Lacan's gap: sexual identity and the problem of "connectedness"

Feminists have been attracted to Lacan's linguistic reading of Freud because it seems to offer a theory of subjectivity and sexual identity which has no anatomical limitations. This paper draws out the problematic nature of this project, arguing that the attempt to circumvent the necessity for paternal authority, or the imposition of "the law of the father", is doomed to fail because no alternative social bonds can be gleaned from his work. This is because Lacan does not go far enough in his linguistic re-interpretation of Freud. He does not, and cannot, take his linguistic reading into the pre-oedipal stage itself, where alternative forms of sociality might be found, because he remains contained within an individualistic model of psychic development. A communicative, interactive framework is required, capable of locating the agency of the (m)other and the significance of her potentially critical and reflective efforts to "read" the cries of the child.