Abstract
Starting from the deconstruction of the essentialist conceptions of identity and the binary male/female, heterosexuality/homosexuality relationships, Judith Butler has come to question also the presumed naturalness of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, questioning the perfect match between biological sex, gender identity and heterosexual orientation. Starting from Butler’s perspective, we intend to deepen the problematic relationship with psychoanalysis, in particular with the crucial phase constituted by the Oedipus complex, which presupposes the incest taboo. Confronting Lacan and his elaboration of the Law of Symbolic, which regulates identity and sexual orientation through the Oedipus interdicts, functioning in reference to the heterosexual paradigm, Butler intends to question its immutable character and the Phallus as the privileged signifier of the symbolic order.