Abstract
ABSTRACT In order to be a radical political activity, lesbian theory has to resist heterosexual dominance and the terms in which that dominance and mastery are inscribed. How can this be done? This paper uses Jacques Lacan's theory of the Four Discourses to examine the discursive and subject positions involved in critical analysis of psychoanalytic theory itself. Feminist cultural analysts have attempted to adopt the position of the hysteric in critiquing the master narrative of Freud. As Jacobus (1986) shows, Freud was himself subject to hysteria in producing narratives of women and femininity. Feminist and lesbian critiques, in their attachment to woman, risk repeating the oversight of the hysteric and the analyst (and reinforcing mastery) by continuing to view sexuality in terms of a bisexuality composed of masculine and feminine components. Perhaps what is needed is an attempt to produce a discourse of perversion - not produced by Lacan - beyond the phallus and beyond the constructions of the man/woman thing.
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