On Viability and Indebtedness—or “Get Away From Her, You Bitch!”: Commentary on Simon's “Spoken Through Desire”

Abstract

Tracy L. Simon's case of Nora and her eloquent discussion of the traumatic dimensions of assisted reproductive technology portray the psychic burden of indebtedness when one's viability depends on an Other from whom one feels psychically and corporeally estranged. Inherent in a claustrophobic drama of indebtedness such as Nora's, be it rendered to the appellation “miracle” child or commanded by a technological marvel, socio-historical and intersubjective fonts of meaning lurk internally as mordant self-satire—all the while held as an intention and contained as viable representatives of meaning in the embodied space that awaits transference. In the first part of this essay, I write while trapped in my reverie (captive to Donald Meltzer's Claustrum and Ridley Scott's film Alien). Then, in a calmer tone, I parse the intersubjective and embodied meaning of viability—a quality of therapeutic movement during psychic standstill held gracefully by Simon in her work with Nora.

Notes

¹This discussion is the text of an oral presentation. The first section was intended to depict being inside a meltdown trying to elaborate an argument but stymied by the interiority of the meltdown. In keeping this written version close to the original, I hope to vocalize some of the flavor of an antiverbal madness.

²Versus the Lacanian simultaneous fascination with and defamation of the Internet on the grounds that it presents the Imaginary as if Real, I emphasize how searching like playing for Winnicott constructs the subject.

³Hence the title of a documentary depicting the devastation of the Castro at the height of the AIDS epidemic takes the depressive position title We Were Here.

⁴I'm indebted to Cynthia Sailors for this reference.

⁵This quotation appeared in an earlier draft of Simon's article.