acq uiring this m arvell ous full sense of b isexuali ty . I s that the case or no t? J ulia K risteva I w anted to ll in a void in fem inist theory around m aternity. I w ill respond to this provocation by rstly situating m y reply. Since the m oment of Simone de Beauvoir and her circle, there has been an insistence on the necessity of w om en to claim their sexual freedom , w hich often involved a refusal of m otherho od. During this tim e, m edical techniques developed in contra ception and abortion to guarantee the independence of w om en throu gh the control of their fertility. This trend, how ever, suspended m any critical issues. For instance, w e w ere unable to rethink the w orking norm s of civilisation and culture around m otherho od, for it seemed as if the pleasures and desires as w ell as the social regulations gured by the concept of the m other in the hom e la m e re au foy er w ere null and w ithout future signi cance. For this reason, the vast m ajority of w om en w ere unm oved by the fem inist m ovem ent. On the other hand, as an analyst, I have com e across m any w om en w ho w ere involved in the w om en s m ovem ent, w ho in their late thirties, began to use m edical advances such as arti cial insemination, to have a baby, rediscovering the profou nd desire of fem ininity for a child.

This revealed to m e that although w e have a dom inant discourse on rights, w e have no discourse on the necessity for the hum an race to guarantee its transm ission, on reproduction. Thus w e have a discourse on rights, but no discourse on history. I am currently thinking about a question posed by H annah A rendt in her w ork stem m ing from her thesis on St. A ugustine w hich appeared in her posthum ous book the L ife of the M ind . The argument is not a central them e, but like a ligree that plays throu gh her thinking. W hat is the m eaning of life, that is to say, w hat is life? A t present, in our societies, w e no longer have organised form s of value form ed for us by com munism or a dom inant ideology. Our ruling value is life. Is that, how ever,
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life as life that w ou ld be an idealism or is life, som ething w hich m ust have m eaning given to it? There are two m eans to give life a m eaning. The rst route, as I have been suggesting, lies in the opening up of perm anent interrogation, of m aintaining critical thought, that continues to question the impasses of living. The second route is to give life. W hy give life? W ho gives life? H ow is it possible to correlate the claim for rights and the experience of jo uissance in the prom ulgation of life? In this second orientation of the question of the value and m eaning of life, the role of w om en is of extraordinary signi cance. I shall talk about this throu gh the body of the m other w hy, I shall shortly explain. The m aternal body is in a position to transform the violence of eroticism w hich in the process of sexual liberation w om en now know for them selves into tenderness. The m aternal body is the frontier for that translation that perm its a hum an being to live, to not becom e psychotic, to not die of solitude, but to live. This gives to w om en an enorm ous role, namely the destiny of hum anity is in the hands of w om en. This is com plex. Wom en m ust, at the sam e tim e, claim the freedom to experience their own eroticism , w hile a rm ing them selves in the phallic com petitiveness I have just outlined, w hile guaranteeing the future of the species. This m ust be stated frankly and w ith the greatest of seriousness for it is a m atter of such gravity. The w om en s m ovem ent has an enorm ous responsibility, w hich until this m oment, has largely been avoided, except for one or two groups w hich have tried to address it, that is, to know how w om en can secure the future of hum anity w ithout sacri cing them selves. This involves a dialectic w hich w e have to think throu gh that w e have yet to discover. It is in this broad philosophical perspective that I am trying to re ect upon the question of m aternity. It is a fundam ental logic that w e m ust pursue and, unless w e m anage it, w e w ill sim ply be dragged along by roboticisation of reproduction and end up as breeding m achines, m aking babies like a cat its litter. To m ove back to the question about w om en w ho do not w ant to becom e m others, let m e em phasise that once again m y de nition of a particular position, a borderline situation in w hich the violence of eroticism is transm uted throu gh tenderness into sensitivity and language. In psychoanalytical groups in France at the m oment, w e are discussing this situation, w here it is not the actu al m aternal function that is in question, but other social functions, such as that of the analyst, w here a sim ilar process takes place. A s w e know , Lacan de ned the analyst as `the subject-supposedto know , thus identifying the analyst w ith the paternal function of the Law. But there is also a m aternal function in analysis, namely the translation of eroticism into tenderness. There can be no e ective interpretation if the analyst cannot assist in this translation, this sublim ation. Thus alongside the paternal function, there is also a m aternal function of transm utation. Every w om an w ill not be able to, or desire to enter into this m aternal function for herself. But there are m any social roles in w hich this attitude towards the other m ay be enacted on the edge w here the sado-m asochism that characterises the phallic com petitiveness of the technocratic society is m uted by generosity, by the favour of the self extended towards the other, as in the m other s experience of the child. This position as m ediator is possible for the `professor the university teacher. We do not alw ays achieve this, but optim ally this is the ideal. Som e aspects of social w ork perform this function of translation, as Proust de ned the w ork of w riting, w here art translates the passions into signs. This process has
parallax 41

