The Lacanian Theory of Homosexuality and of the Family in Disorder

This essay aims to analyze two major problems in Jacques Lacan’s work. On the one hand, the problem of the transcription and establishment of the well known Seminar, a process through which, at times, certain problematic conclusions have been derived. Such is the case of Seminar five, Formations of the Unconscious, where Lacan apparently argues that homosexuality is a perversion. But if we take into account the manuscript of the stenotype version, it is revealed that the transcription incurs in some interpretive errors. On the other hand, the essay explores the Lacanian theory of the three Oedipal stages and points out to some contradictions in the text, contradictions that allow for a reinterpretation of Lacan’s theory in such a way that allows for a different analysis of the Lacanian vision of homosexuality, as well as of the issues related to what Roudinesco called “the family in disorder”.