JAN KOTT
587
In nineteenth-century English , in the age o f Victori an repress ion ,
the pl ace of "coming" was fill ed by the term "spending," with the
sexual di scha rge equated with money, (e.g., th e express ion
" to
spend a
penn y"). And in most semi oti c systems "spending" is consecutive to
and pa rall el with "excreting." The descent from Genitals to Anus in
the sexual triangle is heavil y stigma tized: it is the way of renuncia tion
and repressio n.
It
is also th e locus of taboos.
The vertex o f the Anus, o n th e side of a ture, is the paradigm of
Dea th , o f Din, of Hell. Th e Hol e is at the same time animal and
mo nster.
DEATH
'---____________________________
~A~US
IIA P,EC&"
The sign o f exchange between the verti ces of the Genita ls and the Anus
is aga in
" baiser"
C baise mon cui ") or
" foutr e"
in its two senses :
" fous–
moi Ie cu i"
(fu ck my ass) and
"je suis fou tu"
(I'm fu cked up ). Through
the identifi ca ti on of the fema le with the ass the semio ti c sys tem refl ects
male domina ti on : a "good piece of ass" is fin all y just a "good piece."
"Mea t" also signifi es the co rpse in Shakespea re-flesh is trans–
formed into carrion . This symboli sm of food is repea ted agai n in the
parall eli sm of the signifi er through which foetus
=
mea t. In mythic
semanti cs menstrua tion and childbirth are often represented by vomit–
ing, the inverse and correla tive of both eating and excreting.
The sexual tri ang le delimits a semantic fi eld, but from the
outside,
on the surface o f the enuncia tio n , in the semanti cs o f concrete, vi sibl e,
social signs. But in th e interior of this tri ang le, a t the p rofound
ex istenti al level, one can con struct another triangle whose verti ces
wo uld be " I," " Yo u / the Other," and the deperson alized third person
" It. "
(: a)
