From the sexual difference to sexuation

Abstract

The author revisits a route in Lacan's production that is located between the work "The Signification of the Phallus" and the seminar "Encore", to demonstrate the shift that occurs in the field of psychoanalysis, in regard to the location and function of marking the sexual difference in the structural web of the subject's constitution. As the operator of this twist, the author refers to the notion of jouissance and to the sexuation mathemes developed by Lacan, which led to a consideration of sexuatinno longer distinguished solely by the phallus and the "ideal types" of each sex, but by the field of jouissance, there included the feminine jouissance.