Changes

==Translation==

''[[Jouissance]]'', and the corresponding verb, ''[[jouir]]'', refer to an extreme [[pleasure]]. It is not possible to translate this French word, ''jouissance'', precisely. Sometimes it is translated as '[[enjoyment]]', but enjoyment has a reference to pleasure, and ''jouissance'' is an enjoyment that always has a deadly reference, a paradoxical pleasure, reaching an almost intolerable level of excitation. Due to the specificity of the French term, it is usually left untranslated.

<!-- 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]].-->

<!-- Lacan develops this opposition in 1960, in the context of his seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. -->

<!-- In 1960 [[Lacan]] develops an opposition -->

<!-- ''[[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]]. -->

<!-- ==Masochism== There is an important difference between [[masochism]] and [[jouissance]]. In [[masochism]], [[pain]] is a means to [[pleasure]]; [[pleasure]] is taken in the very fact of [[pain|suffering]] itself, so that it becomes difficult to distinguish [[pleasure]] from [[pain]]. With ''[[jouissance]]'', on the other hand, [[pleasure]] and [[pain]] remain distinct; no [[pleasure]] is taken in the [[pain]] itself, but the [[pleasure]] cannot be obtained without paying the price of [[pain|suffering]]. It is thus a kind of ''deal'' in which "[[pleasure]] ''and'' [[pain]] are presented as a single packet."<ref>Seminar of 27 February 1963. J. Lacan, The Seminar. Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. p. 189.</ref> -->

<!-- <blockquote>"Castration means that ''jouissance'' must be refused so that it can be reached on the inverted ladder (''l'échelle renversée'') of the Law of desire."<ref>{{E}} p. 324</ref></blockquote> -->

The [[symbolic]] [[prohibition]] of [[enjoyment]] in the [[Oedipus complex]] (the [[incest]] [[taboo]]) is thus, paradoxically, the [[prohibition]] of something which is already impossible; its function is therefore to sustain the [[neurotic]] [[illusion]] that [[enjoyment]] would be attainable if it were not forbidden. The very prohibition creates the [[desire]] to transgress it, and ''[[jouissance]]'' is therefore fundamentally transgressive.<ref>{{S7}} Ch. 15</ref>

The [[death drive]] is the name given to that constant [[desire]] in the [[subject]] to break through the [[pleasure principle]] towards the [[Thing]] and a certain [[surplus|excess]] ''[[jouissance]]''; thus ''[[jouissance]]'' is "the path towards death."<ref>{{S17}} p. 17</ref> Insofar as the [[drive]]s are attempts to break through the [[pleasure principle]] in search of ''[[jouissance]]'', every [[drive]] is a [[death drive]].

=====Master-Slave Dialectic=====

''Jouissance'' is not a central preoccupation during the first part of

What is left over after this negativization (—) of ''jouissance'' occurs at two levels. At one level, ''jouissance'' is redistributed outside the [[body]] in [[speech]], and there is thus a ''jouissance'' of [[speech]] itself, out-of-the-body ''jouissance''. On another level, at the level of the [[lost object]], [[object a]], there is a plus (+), a little compensation in the form of what is allowed of ''jouissance'', a compensation for the minus of the loss which has occurred in the forbidding of ''jouissance'' of the [[Other]].

=====Law and Prohibition=====

The speaking being is alone with his/her ''jouissance'' as it is not possible to share the ''jouissance'' of the Other. The axiom that Lacan has already given in earlier seminars, [[there is no sexual rapport]], comes to the foreground in Encore as male and female coming from a very different ''jouissance''; different and not complementary. It is a difference in the relation of the speaking being to ''jouissance'' which determines his being man or woman, not anatomical difference.

Sexual ''jouissance'' is specified as an impasse. It is not what will allow a man and a woman to be joined. Sexual ''jouissance'' can follow no other path than that of [[phallic]] ''jouissance'' that has to pass through [[speech]]. The ''jouissance'' of man is produced by the [[structure]] of the [[signifier]], and is known as [[phallic]] ''jouissance''. The [[structure]] of [[phallic]] ''jouissance'' is the [[structure]] of the [[signifier]]. Lacan proposes a precise definition of man as being subject to [[castration]] and lacking a part of ''jouissance'', that which is required in order to use [[speech]]. All of man is subjected to the [[signifier]]. Man cannot relate directly with the [[Other]]. His partner is thus not the Other sex but an object, a piece of the body. Man looks for a little surplus ''jouissance'', that linked with object a, which has phallic value.

In '[[La Troisième]]', presented in Rome in 1974 (Écrits, 1977), Lacan elaborates the third ''jouissance'', jouis-sens, the ''jouissance'' of meaning, the ''jouissance'' of the unconscious, in reference to its locus in the [[Borromean knot]]. He locates the three ''jouissance''s in relation to the intersections of the three circles of the knot, the circles of the [[Real]], the [[Symbolic]] and the [[Imaginary]]. The Borromean knot is a topos in which the logical and clinical dimensions of the three ''jouissance''s are linked together: the Other ''jouissance'', that is the ''jouissance'' of the body, is located at the intersection of the Real and the Imaginary; phallic ''jouissance'' is situated within the common space of the Symbolic and the Real; the ''jouissance'' of meaning, jouis-sens, is located at the intersection of the Imaginary and the Symbolic. It is the [[object a]] that holds the central, irreducible place between the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary.

<!-- There are strong affinitites between [[Lacan]]'s concept of ''[[jouissance]]'' and [[Freud]]'s concept of the [[libido]], as is clear from [[Lacan]]'s description of ''[[jouissance]]'' as a "bodily substance."<ref>{{S20}} p. 26</ref> In keeping with [[Freud]]'s assertion that there is only one [[libido]], which is [[masculine]], [[Lacan]] states that ''[[jouissance]]'' is essentially [[phallic]]; <blockquote>''Jouissance'', insofar as it is sexual, is phallic, which means that it does not relate to the Other as such."<ref>{{S20}} p. 14</ref></blockquote>

However, in 1973 [[Lacan]] admits that there is a specifically [[feminine]] ''[[jouissance]]'', a "supplementary ''jouissance''"<ref>{{S20}} p. 58</ref> which is "beyond the phallus,"<ref>{{S20}} p. 69</ref> a ''jouissance'' of the [[Other]]. This [[jouissance|feminine jouissance]] is ineffable, for [[women]] experience it but know nothing about it.<ref>{{S20}} p. 71</ref> In order to differentiate between these two forms of ''[[jouissance]]'', [[Lacan]] introduces different [[algebra|algebraic]] [[symbol]]s for each; '''Jφ''' designates [[phallus|phallic ''jouissance'']], whereas '''JA''' designates the ''[[jouissance]]'' of the [[Other]]. -->

In the [[seminars]] of 1953-4 and 1954-5 [[Lacan]] uses the term occasionally, usually in the context of the [[Hegel]]ian [[dialectic]] of the [[master]] and the [[slave]]: the [[slave]] is forced to work to provide objects for the [[master]]'s [[enjoyment]] (''[[jouissance]]'').<ref>{{S1}} p. 223; {{S2}} p. 269</ref> -->

Lacan's contribution to the clinic is paramount in regard to the operation of ''jouissance'' in neurosis, perversion and psychosis. The three structures can be viewed as strategies with respect to dealing with ''jouissance''.

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