With thisnew name we mayhave avoided the surface reasons for the
aversion to the penis envy/phallic striving concept,
but below this lies a more fundamental cause of conflict - the idea that only two
basic identities are available - those
of an active male and of a castrated male - makes anyintelligent person feel cornered
and lookfor a wayout.
Unfortunately the dualityis so deep -in the mostbasic layers of the psyche, introduced there
by every consciousand unconscious behaviorof the adults - that it can not
be avoided - all of the daily increasingnumberof socially acceptable
identities which we maychoose from, can be reduced toone of the two - passive castrated
or active phallic, and all the corresponding
abstract divisionslike man/woman, strong/weak, light/dark, good/bad, intellect/emotion,
sun/moon, sky/earth etc: "...an identity assumedin language withina
particular symbolic system known as patriarchy and describedby Lacan, in whichthe
only possible subjectposition is masculine.
Within this system, the onlyfeminine identity available towomen is that of
'defective' or 'castrated' men. 15" A consciouslyachieved existence outside this duality can be
achieved - if severe selfdiscipline and intense efforts are directed into
undoing the pressures of the patriarchal social structures if one manages todeactivate all
ofone's mental and emotional programming reaching back to the first months of life a
goal the achievability of which isinthe sphere of
the theoretical.
The active/passive or male/female character dualityis also present in each
human with patriarchal type of psychic structure, male and female, but as the social climate
and therefore the individual Superego can normallyallow only the partof the duality which
corresponds to the 'gender', to reachthe surface of the consciousness, as we remember in the
'phallic' stage a choice of behavior and selfperceptionis forced onthe growing individual -
'thou shall be active and sadistic, and thou -passive and masochistic!', the
phenomenon of 'splitting off' and 'projection'
takes place - when one human projects upon another those
personal traitswhich it's Ego cannot for somereason orother to accept
- including sadistic or masochistic impulses.
This process ofprojection happens in intimate relationships, in
friendships, businesscontacts and during psychoanalytical sessions too, the psychoanalysts
frequently, according to some- always - is an object of negative
orpositive projections originatingfromthe patients, who project their inner authorities, loves, hates, and
fears upon the person of the analysts, wanting at different times
to submit, or rebel, or attack, or have sex with the latter.
Margaret Whitford, 'The Irigaray reader' p3, Blackwell Publishers ltd, 1997
Anxietyand Arousal
Freuduses the term 'fetish'('Fetishism', 1927), tosignify the
substitute penis which the fetishist chooses. The need for a substitutepenis comes from the male horrorof
the vagina - the vagina beingseen as a castration wound, which makes
the possibility of loosing the penis real and with high
levels of guilt and anxiety - imminent - so the mind, trained
from childhood to perform such tricks - cuts out the
image of the vagina and chooses a substitute penis on which to focus its
attention. Hence the 'arousing' effect of suspenderbelts, high
heels, painted toes - arousing in the sense of allowing the
male to fend off anxiety well enough to be able to keep thepenis erect.