he always has before him the other way of being human, which is to him inaccessible. The human being is distinguished by an alterity which is difference, because of his sexual nature. And within this aspect of his nature, human contingence is inevitably manifest. Sexual difference bespeaks the derived nature of the human being, and his constitutive limit.4 Not for nothing does the Genesis account of the creation of woman describe how Adam perceives Eve’s “otherness” and her difference. Inasmuch as