Jouissance
The French word jouissance means basically "enjoyment", but it has a sexual connotation (i.e. 'orgasm') lacking in the English word "[[enjoyment", and is therefore left untranslated in most English editions of Lacan.
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The term does not appear in Lacan's work until 1953, but even then it is not particularly salient.[1]
In the seminars of 1953-4 and 1954-5 Lacan uses the term occasionally, usually in the context of the Hegelian dialectic of the master and the slave: the slav eis forced to work to provide objects for the master's enjoyment (jouissance).[2]
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.[3]
Soon after, the sexual connotations become more apparent;; in 1957, Lacan uses the term to refer to the enjoyment of a sexual object,[4] and to the pleasures of masturbation.[5], and in 1958 he makes explicit sense of jouissance as orgasm.[6]
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It is only in 1960 that Lacan develops his classic opposition between jouissance and pleasure,
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p.42, 87
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-54. Trans. John Forrester. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. p.223; Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-55. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. New York: Nortion; Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press, 1988. p.269
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.125
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.453
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre IV. La relation d'objet, 19566-57. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p.241
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits. Paris: Seuil, 1966. p.727
