SEX ON THE COUCH What Freud Still Has to Teach Us About Sex and Gender RicHaRD BooTHBY R:‘Prog tt n ¢ ‘o28 oc rR, ee — 270 Matic: Aves 2 Pak Sue : a. ae neti! Soe ek Ne 0447. Oe O54 (hae) “Libeary of Congres Cag Posen Daa PGinforma) sensu" acetate A te Ret Wb teat sete de ata yo Preface Part | Basis 1 The Pale Code of Neckwear 2 Drive You Crazy 13 Why Sexs Such a Touchy Subjet Pare It Genders 4 Love You Madly 5 Love You to Death Pact I Histories {6 Inventing the Intimate 7 Ocdipal Modersity ‘8 Bmpiee of Fetishes Endnotes Bibliography Index Contents a o ot 47 151 9 as 23 251 239 268Preface \Wstng about sexcan bea ricky busines The very ingen acs that most excite in the het of passion may stm geotsque, even comical, i the coat Tight ofreecson. Ass rl writing os sex tends fill one way othe ober, toward pornographic lation oily inl descipon. And the reason Sat hard to igure seal dese hunges fo vines yet tans sober evl- tion, On the other hand, linia! dlacsson of sex tend fli own abject. The effect may be a definite turn-off a ifthe ac of speaking obec- ‘ely of ex bloke our ety int Sects ers ofc With 0 mutually exclusive prospects Atone moment we are sept up into the heated tngency of sexo excitement that tens every seneation into new apport ity for simulation. At another moment we remain ed othe Dat world af ‘seydaypraciltisin wick the electric charge of sexual dee may som "nabutact or een val repugnant possi. “This dichotomy ofthe erotic and Ue everyday was flat Froud eo seized upon ear a defning sete ofthe human condition, For Few, the Aivide between the mundane and the erotic arises from a spi in our o¥en ‘tre war ia whlch sober ends and fib here ae pt spine the ‘raved demands of swollen genitalia, Sex divider us agains oocever. The "est is that we are never ely whole never abet engage ourselves as an ‘uncompromised ay Ether we ae ciimed bythe tan and tress f the ‘cteryday word and remain a distance fam the malo of weal dese fore ae plunge into the swirl of exsl arousal an become the Bisa lores of Eros oblivious othe ell of practi responsible. "Et Fred is ot in fashion these das. Dogged bya varied army of tac tors eho diaquslify his theories and the therapeutic practic he founded as unseen, ieectve, misogynist, o simply irrelevant to contemporary ‘neers, read sn ia some danger of bing sidelined, an interesting but ‘eft chapter ia the history of pct. Aleady more than deed 350 2 ‘nvr tory of Time magazine asked “Is Freud Dead and apeared to answer Its onn question by featuring a porta of Pre, his head exploding la cl ‘ore fragments, Art exhibit of Freud's paper a the Library of Congres was ‘ely or five yers and ery nearly ancledatogeber palin response ‘chorus of crite, outraged a oe way or anater by the thought of Feud Feeiving sch psiveatenton, Can renewed apes to Fret be anything ‘ata step bac? ‘Ofaarse thre are some good reasons to be cial of Freud Hi theories au eal sor reductive and mechanistic. Often borrotng his baie com pts fom analogies to nineecath-entury phsis and hydraulics, Freevi Pre sttempt to construc general thor ofthe mind what eal the "ppl "spete? wsietrying to do bran sarge th frm implements. In his ret case sts, despite the ingen of his atrpretations, Feud efforts ome cem far-fetched, oversmpliving or both Lik the social inept ‘votes the same joke on everyone he mets Freud ofen appeats to force the complesiy of ppehlogl materi ino the camped mold of few crue themes. Pethaps iso accident that some of hs mos famous ‘ses, a Fred himself admited, were botched and incomplete Moreover, ‘many ofthe clinical ees Fred faced ate now ost of dats I the enzed ‘mosphere of the contemporary word diheaion,alesnes, snd ale tion have replaced the suffocating rigty and soil propeety that formed ‘he background ofthe most characteris forms ofpyehologia distress in turn-ofthe century Viena, The hysteria and aniety neuroses fail to ‘Feed hve gven way in ourtime to depression, personality disorders, border- ln peyhoss and sores Sire ther iso shortage of gis forthe il af eomplait aginst Feud ‘ihn work now met wi ome justified crim, we aso ought to be pious ofits wholesale ejection. Ant-Feeud sentiment frequent roused teech by the character ofthe man as bythe content of hiss often Sounds sil and vengeil We ought to remember, to tha the context thc Feud curently judg ifr from natal Citi of read andthe time-consuming cure athe invete sweet muito insurance companies, tmsloas oct cts for peychotherapy: The eagerness of parcel giants te profit om quick-fix remedies for mental lines matched by popular land for the perf pil for every dicot. In dis way, corporate greed nites withthe modern dream af pushbutton conto to mabe the long and es sou-stroggle af papchouali Sem nt only outdated but positively ‘deta But perhaps the mot troubling ting about recent atacks on Fed iow ‘fen they ae made by