Little by little, I am beginning to see the knots in my tangle of thorns. Seduction is beginning to appear as a more distinct topic and different components (all separate PhDs, I think) are now visible. It is seduction as practice, slightly entwined with it as principle, that interests me. Although I will encounter, undoubtedly, all four categories at different points of the research, I will leave the study of the phenomenon to phenomenologists and the examination of the process of seduction to self-help gurus such as Robert Greene.

Apart from Object a, the discourse of the analyst and transference, I know suspect the feminine and jouissance also have something to do with all of this. I have been putting off reading Seminar XX, but Parveen Adams’s article on Mary Kelly”¹” and Ellie Ragland’s text (How the fact that there’s no sexual relation gives rise to culture ”²” ) together with the objects I am making (reminiscent of jewellery and of being looked at… Soon, I will post pictures) is pointing in the direction of unequivocal feminine pleasures. Feminine but not feminist, although this is a new knot I will have to sit down and undo.

Funny how things go, If someone had told me a year ago that what I was doing was “feminine”, I would have closed off my ears, deny it, probably repress it and try to stop working with the materials I like. This time, and thanks to the good supervision of T‚Äî, S‚Äî and Sh‚Äî, who haven’t uttered the f-word (although they hinted at the fact that what seduced them may not seduce me and viceversa), I arrived at it myself and now see that it clearly has a bearing on the issue of seduction. Slowly but surely. Now, back to work.

1. Adams, P (1991) The Art of Analysis: Mary Kelly’s “Interim” and the Discourse of the Analyst. October, Vol. 58, pp. 81-96 [back]
2. in Ror Malone, K and Friedlander, S (2000) The subject of Lacan: A Lacanian reader for psychologists Albany: SUNY Press [back]

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