As he tries to measure time and space, the man seeks to measure out
the sea and this is associated with the marine loverís body. But the
facts about water do not hold and so Irigaray implores the male figure
to ë[f]orget the knife-cuts, the chalk-line partitions. Forget the appro-
priations at frontiers that belong to no one and are marked by
arbitrarily solid lines that risk the abyss at every momentí (p.21).
Like the man who is offered a foundational frontiered home in
ëFacts About Waterí and tries to control the flood, his hopes of ësolid
linesí against the ërisk [of] the abyssí are ineffectual: ëYou are now
immersed and re-enveloped in something that erases all boundaries.
Carried away by the waves. Drowning in the flood. Tragic castaway in
unrestrained turmoilí (p.36). If the man trusts the ëincorruptible seaí
he will experience ëendless raptureí since he has ëalready dwelt in the
seaí; it is a place from which he has evolved and a place that is
associated with a pre-conscious state. The marine lover asks: ëIsnít
streaming into the sea a return to the same? Isnít it going back to the
spring from whence you have sprung?í (p.37): ëthe man has still to
come who will live that love out beyond the reach of any port. Letting
go of his rock, his ship, his island, and even of that last drop of oil on
the water, and all so that he can feel the intoxication of such vastnessí
(p.47). For Irigaray, mariners ëjust keep moving on, in search of some-
thing that offers a solid resistance and opposition to their wandering.
That offers a rampart to bear back their thoughtí (p.48). She suggests a
nomadic venturing forth: ëgo beyond, walk further, and break up those
certainties with a hammerí (p.53).
Setting up a philosophical ethics that pays attention to radical
alterity Irigaray avoids gendering this as ëfeminine truthí:
She does not set herself up as one, as a (single) female unit. She is not closed up
or around one single truth or essence. The essence of a truth remains foreign to
her. She neither has nor is a being. And she does not oppose feminine truth to
masculine truth. Because this would amount to playing the ñ manís ñ game of
castration. If the female sex takes place by embracing itself, by endlessly
sharing and exchanging its lips, its edges, its borders, and their ëcontentí, as it
becomes other, no stability of essence is proper to her. (p.86)