In Bodies that Matter, Butler focuses on problems, which arose in Gender Trouble . Butler points out that signification produces the body as an effect that presumably precedes the action of signification. She claims that the body is both prior to the sign and an effect of the sign and thus the sign is not merely mimetic of bodies, as some modernists would claim. That is, signs don t refer, mimic, or mirror bodies, they also make bodies knowable. Bodies are not produced in discourse, but are produced intelligibly in discourse.
Sex is thought to be a product of biology or nature in pre-cultural goo.
We construct these outside places with purity and blankness, when in fact, for Butler, in our construction of them, they are prepared for cultural inscription. That is, our bodies are prepared for cultural inscription through their primary marking as sexed. Butler's argument in Bodies That Matter is that for bodies to matter, they must be marked by sex. Her point is to show that bodies in their biological and cultural specificity are made intelligible by their sexualization. An unsexed body has no meaning.