“In this sense, then, “sex” not only functions as a norm, but is part of a regulatory practice that produces the bodies it governs, that is, whose regulatory force is made clear as a kind of productive power, the power to produce—demarcate, circulate, differentiate—the bodies it controls. Thus, “sex” is a regulatory ideal whose materialization is compelled, and this materialization takes place (or fails to take place) through certain highly regulated practices. In other words, “sex” is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialized through time.”(Judith Butler. 1993. Introduction. In Bodies That Matter: On The Discursive Limits Of “Sex”. Pp. 1. New York: Routledge.)
According to Butler’s analysis of “Sex”, the female/male dichotomy comes into existence through the discourse. In this manner, the images of male and female bodies here materialize (or in other words (re)produce) the ideal categories of “Sex”. In these images there is a clear demarcation of the boundaries of the ‘male’ body and the ‘female’ body. By differentiated the male body from the female body, “sex” signifies very distinct set of norms for the body. The female body materializes through the ‘gaze’ of the male body and may be acted upon (or written upon, even: the Gucci G inscribed in the pubic hair of the female model). The male body acts: it may gaze, inscribe meaning on the female body (which becomes a ‘docile’ body) and has the power to produce, to govern and to control the ‘materialized’ female body.
However, while on the one hand the male acts as the producer (Eve was made from the rib of Adam) the male “sex” cannot come into being without the female “sex” in opposition to itself. Or in other words, we cannot recognize “sex” without naming the oppositional (identifying the dichotomous relationship of “sex”). And naming it is "part of the regulatory practice" that subjects the body to the 'normalizing and disciplinary gaze'. We become subjects to the "discursive limits of 'sex'".
