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[[Freud]] speaks only of the [[biology|anatomical ''distinction'']] between the [[sexes ]] and its [[psychical ]] consequences.<ref>[[Freud|Freud, Sigmund]]. "The [[Dissolution ]] of the Oedipus [[Complex]]." SE XIX, 183. 1925.</ref>

However, both [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] address the question of [[sexual difference]], and an entry has been included for this term because it brings together an import set of related themes in [[Lacan]]'s [[work]], and because it constitutes an important focus for [[feminist]] approaches to [[Lacan]]'s [[Lacan|work]].

One of the basic presuppositions underlying [[Freud]]'s work is that just as there are certain [[physical ]] differences between [[men]] and [[women]], so also there are psychical differences.

In other [[words]], there are certain psychical characteristics that can be called '[[masculine]]' and [[others ]] that can be called '[[feminine]].'

Rather than trying to give any [[formal ]] definition of these [[terms]], [[Freud]] limits himself to describing how a [[human]] [[subject]] comes to acquire [[masculine]] or [[feminine]] psychical characteristics.

This is not an [[instinct]]ual or [[nature|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 [[masculinity|boy]] fears [[being ]] deprived of his [[penis]] and the [[femininity|girl]], assuming that she has already been deprived of hers, develops [[penis envy]].

Following [[Freud]], [[Lacan]] also engages with the problem of how the human [[infant ]] becomes a [[sexed subject]].

For [[Lacan]], [[masculinity]] and [[femininity]] are not [[biological]] essences but [[symbolic position]]s, and the assumption of one of these two positions is fundamental to the [[construction ]] of [[[subjectivity]]; the [[subject]] is essentially a [[sexed subject]].

For both [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]], the [[child ]] is at first ignorant of [[sexual difference]] and so cannot take up a [[sexual position]].

Both [[Freud]] and [[Lacan]] see this process of taking up a [[sexual ]] position as closely connected with the [[Oedipus complex]], but they differ on the precise [[nature ]] of the connection.

According to [[Lacan]], then, it is not [[identification]] but the [[subject]]'s [[relationship ]] with the [[phallus]] which determines [[sexual position]].

The assumption of a sexual position is fundamental a symbolic act, and the [[difference ]] between the sexes can only be conceived of on [[the symbolic ]] plane.<ref>{{S4}} p.153</ref>

<blockquote>It is insofar as the function of man and woman is [[symbolized]], it is insofar as it's literally uprooted from the [[domain ]] of the [[imaginary ]] and situated in the domain of the symbolic, that any normal, completed sexual position is realized.<ref>{{S3}} p.177</ref></blockquote>

However, there is no [[signifier]] of [[sexual difference]] as such which would permit the [[subject]] to fully [[symbolize]] the function of [[man]] and [[woman]], and hence it is [[impossible ]] to attain a fully "normal, finished sexual position."

The [[subject]]'s sexual [[identity ]] is thus always a rather precarious matter, a source of perpetual [[self]]-questioning.

The mysterious "other sex" is always the [[woman]], for both men and women, and therefore the question of the [[hysteric]] ("What is a woman?") is the same for both male and female [[hysterics]].

Although the anatomy/[[biology]] of the [[subject]] plays a part in the question of which sexual position the [[subject]] will take up, it is a fundamental axiom in [[psychoanalytic ]] [[theory ]] that anatomy does not determine sexual position.

There is a rupture between the [[biological]] aspect of [[sexual difference]] (for example at the level of the chromosomes) which is related to the [[reproductive ]] function of sexuality, and the [[unconscious]], in which this reproductive function is not represented.

Given the non-[[representation ]] of the reproductive function of sexuality in the [[unconscious]], "in the pysche there is [[nothing ]] by which the subject may situate himself as a male or female being."<ref>{{S11}} p.204</ref>

<blockquote>"Strictly [[speaking ]] there is no [[symbolization ]] of woman's sex as such... the phallus is a symbol to which there is no correspondent, no equivalent. It's a matter of a dissymetry in the signifier."<ref>{{S3}} p.176</ref></blockquote>

Hence the [[phallus]] is "the pivot which completes ''in both sexes'' the questioning of their sex by the [[castration ]] complex."<ref>{{E}} p.198</ref>

It is this fundamental dissymetry dissymmetry in the [[signifier]] which leads to the dissymmetry between the [[Oedipus complex]] in men and women.

Whereas the [[male]] [[subject]] [[desire]]s the parent of the other sex and [[identifies]] with the parent of the same sex, the [[female]] [[subject]] [[desire]]s the parent of the same sex and "is required to take the [[image ]] of the other sex as the basis of its identification."<ref>{{S3}} p.176</ref>

<blockquote>"For a woman the realization of her sex is not accomplished in the Oedipus complex in a way symmetrical to that of the man's, not by identification with the mother, but on the contrary by identifcation identification with the paternal [[object]], which assgns assigns her an extra detour."<ref>{{S3}} p.172</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>"This signifying dissymmetry determines the paths down which the Oedipus complex will [[pass]]. The two paths make [[them ]] both pass down the same trail - the trail of castration."<ref>{{S3}} p.176</ref></blockquote>

If, then, there is no [[symbol]] for the opposition [[masculine]]-[[feminine]] as such, the only way to [[understand ]] [[sexual difference]] is in terms of the opposition [[activity]]-[[passivity]].<ref>{{S11}} p.192</ref>

# [[Freud|Freud, Sigmund]]. (1908c). On the sexual theories of [[children]]. SE, 9: 205-226.# ——. (1923e). The [[infantile ]] [[genital ]] organization (An interpolation into the theory of sexuality). SE, 19: 141-145.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (1966). "''La [[signification ]] du phallus (Die [[Bedeutung ]] des Phallus)''." [[Écrits]]. 685-695. [[Paris]]: Le Seuil. (Original work published 1958)