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This is not an instinctual or natural process, but a complex one in which anatomical differences interact with social and psychical factors.
The whole process revolves around the [[castration complex]], in which the boy fears being deprived of his penis and the girl, assumin assuming that she has already been deprived of hers, develops [[penis envy]]. --
==Lacan on Sexual Difference==
Following [[Freud]], [[Lacan]] also engages with the problem of how the human infant becomes a sexed subject.
"Man" and "woman" are signifiers that stand for these two subjective positions.<ref>{{S20}} p.34</ref>
For both [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]], the child is at first ignorant of [[sexual difference]] and so cannot take up a sexual position.
