A curious feature of current French culture is the absence, in a terrain marked by its feminist discourse, of a parallel artistic practice. The psychoanalytic writings of Jacques Lacan and the research centered around the Ecole Freudienne, the theoretical work of Julia Kristeva, Michele Montrelay, Luce Irigary, and a host of women writers have provided a framework for sexual studies in other nations, influencing literature, visual arts, and film. But despite this presence and the insistence of a strongly patriarchal culture, French artists have responded with silence, repeating the established