Lacan's tribute to castrating woman

The quotation of Lacan in epigraph to this study emphasizes relationships between the use of words, their operating features within the frame of psychoanalysis and sexuality which is characteristics of humans. The author studies Lacan's (unpublished) seminar which took place between 1962 and 1963 and resulted in the discovery of object (a). The prospect is androcentric in the search of woman who takes either the place of the phallus or of the Other, even though both situations are not absolutely suitable. Though desire is at the core of male sexuality via castration, female jouissance questioned by Lacan "tries to fight with this desire to be achieved". This addresses the role of hysteria in female jouissance, the object place, its brilliance, a place which corresponds to that of the inversed bouquet in the optic scheme. For the woman too, the way is androcentric. Whether through her jouissance or through her will of man's jouissance (Lacan changes his mind on this point), she turns to be desiring only by making man desiring, that is to say by castrating him. Even if it means calling forth her own anguish but man's anguish as well, the castrating woman, far from being the so-called bogey, is for Lacan someone to whom it is suitable to pay the homage she deserves as far as it is thanks to her that desire comes to achievement. In this regard, the movie entitled L'empire des sns may be considered as the ultimate reference of this structuring 'misunderstanding'. (C) 1999 Elsevier, Paris.