been com pared to giving birth and becom ing a m other. But I w ant to go beyond a purely m etaphorical level to try and show how such positions are not m erely identi ed w ith a biological m aternity underpinning a position towards the other.
Q uestion I am sy m pathetic w ith y our position. B ut I w ant to turn it on its head, so to speak. I f w om en have acce ss to this b isexuali ty in a w ay that the m asculi ne co nstruction of identity do es no t, ho w is fem ale b isexuali ty as y ou say the sub ject par excell ence of art, if m ost artists have b een m ale? K risteva I suggest that this role of transposition and translation has been captured m ore often than not and contained w ithin m aternity. The destiny of the species has m onop olised w om en w ithin the translation that is m aternity. But w ith the technical developm ents around birth control, abortion and arti cially assisted childbearing, and w ith the concurrent developm ent of ideas about liberation and autonom y, w om en m ay at last perm it them selves both processes; both the translation that is involved in m aternity itself, and the translation that takes place throu gh artistic language. W ith the advent of the second m illennium, there m ay be a new possibility that w om en m ay arrive at integrating both these functions. But w e should consider w ith care, at the sam e tim e, the enorm ous overload that such a double role involves. We cannot m inimise the profou nd di culties and great e orts involved in the realisation and accom plishm ent of such a resolution. T he q uestioner replied, further stressing the co ntradiction b etw een w om en s supposed acce ss to the b isexuali ty that engenders creativity and their defaul t as artists.

Because of the concrete social constraints on w om en, they have not in the past generally had access to the sam e freedom s as m en. They have been m ore system atically con ned to their role w ithin m aternity or de ected into m ystical paths. W ith the transform ations at the social level of control over fertility and increased social rights, w om en m ay m ore generally experience w hat m en have enjoyed. W ith regard to artists w ho are m en, they have had access to both their m asculinity and to either a hom osexuality or a bisexuality that is active or sublim ated.
Q uestion G iven that w om an s desire seem s to b e co ordinated to an ob ject that perhaps participates m ore fully in the real than that of the m ale sub ject, if I have interpreted y our paper co rrectly , I w as w ondering if y ou co uld speak ab out ho w that then structures the w om an as an ethical sub ject, and speci call y in relation to the other in such co n gurations of expatriation, exile and the like. K risteva First of all, I w ant to stress there are m any gures of fem ininity and I do not think that there is one single fem ininity. The content of this particular relation to the real presence of the child, in the optim al case, is this attitude I call generosity but also that of irony, w hich has entreated the social structure towards itself. One sees this in the case of w om en in politics although M rs. Thatcher m ay be an exception w ho seem m ore and m ore able to achieve success w hile bringing to bear this attitude of irony towards the com munity w hich perm its a w ider attention towards the other,
K ristev a 42

and less toughness in social life. But this is very provisional and ephemeral because w e also note that those w ho approach politics w ith this ethical perspective of m ore gentleness and com passion towards the other are often rapidly ejected from it or sacri ced. This ethical approach w hich w om en introduce, w hich appears to involve a broader recognition of the strangeness or foreignness of the other, is a light w ithin contem porary political life, and those w ho take this route encounter m any obstacles and nd them selves m arginalised. Speaking of m y own w orld, in the university and in psychoanalysis as w ell as politics in general, one sees the ones w ho succeed are those w ho are often m ost phallicised and those extending the luminosity of this ethical position are pushed to the m argins.
Q uestion I w ould like to know if y ou also m ake the co nne ction I see b etw een y our interest in ethical responsibility and y our interest in violence . A t the very b eginning of the session, w e w ere discus sing this. T here is a need to acce pt violence rather than to m itigate violence . C an w e think these tw o things together? K risteva Yes w e m ust. But I do not w ant to be m isinterpreted as calling for the reclam ation of a sentimental fem ininity or fem ininity as sensibility. I am talking about fem inine beings w ho have not yet been w ith the possible exception of one or two cases such vigny or G eorges Sand. There m ay have been a tiny m inority but as M adam e de Se never has the m ajority of w om en taken part in this double strategy. On the one hand, there is w hat I call the phallic position in w hich violence is confronted. On the social plane, w om en reclaim an identity throu gh struggle. A nd on the level of a still phallic jo uissance , this position involves an exploration of even sadomasochism in sexuality and in the sexual relation to the other. A t the sam e tim e, the counter position involves w hat I call the ltering of feeling into sublim ation. Thus again at the level of the social, this involves safekeeping the dimension of tenderness. Perhaps an image, that of the black and w hite keys of the piano allow s us to imagine the new objective at w hich m any w om en w ill aim in trying to conjoin the double position, to dialecticise its oppositions. This novelty is not the old opposition of the m ilitant fem inist virago w ho terri es m en in the w ar of the sexes and the m other in the hom e dedicated to raising her children. It is the possibility of existing sim ultaneously on di erent levels, and orchestrating the diverse notes of the keyboard that w ill deliver to us the new bi-cephalic and bi-sexual being.

parallax 43