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The idea that the [[phallus]] is a [[signifier]] is taken up again and further developed in the 1957-8 [[seminar]] and becomes the principle element of [[Lacan]]'s theory of the [[phallus]] thereafter; the [[phallus]] is described as "the [[signifier]] of the [[desire]] of the [[Other]]",<ref>{{E}} p. 290</ref> and the [[signifier]] of ''[[jouissance]]''.<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref>
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These arguments are stated in their most definitive form in [[Lacan]]'s paper on "[[The Signification of the Phallus]]".<ref>{{L}} "[[The Signification of the Phallus|La signification du phallus]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. Paris: Seuil, 1966 [1958c]: 685-95 ["[[The Signification of the Phallus|The signification of the phallus]]". Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]] ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. London: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1977: 281-91].</ref>
<blockquote>The phallus is not a fantasy, if by that we mean an [[Imaginary]] effect. Nor is it as such an object (part-, internal, good, bad, etc.). It is even less the organ, penis or clitoris, that it symbolises. . . . The phallus is a signifier. . . . It is the signifier intended to designate as a whole the effects of the signified.<ref>{{E}} p. 285</ref></blockquote>
Whereas the [[Castration complex]] and the [[Oedipus complex]] revolve around the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]], the question of [[sexual difference]] revolves around [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].
[[sexual difference|sex]] via the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].
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Unlike the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]], the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] cannot be [[negation|negated]], for on the [[symbolic]] plane an [[absence]] is just as much a positive entity as a [[presence]].<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref>
In 1973 he states that the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is "the signifier which does not have a signified".<ref>{{S20}} p. 75</ref>
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The [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is written ф in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]].
