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→Jacques Lacan
===Lacan's Work===
Although not prominent in [[Lacan]]'s [[Works of Jacques Lacan|work]] before the mid-1950s, the term "[[phallus]]" occupies an ever more important place in his [[discourse]] thereafter. The [[phallus]] plays a central role in both the [[Oedipus complex]] and in the theory of [[sexual difference]].
For [[Lacan]], the importance of [[Freud]]'s insight into infantile sexuality was not whether or not girls have a penis and boys fear that theirs will be cut off, but the function of the [[phallus]] as a [[signifier]] of [[lack]] and [[sexual difference]].
The [[phallus]] in [[Lacan]]ian [[theory]] should not be confused with the [[male]] [[genital]] [[organ]], although it clearly carries those connotations. The [[phallus]] is first and foremost a [[signifier]] and in [[Lacan]]'s [[system]] a particularly privileged [[signifier]].
The [[phallus]] operates in all three of [[Lacan]]'s [[register]]s - the [[imaginary]], the [[symbolic]] and the [[real]] - and as his system develops it becomes the one single indivisible [[signifier]] that anchors the [[chain]] of [[signification]]. Indeed, it is a particularly privileged [[signifier]] because it inaugurates the process of [[signification]] itself.
===Oedipus complex===
