> And for the purpose of scientific inquiry into the brain, I think it best
> to dispense with psychoanalysis, especially since psychoanalysis is
> committed to the two-sex, two-gender model (however you deconstruct it or
> nominalize it).
Ummm... yeah. Because male and female aren't "lived" experiences right? (just theoretical abstractions). I mean, we should <insert categorical imperative> ditch a discipline which investigates (critically) the way in which human beings form their identity qua ideology...
First, Lacan doesn't say that there are two sexes - more like two social-imaginary formations which tend to predominate. Men aren't from Mars and Women aren't from Venus (he avoids the biologism of Freud here). In fact, Lacan is quite specific when he talks about masculinity and femininity as both being earthbound. But this isn't the final word on the matter. For Lacan, masculinity and femininity, which he does not essentalize, are (FAILED!) attempts to come to terms with the traumatic Real. His essay on the mirror stage illustrates this. The mirror image, the ideal image, could just as easily be a third, four, fifth, sixth, or seventh sex. This is what is meant by his oft quoted statement, "There is no sexual relationship." He notes that there are different conceptualizations, different ways of coming to terms with this, but that, in the West, the masc and fem model have particular importance. Lacan's view on this is through the imaginary as a kind of ideological screen. Masculinity and femininity are two "fantasy screens" through which people establish their identity. In truth, Lacan maintains that the "i" does not exist. This is not the same as saying subjectivity does not exist. Lacan talks quite a bit about subjectivization - a taking responsibility for ones fantasy life. More than most, Lacan is sensitive to the way in which language is internalized and that our "reality" is driven by the Imaginary. There is an anthology due out sometime soon from Duke U press, edited by Renata Salecl called "Sexuation." This might shed some light on the matter of masc and fem and psychoanalysis. See also Zizek, The Metastases of Enjoyment or Salecl, (Per)Versions of Love and Hate. And new english translation of Lacan's On Feminine Sexuality is also out, which corrects a good deal of the serious mistranslations of the former translation (which might unfortunatley lead one to conclude that Lacan leaves room for an essentialist understanding of sex 'n gender).
ken