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| − | The French word ''[[jouissance]]'' means basically "[[enjoyment]]", but it has a sexual connotation (i.e. "orgasm") lacking in the English word, and is therefore left untranslated in most English editions of [[Lacan]].
| + | ''[[Jouissance]]'' is a French noun meaning approximately "[[enjoyment]]". |
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| − | As Jane Gallop observes, whereas orgasm is a coutnable noun, the term ''[[jouissance]]'' is always used in the singular by [[Lacan]] and is always preceded by a definite article.<ref>Gallop 1982</ref>
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| − | ==Edit==
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| − | The term does not appear in [[Lacan]]'s work until 1953, but even then it is not particularly salient.<ref>{{E}} p.42, 87</ref>
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| − | In the seminars of 1953-4 and 1954-5 [[Lacan]] uses the term occasionally, usually in the context of the [[Hegel]]ian [[dialectic]] of the [[master]] and the slave: the slav eis forced to work to provide objects for the master's enjoyment (''jouissance'').<ref>{{S1}} p.223; {{S2}} p.269</ref>
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| − | Upt to 1957, then, the term seems to mean no more than the enjoyable sensation that accompanies the [[satisfaction]] of a [[biological]] [[need]] such as hunger.<ref>{{S4}} p.125</ref>
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| − | Soon after, the sexual connotations become more apparent;; in 1957, [[Lacan]] uses the term to refer to the enjoyment of a sexual object,<ref>{{Ec}} p.453</ref> and to the pleasures of masturbation.<ref>{{S4}} p.241</ref>, and in 1958 he makes explicit sense of ''[[jouissance]]'' as orgasm.<ref>{{Ec}} p.727</ref>
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| − | ==Edit==
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| − | It is only in 1960 that [[Lacan]] develops his classic opposition between ''jouissance'' and pleasure, an opposition which alludes to the [[Hegel]]ian/Kojevian distinciton between ''Genuß'' ([[enjoyment]]) and ''List'' ([[pleasure]]).
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| − | The [[pleasure principle]] functions as a limit to enjoyment; it is a law whihc commands the [[subject]] to "enjoy as little as possible."
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| − | At the same time, the [[subject]] constantly attempts to transgress the prohibitions imposed on his enjoyment, to go "beyond the pleasure principle."
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| − | However, the result of transgressing the pleasure principle is not more pleasure, but pain, since there is only a certain amount of pleasure that the subject can bear.
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| − | Beyond this limit, pleasur ebecomes pain, and this "painful pleasure" is what [[Lacan]] calls ''[[jouissance]]''.
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| − | "''jouissance'' is suffering."<ref>{{S7}} p.184</ref> | |
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| − | The term ''jouissance'' thus nicely expresses the paradoxical satisfaction that the subject derives from his [[symptom]], or, to put it another way, the suffering that he derives from his on satisfaction.
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| − | ==Edit==
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| − | The prohibition of ''[[jouissance]]'' (the pleasure principle) is inherent in the [[symbolic]] [[structure]] of [[languagge]], which is why "''jouissance is forbidden to him who speaks, as such."<ref>{{E}} p.319</ref>
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| − | The [[subject]]'s entry into the [[symbolic]] is conditional upon a certain initial renunciation of ''[[jouissance]]'' in the [[castration complex]], when the [[subject]] gives up his attempts to be the [[imaginary]] [[phallus]] for the [[mother]].
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| − | <blockquote>"Castration means that ''jouissance'' musst be refused so that it can be reached on the inverted ladder (''l'échelle renversée'') of the Law of desire."<ref>{{E}} p.324.</blockquote>
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| − | The symbolic prohibition of enjoyment in the OEdipus complex (the incest taboo) is thus, paradoxically, the prohibiton of something which is already impossible; its function is therefore to sustain the neurotic illusion that enjoyment would be attainable if it were not forbidden.
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| − | The very prohibiton creates the desire to transgress it, and ''jouissance'' is therefore fundamentally transgressive.<Ref>{{S7}} ch.15</ref>
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| − | ==Edit==
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| − | The [[death drive]] is the name given to that constant [[desire]] in the [[subject]] to break through the [[pleasure principle]] towards the [[Thing]] and a certain excess ''jouissance''; thus ''jouissance''is "the path towards death."<ref>{{S17}} p.17</ref>
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| − | Insofar as the drives are attempts to break through the pleasure principle in search of ''jouissance'', every drive is a death drive.
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| − | ==Edit==
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| − | There are strong affinitites between [[Lacan]]'s concept of ''[[jouissance]]'' and [[Freud]]'s concept of the libido, as is clear from [[Lacan]]'s description of ''[[jouissance]]'' as a "bodily substance."<ref>{{S20}} p.26</ref>
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| − | In keeping with Freud's assertion taht there is only one libido, which is masculine, Lacan states that jouissance is essentially phallic.
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| − | ==References==
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