people wh seem to have ead very ile oe nshing of ‘is writing, Aud wba te inthe univer een tar on the stet. Test efor youre Find fiends whorl ther eyes atthe mere mention of Freud an atk which of read tet they hae actualy read. Thve days, weal sem tof pert said that we kno Fea wellenough o dss him. Why ‘othe o read him? The most potent obstacle to understanding what Feud Id to sy about the unconscious isthe thoughts conviction thet we already da, wer il the mosphere tht now rounds hi, red may wel be the oat nant thinker of the went cenry. Fred? Sorpesing it J Yet is plausible claim when we consider the sheor ange af discplines ‘poa which his theres have ef hei mark, el that extend fr Beyond the boundaries of peychology rom anthropology and sociology to film and media tis, from itertare, poetic, ad aeahetis wo istry, biography plilosophy, and theology. Perhaps even more suiking than the breadth of Freuds pot in te univers isthe enormity of is inuence in the popular domain, Many of Fret’ technical terme io and peep rebreson, ‘enifcton and projection have become hosseok words Bat tls ery Samrty should nae us pause When we turn fom the din of Fe rit ‘cs and sete more quiet into the paps of is wrtng, oe elze ow much ofthe recived lof Freud's theories, ow part of the common knowledge that we carey with us without a second thought, i grossly oversimple or ddowneght wrong In this book want to ask whet Feud stil ba to teach us about sex. Though interest in the topic is as lively as ever, our favorite metaphors fr thinking about ser ae nom ess psychological than biological We have teadod the Frendianarana of family dynamics childhood memories, and uncon ‘cious phantasie forthe pleningly simple-sounding langage of genes and hormones. in ecansiering Fev’ contrbution, the pont eat t deny the rootednes of sexuality biology Freud wold be the lst to make sich @ lim, Rather the aim to sce how ou animal nei dot by pycho- Tegel Fctons to produce eet that ae foreign to iaogy Weare animals, outwith ist Kinky animal An the ik make al he diferece ‘Inthe couse of revising Bud theories, we wil ae a ne oak at some of his most bac concep the seul drive, repression, fish, aril, and masochism, We wills reconsider his cardinal concept ofthe Oedipus Complex rescuing it fom the red tana of wanting to kl on’ ater and !marty ones other. Yeas we nunch upon this rereading of Freud i ought to ‘beackaowledged that this book cannot pretend to be a mere presentation of Freudian theory asf exeronein the oad ld of prychoanal air war Incas agreement Init butes eatinae to age tong hola abot howe ‘tact Freud thought isto be inerprtad,“ayeoanalss® however much it Jsunited around batery ofke themes and ences lo embrace aay ‘of disparate and contending perspectives. have unfolded one such perspec ti centeredon quesons of sexuality that seems tome tobe especilly om palingand interesting ra perspective informed very much y the work of the Bench anal aeqes Lacan, probably the mos invent innovator in psjchotnalyais ince Freud himel, though a figure muck beter known in “Europe and Latin America han inthe United States. At he same ie, mp argument here is aot narowly “Taeanian”U have taken fre from Lacan ‘vat sce tome to be mot weil and convincing witout ein the need to ply the fail sip. Teovgt ao tobe sid thet this book isnot ely a wor of scalp east inthe sens that have deliberately refrained from entering to deeply {nto particule arguments between competing shoals of prychounalyic "horn what follows {have ted to ring the main pons ily to iht ltbou geting entangled ina hike of footnotes OF cours, this approachxe Poe post ars of orersimpifiction. But seams to me e sk worth aking if an succeed in showing how the Feu legacy til fer fainting and ‘eepy meaningful von of ur sexual sees or readers who want «mote ‘nuanced grasp of debates intral to psychoanalysis have appended «Dl ‘triply of sone key sources My immediate concer, however, Ie mace e- prentry: Can we tl acept Hen eaching a al Over cent afer his invention of paychoanahis, what doce he stil have to ay to ust Do his theo- ‘eseven make ene! ‘begining lew acl that most notorous of Freudian preoccupations: the pals Part I Basics1 The Phallic Code of Neckwear Although attack on Freud and his acy have been mounted from many ln characters ao pronounced tht the male who mock tea offen reste tn immediately seegaizableimpresion of homoeruality, Ix espesally Imeresig for our purposs in part beau iis partie upon the geste of ecstasy we just discussed, Inde the tno gestures ae oe found tether Cc The Pale Cade of Neckwear 18 1nd fr good reason The coqutsh gesture of hand poised over the bosom ‘ys t90 things at once, On the one hand, it coves the sense skin ofthe ‘hatin an expresion of modesty surpris, or embarassment On the other and in covering that sentient tas soil announce it. What this