this sex which is not one

[...]... est un," in Cahiers du Grif, no 5 English translation: "This Sex Which Is One, " trans Claudia Reeder, in New French Feminisms, ed Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron (New York, 1981), pp 99-106 22 This Sex Which Is Not One ing her one, through her desire for a child-penis, preferably a boy, through access to the cultural values still reserved by right to males alone and therefore always masculine,... replaced by the desire to have a child, this latter becoming, an equivalence that Freud analyzes, the penis substitute We must add here that the woman's happiness is complete only if the newborn child is a boy, bearer of the longed-for penis In this way the woman is compensated, through the child she brings into the world, for the narcissistic 41 This Sex Which Is Not One humiliation inevitably· associated... of the visual, and of the discrimination and individualization of form, is particularly for­ 25 This Sex Which Is Not One This Sex Which Is Not One eign to female erotIcIsm Woman takes pleasure more from touching than from looking, and her entry into a dominant scopic economy signifies, again, her consignment to passivity: she is to be the beautiful object of contemplation While her body finds itself... Western sexuality proves to what extent the imaginary that governs it is foreign to the feminine For the most part, this sexuality offers nothing but imperatives dictated 24 This Sex Which Is Not One by male rivalry: the "strongest" being the one who has the best "hard-on," the longest, the biggest, the stiffest penis, or even the one who "pees the farthest" (as in little boys' contests) Or else one finds... sameness "She" is indefinitely other in herself This is doubtless why is said to be whimsical, incomprehensible, agitated, capricious 28 This Sex Which Is Not One not to mention her language, in which "she" sets off in all directions leaving "him" unable to discern the coherence of any meaning Hers are contradictory words, somewhat mad from the standpoint of reason, inaudible for whoever listens to them... discoveries about the girl's pre-Oedipal phase made by analysts working with chil­ dren encouraged a modification of the way the relation between the girl and the Oedipus complex was formulated To begin with, Jones distinguishes castration-or the threat of losing the capacity for genital sexual pleasure-yom aphanisis, which would 55 This Sex Which Is Not One represent the complete and permanent disappearance... "Passivite, masochisme et feminite," in Psychanalyse et biologie (Paris, 1952) 59 This Sex Psychoanalytic Theory: Another Look Is Not One "cloacal" eroticism constitutes an intermediate between anal eroticism and the much later eroticization of vagina the vagina is only an annex of the anus, or to be more precise it is not yet differentiated from it, and the cloacal open­ ing as a whole is the dominant.. .Sex Is Not One "proper" name, that "she" is at best "from wonderland," even if "she" has no right to a public existence except in the protective custody of the name of Mister X-then, so that she may he taken, or left, unnamed, forgotten without even having been identified, "i who?-will remain uncapitalized Let's say: J '_ 2 This Sex Which Is Not One Female sexuality has always... powerful masochistic impulses, which succeed, as we know, in binding 44 Although hysteria gives rise to the inaugural scene of analysis and indeed to its discourse (see, in this connection, the Studies on 5" 'A Child is Being Beaten': A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions," 17:177-204 45 Sex Mtich Is Not One Psychoanalytic Theory: Another Look Hysteria Freud published with] Breuer),... reactions This would account for the girl's fear of " 7:3-122 8S ee "Female Sexuality" and "Femininity." 47 This Sex Is Not One being killed by her mother, her mistrust, and her continuing preoccupation with threats emanating from the mother or mother-substitutes The "Dark Continent" of Psychoanalysis Whatever may have been established in this area, Freud con­ tinues to qualify feminine sexuality as . whispering, in confiden- tones, he nevertheless imposes what is. 12 13 This Sex Which Is Not One Is? For him? For another? is he, to expose this way what be? Alice is. "She" is indefinitely other in herself This is doubtless why is said to be whimsical, incomprehensible, agitated, capricious This Sex Which Is Not One . not to mention. autoeroticism, their homo-sexuality, might not the renunciation ofheterosex- ual pleasure correspond once again to that disconnection from This Sex Which Is Not One power that is traditionally