Plural Genders within the Realm of Inspiration: Rethinking Gender through Laplanche’s General Theory of Seduction

Abstract

This article examines the persistence of gender binarism through the lens of Jean Laplanche’s General Theory of Seduction (GTS), in a context where non-binary and dissident gender identities are gaining visibility and challenging cis-heteronormative expectations. We suggest that gender can be understood as an effect of the enigmatic messages transmitted to the infant by the caregiving other, in a founding and asymmetrical situation, and later organized through myth-symbolic codes. The article advances a theoretical psychoanalytic inquiry based on a conceptual reconstruction of GTS in dialogue with contemporary cultural shifts around gender. We argue that acculturation is not restricted to the pole of repetition and symptom, but may also unfold through the pole of inspiration. In this sense, contemporary gender discourses may function as alternative symbolizing codes to the phallocentric and binary model, opening space for more plural forms of subjectivation and symbolization of the Sexual.
n gender plurality. By examining the distinction made in this theory between metapsychology and myth-symbolic, we argue that the latter is contingent and has been transforming and putting in motion the processes of acculturation into new symbolizations. Our analysis of gender plurality unfolds within the realm of sublimatory movements, which oscillate between the realms of symptoms and inspiration.