ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis offers rich, thick, unexpected, and ¯uid descriptions of the human mind ± but they are descriptions constrained by the binary system of Western thought, leaving them vulnerable to sliding into prescriptions of how we should be. In the context of late 19th-century medical practices, Freud's engagement with the issue of sexuality is progressive. Women are taken seriously as sexual beings. In addition, Freud (1905b) formulated that sexual desire, its aim and object, are not necessarily linked in any formulaic way. Yet, the Freudian theory is contentious from the outset because of its phallocentric biases. The classic Freudian position argues for a monistic body ego and the discovery of sexual difference via the oedipal and castration complexes and their vicissitudes. Femininity is conceived as a secondary phenomenon, empty of content, and is described by the phrase ``femininity as lack''. At the same time, revisionist ideas of a primary femininity also pose dif®culties for feminist thought.
