The Logics of Sexed Being

After its Freudian phase, psychoanalysis had to rethink its conception of sexuality. Lacan showed that Freud’s entirely phallic Oedipal logic was not the norm, but only a male norm. Some women adopt it, but many others prefer a logic that is not entirely phallic, in which they lend themselves to the object of discourse and develop a different supplement beyond it, a logic that we can call “the feminine deal.” Many men remain within the entirely phallic logic, but others depart from it, particularly those who share a deal with a woman. These logics have a hidden connection with a particular gap in the sexual relation between men and women. Language has constructed symbols, signifiers, and civilizational logics to supplement it, but it has also increased the gap between the two sexes, while forgetting its cause. None of this is directly accessible in Lacan’s text, because after his expulsion from the International Psychoanalytical Association, he decided never again to speak directly about what he was questioning, and encrypted and disseminated his entire construction, accompanying it with a paradoxical verdict: “There is no sexual relation.” Accessing his construction today therefore requires a step-by-step approach, articulating each clue, each letter, in order to gradually reveal a more than surprising overall message.