PHIL

Ambivalence

A mix of strong love and hate toward the same object; not indifference.

Desire (Berlant)

What structures our relation to others and to ourselves; we want what we lack.

Freud's Ambivalence

Desire always contains simultaneous attachment and aggression toward its object.

Structure of Desire

We want objects that are both too much and not enough for us.

Preserve and Destroy

We want to keep and also undo the objects of desire.

Unconscious

Formed by repressed traumas and unfulfilled wishes that return in symptoms.

Traumatic Separation

Infant realization that desire is not always satisfied by the world.

Retroactive Wholeness (Lacan)

The fantasy that infants were once whole, though they never truly were.

Infantile Sexuality

Early sexuality based on bodily pleasure, not adult genital sex.

Auto-erotic

Pleasure that does not require another person or object.

Perverse (Freud)

Pleasure focused on non-genital zones like lips, skin, anus.

Erotogenic Zones

Body areas that produce pleasure (mouth, anus, genitals, skin).

Object-choice

Choosing an external object of desire.

Breastfeeding → Thumb-sucking

Example of repeated infantile pleasure.

Critique of Infant Sexuality

Freud means bodily/psychic pleasure, not adult sex.

Melancholia

Failure to mourn a lost object and instead incorporate it into the ego

Identification

Taking the lost object into oneself psychologically.

Aggression Turned Inward

Hatred of the lost object becomes self-directed.

Ego-love

Love is projected outward and returned through others

Oedipus Complex (Boys)

Love for mother and identification with father resolved by castration anxiety.

Castration Anxiety

Fear that father will remove the boy's penis.

Role of the Father

Rival, model, and authority in the boy's development.

Phallus (Lacan)

Symbolic meaning and power attached to the penis, not the organ itself.

Oedipus Complex (Girls)

Begins with castration and requires shifting desire from mother to father.

Penis Envy

Girl's recognition of lack and blame of mother.

"The little girl is a little man"

Freud's claim that girls start in a phallic stage like boys.

Change of Object

Girl shifts desire from mother to father.

Change of Zone

Shift from clitoris to vagina.

Oedipalization

— Process organizing sexuality and creating the superego.

Superego

Inner authority or conscience formed through Oedipal resolution.

Fetish

Object given erotic or symbolic value it does not inherently have.

Function of Fetish

Covers castration anxiety and ambivalence toward women.

Static Object

Stabilizes desire by replacing a lost object.

Floor Beneath the Dress

Fetish linked to what boys notice near mother at "castration."

Normative Desire

Linear love-plot supported by institutions like marriage and reproduction.

Non-Normative Desire

Desires that don't fit institutional expectations.

Formalism of Desire

Desire searches for substitutes for unstable objects.

Berlant's Thesis

Even "normal" desire is unstable, restless, and incomplete.

Love-Plot

Cultural story promising wholeness through romance that always fails.

Constitutional Bisexuality

Everyone contains masculine and feminine traits.

Anatomy Is Not Destiny

Freud admits anatomy alone can't explain gender.

Free Association

Talking without censoring thoughts in psychoanalysis.

Infantile Wishes

Repressed childhood desires shaping the unconscious.

Cannibalistic Desire

Oral-stage desire to incorporate the object.

Oral Stage

Mouth pleasure; conflict is weaning; fixation leads to dependency habits.

Sadistic-Anal Stage

Anus pleasure; conflict is toilet training.

Phallic Stage

Genital focus; conflict is Oedipus/Electra complex.

Fixation

When unresolved conflict shapes adult personality.

Sexual Difference Feminism

Critique of Western thought for excluding true femininity.

Binary Oppositions

Pairs like mind/body where masculine dominates feminine.

Mirror Function

Women reflect men back to themselves.

Womb Envy

Men envy women's reproductive power.

Phallocratic Order

System organized around male power and the phallus.

Failed Masculinity

Femininity defined as deficient masculinity.

Sex/Gender System

Social arrangements transforming biological sex into culture.

Exchange of Women

Kinship systems where women are traded between men.

Incest Taboo

Rule forcing women to be exchanged outside the family.

Repressive Hypothesis

the idea that Western society suppressed sexuality from the 17th to the mid-20th centuries

Power/Knowledge

Knowledge and institutions shape how power works.

Sovereign Power

Power to take life or let live.

Biopower

Power to foster life and manage populations.

Anatomo-Politics

Discipline of individual bodies.

Sex as Social Decision

Labeling sex is cultural, not purely biological.

Sex vs Gender

Sex = physical traits; gender = identity and behavior.

Intersex

Bodies that don't fit binary sex categories.

Constructionism

Sexuality is historically shaped.

Gender Performativity

Gender is something done repeatedly, not something you are.

No Pre-Existing Gender

Gender identity is created by gendered acts.

Metaphysics of Substance

Mistaken belief that identity is stable and foundational.

Heterosexual Matrix

Grid that naturalizes bodies, genders, and desires.

Parody

Imitation that exposes gender's artificiality (drag, butch/femme).