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"What does being queer mean?" and "Does such a question register at the level of the unconscious?" are not only questions for gay men. As one attempts to conceive of a process of analysis for obsessional males, in general, these questions appear essential to the psychoanalytical orientation of mind/body questions, as well as questions of enjoyment and desire. However, the principal concern of this essay will be to show how, for some obsessional men undergoing analysis, the question "Am I queer?" presents "homosexuality" in relation to structure rather than in terms of something that is to be cured. The first section of this essay uses Lacan's graph of sexuation to represent the structure of desire identified as "obsessional" in the Lacanian clinic. The second section of this essay extends Lacan's discussion of Hamlet and obsession to show how the designation of "homosexuality" in terms of structure is, in fact, a difficulty in the analysis of obsessional neurosis. The third section of this essay then proposes that this theoretical projection of obsession as a structure and "homosexuality" as a trait might register the question, "Am I queer?" in terms of the sexuation of the obsessional subject, without pretending-as many clinical models do-that "homosexuality" is a nosological category or structure.
I. Sexuation and The Obsessional's Question, "Am I alive or am I dead?"
In chapter 7 ("Une Lettre D'Amour") of Seminar XX, Lacan introduces his graph of sexuation (73). Lacan also tells us how to understand sexuation: because the Other (Sex) is missing, something must take its place if human subjects should presume to speak. From the so-called "masculine" position ($), the object a takes the place of the Other (Sex). From the so-called "feminine" position, either the signifier for something missing in the Other [S(A)] or the signifier for something absent (?) in the Real takes the place of the Other (Sex). Above the sexuation graph, a set of logical symbols helps Lacan to further specify the relationship of human subjects-who are either men or women-with their absent yet presumed Other.
The logical symbols above the graph represent four propositions. On the "masculine side" there are two contradictory propositions: (l)on the bottom left [3], we see that all x's (all signifiers whose subjecthood is represented by...