Symbolic Castration and the Subject's Relationship to Language

Lacan's fundamental innovation relative to Freud was to see that castration is symbolic rather than sexually necessary. He argues that femininity and masculinity take up different positions relative to symbolic castration, and that castration is what happens to the subject when it comes into language. This implies that sexual difference is developed and articulated in relation to the basic lack that comes from being subjected to the signifier, showing that we're inherently lacking subjects.