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According to [[Lacan]], there is nothing [[harmonious]] about [[genital]]ity.
===The genital stage===
The stages of psychosexual development are conceived by [[Lacan]] not as natural phases of biological maturation but as forms of [[demand]] which are structured retroactively.<ref>{{S8}} p.238-46</ref>
In the oral and anal stages, [[desire]] is eclipsed by [[demand]], and it is only in the [[genital stage]] as a third moment which comes after the oral and anal stages.<ref>{{S8}} p.268</ref>
However, [[Lacan]]'s discussion of this stage focuses on what [[Freud]] referred to as the ''infantile'' genital organization (also known as the phallic phase); a stag ewhen the child knows only one sexual organ (the male one) and passes through the [[castration complex]].
Thus the genital phase is only thinkabloe, [[Lacan]] emphasizes, insofar as it is marked by the sign of [[castration]]; "genital realization" can only be achieved on condition that the [[subject]] first assumes his own [[castration]].<ref>{{S4}} p.219</ref>
Furhtermore, [[Lacan]] insists that even when the polymorphous perverse sexuality of the pregential phases comes under the domination of the genital organization, this does not mean that pregenital sexuality is abolished.
<blockquote>The most archaic aspirations of the child are... a nucleus that is never completely resolved under some primacy of genitality.<ref>{{S7}} p.93</ref></blockquote>
He therefore rejects the concept of a final stage of synthesis; synthesis is not possible for human beings, in [[Lacan]]'s view, since [[human]] [[subjectivity]] is essentially and irremediably [[split|divided]].
===The genital drive===
The [[genital drive]] is not listed by [[Lacan]] as one of the [[partial drive]]s.
Given that [[Lacan]] argues that every [[drive]] is a [[partial drive]], his refusal to include the [[genital drive]] among the [[partial drive]]s is tantamount to questioning its existence.
In 1964, [[Lacan]] makes this explicit.
He writes: "the partial drive, if it exists, is not at all articulated like the other drives.<ref>{{S11}} p.189</ref>
Unlike the other [[drive]]s, the [[genital drive]] (if it exists) "finds its form" on the side of the [[Other]].<ref>{{S11}} p.189</ref>
Furthermore, there is no "genital object" that would correspond to a supposed [[genital drive]].
===Genital love===
==See also==
* [[Development]]
