| Abstract: | Behind its conservative facade and the rigidityof much of its clinical practice, psychoanalysis retainsa disruptive attitude toward conventional discourses ongender and sexuality. This attitude derives from psychoanalysis capacity to look awry atexperience and consequently to undermine notions offixed identity, including sexual identity. Incontemporary work, much of the debate on psychoanalysisdisruptive consciousness, particularly among feminists,has centered on the contribution of Lacanian thinkingand in particular on the question of whether Lacanoffers a more rigorous alternative to object relational accounts of gender identity and sexualdifference. In this paper, the debate on psychoanalysiscontribution to the  new sexual agenda isintroduced and furthered by exploration of the notion ofidentification as used first in some non-Lacanian work byJessica Benjamin, and then in a classic seminar of Lacans. It is suggested that both Benjamin and Lacan offerinsights into the provisional nature ofadoption of specific sexual identities and that acontinuing critical contribution from psychoanalysis canbe found in this work. |
