Bisexuality: The undead (m)other of psychoanalysis

Abstract

Bisexuality is arguably Freud's most overdetermined foundational concept and also the one that has received the least critical attention. The author employs the Lacanian notion of primacy of the signifier to critique psychoanalytic representations of bisexuality as a primordial, undifferentiated state; she suggests that what is in fact primordial and undifferentiated is the signifier itself. Insights from the history of science and feminist theory are used in critically examining the primordial signifier of bisexuality. The author likewise raises the question of the psychoanalytic community's motivations for retaining this signifier.

Matriarchy, Matricide and Mourning

“…Rapoport correlates Freud's placing of bisexuality as 'the place of origin and the prehistoric past of the individual and the species' (Rapoport, 2010, p. 71) with Darwin's (1871) assertion that 'some remote progenitor of the whole vertebrate kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite or androgenous' (p. 525). Nineteenth century biological scientists were very influenced by the notion of primordial hermaphroditism or bisexuality (Angelides 2001, in Rapoport, 2010. Although Freud made the shift into the psychical sphere, via psychic bisexuality, it remained tied to biology and physical development.…”

“…Although Freud made the shift into the psychical sphere, via psychic bisexuality, it remained tied to biology and physical development. Rapoport (2010) discusses an intriguing idea, argued by Angelides (2001), that there is 'an erasure of bisexuality in the present tense' by Freud, as an instance of a pervasive cultural phenomenon. The suggestion of bisexuality as praxis would have been too radical at the time, following its assignation as central in the formation of all sexualities (2010, p. 72).…”