by those who determine the usable termsnof discourse, permit only authorizedndesires and such. So, through the applicationnof semiotics to psychoanalysis, ornvice versa, one should be able to seenthrough the artificial walls of what mostnconsider to be civility and thus becomena fuller, more whole individual—^unlessnthat person goes mad trying to makensense of the “deliberately a-systematic”nschema of Lacan that’s so admired by Silverman.nAs a sign-reader of yore mightnhave put it while poking through somenentrails, “Things are overly ripe here.”nJr sychoanalysis is also afertile groundnfor feminists, as evidenced by FemininenSexuality, a collection of articles andnseminars by Lacan and his school, thenecole freudienne. The basic issue is thendifference between a man and a woman.nEveryone, presumably, knows what thatndifference is, but Freud cautioned hisnpeers and heirs that “we must keepnpsychoanalysis separate from biologynjust as we have kept it separate fromnanatomy and physiology.” In other words,nFreud had staked a claim and he wasn’tnabout to let any interlopers take it awaynfrom him. Ignore the obvious, forget thenfact that there are material differencesnbetween men and women (and betweennthe sexes of all other species, for thatnmatter), that God or Nature had deemednthe arrangement a pretty effective waynof maintaining the proliferation of lifenforms throughout the ages. The turf ofnthe psychoanalysts is the unconscious,nso the discourse about the differencenhas to be conducted through nonmaterialnmeans. Freud had showed that many ofnthe problems of humans are located inntheir psyches and that these dUHcultiesnare essentially sexual in nature. Now itnseemed that the unconscious is a neuternsort of place (though Freud posited ansingle libido that is “invariably andnnecessarily of a masculine nature”), or atnleast it is at the very start, before culturenstarted land development operationsnand so set up various fences and walls.nCulture is language bound, so it is a simplenstep for Lacan to point out that thenlOinChronicles of Culturenreal difference between a male and anfemale is simply a linguistic one. We are,nafter all, merely “speaking beings,” hensays. Thus what was historically thoughtnto be the most obvious distinction, thenpenis, becomes the symbolic phallus,nwhich is no longer a physical differencenbut a metaphysical one. It is, as Lacan definesnit in “The Meaning of the Phallus,”n”the signifier of the desire of the Other.”nThe Other for Lacan, Jacqueline Rosenexplains in her introduction to FemininenSexuality, is a “fantasied place,” “a pointnof certainty, of knowledge and of truth”nthat does not exist. Desire, Lacan maintains,n”is neither the appetite for satisfaction,nnor the demand for love, but thendifference resulting from the subtractionnof the first from the second, the verynphenomenon of their splitting (Spaltung).”nA little linguistic addition of thesenterms provides the result that the phallusnsignifies nothing. So while it might appearnthat men have something thatnwomen lack, that something is nothing,nthe null set at best.nA charge could be raised against thisninterpretation: It is a simplification. Thatnis true; it does simplify things. There is ancontrary tendency in psychoanalyticn(and semiotic) literature; it tends to becomenhighly complex and involved. TonMushnHoss rh(iiii:is: Missionary Sli’ir;nSimon & Schuster; Now York.nKDSsThoiiKi.s’s pri)si-Mli’ is.siihllfaniln.MiKiiilli: ii lus .III :ippi-:ilinj> inalli-ahililynIIKII pi’i’inils i”i> is ilii: jpproaiii lliai MiDMiaNnnnwit: an editor’s footnote to the last chapternof Feminine Sexuality, which reads,nin part, “Lacan’s difficulty in many waysnbecame greater in direct proportion tonhis increasingly elaborated use of thentheory of knots.” Alexander the Greatnhad the proper approach to such entanglements.nSuch verbal excesses,nFreud’s previously quoted commentnabout keeping psychoanalysis separatenfrom biology, anatomy, and physiology,nand Lacan’s now-famous “re-reading” ofnFreud have a correspondence that leadsnto a questioning of the viability of psychoanalysisnas anything but a practicenfor a secular priesthood or a club devotednto the marginalia of existence. The cultndeliberately closes its ranks, striving notnto provide a complete picture of thenhuman subject—as that would involvennot only physical sciences, but religionnas well—but to create an area of its own,na topography sealed off by ropes tiednwith knots, a webbing that permits somenthings to slip out and inhibits anything ofnconsequence from passing in. Not onlynis this evident in the argot of psychoanalysisn(which is undergoing an exchangenwith the equally tortuous vocabularynof semiotics), but also in Lacan’s attitudenas time passes, as he moves fromnrebel to savant. With power, it seems.niilili/i-s in Missiiinciry SIcn’: hi- ealer.s lunv:iri(His. th()iii>li evM-nlialK similar, cisics:nihosi- wiui enjoy live liing si-Mial i-.siapadesnri-ndin-d in :i fairly iliasie niannrrnwill relish an ailair and iiicesl: diosi’nwhose nosi- (.jrulase is on llie divliiii’nwill .saliali'(snilli”)oir iwo ionsoleoke;nand lliosi- who hiingi-r lor omspiraiiisnandorgovemnu’iil eoMTiipswillheconii’ndelirious as I’hoinas cooks up the I’lil vs.nthe (;i.. I 111- };i-oeery store t;ibloids aren’tniioie