contradictory aétade but the very esenc ofthe coq! She tthe tse ime hy and seductive, ering and exibidonist. Whats ultimately both dssmbled and displayed she own dsc. Hovering self-consciouy ver the Brett, the cuts hand wens demurely to renounce an enjoy ‘ent ha both she abd we, Koo very wells tht TieDie “The pychounalyic perspective we hae adopted an cede cold provide the bass for an interesting reflection about adie handbags. Dut toed bymilion of women thet lite ils are absurdly isamed "pocketbook More womb-tRe than bokc-lke and stated with who knows what sort of ‘mysterlous inaeds, arent they the perfect feminine complement men's hai neces? But let eave dove matters siden favor of some concading remarks about he neck, We might ot fist how my anal ofthe neckwea ode Aiaplys something crac abost the way unconscious symbolism works [Nels fasion formen nd women faction together in nterateds tem, Neckwear thereby forms langue inthe ccc vens hit seat ‘lan give that erm asa rangement of elements ach of which ares ‘fine the meaning of the oer This concuion a vahable and interesting ‘one as eves how a highly ail end precely ructued organization operates unconsciously to shape even the most mundane of verlay pcp tons Ina sense, ever increment ofthe preceding analsis (te losened i, ‘hebowti tbe low-cut aekln, et} was already pete obvious aod al tle to everyone. What was not so obvious was the way in which these ee ‘ments work together in an ordered system of meaning. eis the tem of ‘meaning tat stray scons Taleo wan to add» comment shout the lis ofthe approach Ihave sdoptd, in the Rist place, the interpretation [have offered makes no clin tobe completely comprehensive. MY reading ofthe pale necktie no more ‘exhausts che meaning of everything people wer around their aecks than tlaritying the conjugation of verb expans everything there iso poetry. Moreover everything Ihave described is relevant only toa very specific conselation of recent history and cltre—the reader wil no doubt have toticed tht maay of my examples ae somes dated, Fashion is cone ‘tantly changing phenomenon: indeed its very existence depends upon ‘hang: Thave focused ony on ited Wie of the clthing stem that we ‘sre, Las the fio pera ave dsc ies si ler than mot, Wht makes it snp above al dhe conc character af is16 Sexo ne Coch hey element, which seve to structure a numberof gute primitive binary ‘oppositions, Casing an eye oer the age history of fishin, sick pity ‘must be jadged to be the exception rather than the rl, Mos ses fea tne are Bll around less rade distinctions, how les ipl inary dif cotatin, and sheer comprise more complex ces. “ake ogee the historic pei and simplicity of th caren nec wear cde eve with al fname question: Why he now? Aer the contemporary neces barey a entry ld I he neces icanically tid to the mle pest pd ithe spbole mechanism behind the nek is ‘therefore x lately pine ane why dont we dit popping up mae ‘rently throughout the history of dren fc the ent appearance te ‘ect fices us with double pune, fort presents te emergence of sy otal priate feature in wat others the most complex and" Hae” period of history How ial histo be explained? Thc outline ofan never can be offered the extent that he appearance of she askte coincided very lowly wth key development of industri cal- ‘ure the entry of unaccompanied women int he pu space ofthe sk {sy world, rir to the rt of uchan eptalinm, the division of gender Fe peatly slong the division of public and private spaces. But increasingly ‘thro the past centary and aly men and women have found them= ‘elven in he same social space, more and more competing for comparable jobs: Mast we not imagine that thi movement proved deep need fora redefinition of gender a eassertin of masculine ety and prerogative In that edhe masculine necktie would be exact what sitaation al fr, povidiogan unambiguous indicator of who's who. This woudl explain how the nektic solves a specify moder problem, bt als why relies on & relatively primitive meas of doing. The qas-natural basis of an cone “symbole woul be jst the thing to graphically butte the boundary beeen mascline ad feminine. However ett this explanation must rma et usin dosing venue a prediction onthe aio Foe fers any tah othe thesis that the nek "eanowered wo the pei ressre of indutiied alte, may passa tlinost a quickly at peated. Indeed, don't we seedy ce this process Dlnning” More nd more frequent one secs wel dressed men without 8 ti somties wit the colar batons ip if to Maun the dat. Fashion tstchers ive even coined term for i he" Te? Fora Sturdy ete, tthe symphony in 1950, would have been hard to find a single man without a necte These days 2 visio the same concert hall wil find whole ‘squadrons of prt jackas pulled on ove pols tstlnecks pen Oxfords, o€ en Tats, ‘Maybe the necktie ely is onthe way out, about to fallow the