Castration and Conformity

ABSTRACT

Castration anxiety is a contentious issue for contemporary psychoanalysis and necessarily occupies a central position in the theory that Freud developed, at the crossroad between the individual and his desires, the individual and his sexuality, and the individual and civilization. In this wider sense, castration anxiety describes a state of mind in which individuals, women as well as men, must battle throughout the course of their lives against limitations and, hence, so-called safe pleasures (security, reproduction, family, etc.) brought about through the constraints imposed on them by civilization. From this perspective, castration anxiety can be seen as a primary gesture toward a sexuality that becomes enmeshed in conflict and obscured by a sense of shame and guilt. Exploring the works of contemporary British artist Sarah Lucas, the Italian writer A. Moravia, and the Italian director M. Ferreri, followed by a series of brief clinical vignettes, I underline and discuss the oppositional and unfulfillable search for lust encapsulated in Freud’s castration anxiety concept and the eternal mysteriousness of sexuality.

Notes

¹ Original Italian text, Asor Rosa, A. (2015): “In letteratura, come in qualsiasi altra operazione storica umana, non c’è disvelamento della verità senza conflitto. Solo l’‘opposizione’ consente il disvelamento delle apparenze e l’emergere dei tratti più nuovi del reale—e del pensiero. Se non c’è conflitto, non c’è pensiero nuovo; e se non c’è pensiero nuovo non c’è nuova rappresentazione—il mondo resta una veste esteriore che ricopre a stento, sempre, le vecchie apparenze” (pp. 8–432).

² Writer, poet, photographer, most of all artist, C. Cahun (1894–1954) put the exploration of ambiguity and differences of the gender at the center of her art.

³ L. Bourgeois (1911–2010) inspired many young students to make art that was feminist in nature. In 2010, in the last year of her life, Bourgeois used her art to speak up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality. She created the piece I Do, depicting two flowers growing from one stem, to benefit the nonprofit organization Freedom to Marry. Bourgeois has said “Everyone should have the right to marry. To make a commitment to love someone forever is a beautiful thing.” In her book, Decostruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father, she says, “In my work, there is always a sexual allusion. Sometimes, I am exclusively interested in the female form—cluster of breast-like clouds—but most often the images are fused- phallic breasts, masculine and feminine, active and passive” (my translation).

⁴ Born in 1954, Kiki Smith in her earlier pieces of art confronted subjects such as AIDS, gender, and race.

⁵ Born in 1963, Tracy Emin’s art has an immediacy and, often, a sexually provocative attitude that firmly locates her oeuvre within the tradition of feminist discourse. Her interest in the work of Edvard Munch and Egon Schiele particularly inform Emin’s paintings, monoprints, and drawings, which explore complex personal states and ideas of self-representation through manifestly expressionist styles and themes.

⁶ Exhibited at the 56 Biennale dell’arte in Venice, 2015.

⁷ In 1948, Moore won the International Sculpture Prize at the Venice Biennale.

⁸ Italian critic, Adelio Ferrero traced three ideologically constitutive elements at the heart of Italian cinema. “Cinema as contribution to the self-understanding and consolidation of a ‘new Italy,’ the discovery of the ‘wretched’ and their demand for justice, the resurfacing of the tradition of realism’ (Ferrero, 1978, p. 233).

⁹ Also notable: A. F. De Sade (1785), Les Cent Vingt Journées de Sodome ou l’École du libertinage; G. Bataille (1928), Histoire de l’oeil (in the Italian version, there is an introduction made by A. Moravia, 1990); J. Jenet (1947), Querelle de Brest; etc.

¹⁰ In a Lichtenstein (1977) interview, Ferreri said: ‘‘The values that once existed no longer exist. The family, the bourgeoisie - I’m talking about values, morals, economic relationships. They no longer serve a purpose. My films are reactions translated into images.’’

¹¹ Also see, La donna scimmia, 1964; L’ape regina, 1964; Il futuro è donna, 1984.

¹² Also see, The last woman, 1976; Ciao Maschio, 1978; I love you, 1986.

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Notes on contributors

Anna Migliozzi

Anna Migliozzi is a Full Member of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and Supervisor in the Analysis of Children and Adolescents. She has studied and trained with Frances Tustin, Donald Meltzer, Eric Brenman, Antonino Ferro, and Franco De Masi and is committed to the use of Bionian theory in the treatment of children. She has a private practice in Milan, where she works with children and adults who suffer from severe psychotic and borderline disorders. Her recent publications include Passion, in The Wilfred Bion Tradition, edited by H. B. Levine and G. Civitarese, Karnac 2015; The Attraction of Evil, in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP), 2015; and Re-membering the Dead Mother in Representation and the Work of the Negative, coauthor H. B. Levine, in press.