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==Jacques Lacan==
===Translation===
The term signifies the ecstatic or orgasmic [[enjoyment]] - and exquisite [[pain]] - of something or someone. In [[French]], ''[[jouissance]]'' includes the [[enjoyment]] of rights and property, but also the slang verb, ''[[jouissance|jouir]]'', to come, and so is related to the [[pleasure]] of the [[sexual relationship|sexual act]]. <!-- But it also refers to those moments when too much pleasure is pain. --><!-- There is no adequate translation in [[English]] of the word ''[[jouissance]]''.<ref>It is therefore left untranslated in most English editions of [[Lacan]].</ref> "[[Enjoyment]]" does convey the sense, contained in ''[[jouissance]]'', of ''enjoyment of rights'', of ''property'', etc., but it lacks the ''sexual connotations'' of the [[French]] word. (''Jouir'' is slang for "to come".)-->
===Pleasure===
<!-- In 1960 [[Lacan]] develops an opposition -->
[[Lacan]] makes an important distinction between ''[[jouissance]]'' and ''[[plaisir]]'' ([[pleasure]]). [[Pleasure]] obeys the [[law]] of '''homeostasis'' that [[Freud]] evokes in ''[[Beyond the Pleasure Principle]]'', whereby, through discharge, the [[psyche ]] seeks the lowest possible level of tension. The [[pleasure principle]] thus functions as a limit imposed on [[enjoyment]]; it commands the [[subject]] to "enjoy as little as possible." ''[[Jouissance]]'' transgresses this [[law]] and, in that respect, it is ''beyond'' the [[pleasure principle]].<!-- ''[[Jouissance]]'' goes beyond ''[[plaisir]]''. -->
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. Beyond this limit, [[pleasure]] becomes [[pain]], and this "painful pleasure" is what [[Lacan]] calls ''[[jouissance]]''. "''Jouissance'' is suffering."<ref>{{S7}} p. 184</ref> 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]].
===Prohibition===