codpece ‘onto the a heap of costime history [toes seem that ie ae losing the canonical satus they have enjoyed for long The insttation ofthe neces co The Phalie Cade of Nears 17 begaalng o have th aur of something pst. Then again, these developments ‘hay have nothing odo with relxation fe tenons tha gave ise othe Cheat code of necks, Aer ly eles experimentation in one ofthe prime tris of or current catarl moment, Postmodern erodes 0st rerything exept its own hunger for novel. Wl thei di? Perhaps Bu, sth or without the nectl, men and women wil Hel continue the gate of Aresng gender and ad ne toens co play i with. The theater of genders stllan immensely compeling and enjoyable ne and we will no dob find re languages with which sept tel Refine retried to shot how pli yb far the Ky slernent of contem- porary men's dress and, by extension, organizes a whole series of core ‘Spending fashions for wornen. My am was to demonstrate the cotinaing ‘elevanct of cardinal Feeudan concep at time when pyehounalyis nds el generally under attack, For thove who Ha the enalyicompeling in fact, precisely tothe extent that they are persuaded by i—the question ‘might now be why they've never heard anything ike it befor, When 1 Sst ‘begun reflecting about the nck, atked mye the same thing. The more invertignted the more obviously phallic the necktie appeared to me So obvious in fic that nthe end what astonished me moet Ws tat ew ‘other peopl seed to notice. red himeelf more than once pointed to the phallic yb of eck ti, yt he sggetion snot gotten nach play among student of fon ven among wets fen toa payehoualyte vewpolt the palicharo ter of the necktie receives surpvsingly litle discussion JC. Hlgel echoes Feud’ view ina couple of ines ois expres psychoanalytic cassie The Py ‘holy of Cotes, but one can coml through a great stack of book on the “ymboivlu of ching om Roland Barthes programmatic ey on The sion Stem to more spite work, ich a Fund Berges ohn aad the Uncommon, Susan Kates Soil Pcl of Clothing, Alison Lare's ‘The Lanqugeof Clothe, red Davis Fain, Cure and Identity or een ‘Anne Hollander Sex and Suits and find vitally nothing about the phallic teekte Hw to explain thi abuenceof remark? Is posible {suppose that st ‘ents of fishion consider the plc necktie o be to obvious, too ea (109 ‘oma to deere farther comment But I sapet tha there reason is ‘leewhere It seme to me tobe a care in which our very family with Freu's teas has prevented ws fom relly applying thers, The Freudian tion of phallic eymbolism has become comnonplace othe pl of dere banality. In ordinary conversation, to point outa pall yiol may get a round of chuckles, but lets because sonte object has been amusingly ‘unmasked than Because the Freudian theory of phalic symbols itself nowstrikes everyone fir lnghable These days, adopting «Freudian view Print ends to be something a joke, Ofcourse, the precoding analysis of elven as ay aly, then the joke, quite Iter on ws. Novels, ‘he guetion remain ato why, except among cle of academic insiders the psyehounalji deory now Baas tin eee The answer to this question is complex. As Freud sad ofthe meaning of dams, derivig ae the do fom varios sourcesin memory and fing, ‘responding to mull ers ofthe ming the arses overdetermined Yet eps the fire and most morta thing tobe ak ihat Pred has bon a "csi of is wn succes. Fre send attack these days in art peeclely becae his thought has enjoyed such enormous iafuence. Though eat sham to have ade specie lly {think its safe be tht among PhD. ds ‘erations writen inthe Western word daring the second bao hetweateth century the nomber devoted primarily on sigiiant part to Freed would ‘clipe tay other ingle igre. His dss have percolated far beyond the ei {al ensuing room i whi they originated and have eft an enduring mark ‘rea astonishingly wide ange ofl Freda theory has become pat of ‘he eset grammar of modern intelectual ite "Noch Freud's mpact ee itd to the academy, sen more impresive |shis old onthe popular mination, Whee he knows ito notte aer- ‘ge Joc the sect now thinks and speak in Heudanere “Ils ood get ‘he ange out say one person nan stn eho of Fou ely theory af ‘motional atari "don lt it et tld up ine! °c dei with that sys ancer woavare that he shes borrowing the er on Be y= ‘hoanaltic theory of dentition theory, Incidental, as eubtle and ‘mpi a anything athe whole of Freud's work "Dont beso anal about ‘erything” sy thi "you aed token up and eno” And 0 goes ‘withthe tany of cher analytic notions, fom ibid, repression, and the unconscious to the id ego and superego; rom the Oedipus and castration mpexs projection and, of cous, penis envy. what otber cave has the techni vocabulary of ges thinkers lexicon intended most fr taining ‘care of profesional colleagues, een xed aod inthe Bld of popu Bet there ae presto be pid for such extensive notorety. The fs i