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==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>

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

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

In his [[seminar]] of [[Seminar VII|1959-60]], [[Seminar VII|The Ethics of Psychoanalysis]], Lacan deals for the first time with the [[Real]] and ''jouissance''. Although the [[Real]] of the 1960s is not the same as his use of the Real in the 1980s, the first concepts emerge in this seminar. Here ''jouissance'' is considered in its function of [[evil]], that which is ascribed to a neighbour, but which dwells in the most intimate part of the [[subject]], [[extimate|intimate]] and [[alienated]] at the same time, as it is that from which the [[subject]] flees, experiencing [[aggression]] at the very approach of an encounter with his/her own ''jouissance''. The chapters in this seminar address such concepts as the ''jouissance'' of [[transgression]] and the paradox of ''jouissance''.

=====Symbolic Castration=====

It is in the text '[[The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the Freudian unconscious]]' that a [[structure|structural]] account of ''jouissance'' is first given in connection with the [[subject]]'s entry into the [[symbolic]] (Lacan, 1977).

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=====

=====''Plus-de jouir''=====

=====Drive=====

''Jouissance'' is denoted, in these years, in its [[dialectic]] with [[desire]]. Unrecognised [[desire]] brings the [[subject]] closer to a destructive ''jouissance'', which is often followed by retreat. This destructive ''jouissance'' has a Freudian illustration in the account of the case of the [[Ratman]], of whom Freud notes `the horror of a pleasure of which he was unaware' (Freud, S.E. 10, pp. 167-8).

[[Seminar XX]], [[Encore]], given in 1972-73, further elaborates Lacan's ideas on ''jouissance'' already outlined, and goes further with another aspect of ''jouissance'', ''[[feminine jouissance]]'', also known as the ''[[Other jouissance]]''.

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''.

The [[neurotic]] [[subject]] does not want to sacrifice his/her castration to the ''jouissance'' of the Other (Écrits, 1977). It is an imaginary castration that is clung to in order not to have to acknowledge Symbolic castration, the subjection to language and its consequent loss of ''jouissance''. The neurotic subject asks 'why me, that I have to sacrifice this castration, this piece of flesh, to the Other?' Here we encounter the neurotic belief that it would be possible to attain a complete ''jouissance'' if it were not forbidden and if it were not for some Other who is demanding his/her castration. Instead of seeing the lack in the Other the neurotic sees the Other's demand of him/her.

The [[Pervert]] imagines him-/herself to be the Other in order to ensure his/her ''jouissance''. The perverse subject makes him-/herself the instrument of the Other's ''jouissance'' through putting the object a in the place of the barred Other, negating the Other as subject. His/her ''jouissance'' comes from placing him-/herself as an object in order to procure the ''jouissance'' of a phallus, even though he/she doesn't know to whom this phallus belongs. Although the pervert presents him-/herself as completely engaged in seeking ''jouissance'', one of his/her aims is to make the law present. Lacan uses the term père-version, to demonstrate the way in which the pervert appeals to the father to fulfil the paternal function.

The [[practice]] of [[psychoanalysis]] examines the different ways and means the subject uses to produce ''jouissance''. It is by means of the bien dire, the well-spoken, where the subject comes to speak in a new way, a way of speaking the truth, that a different distribution of ''jouissance'' may be achieved. The analytic act is a cut, a break with a certain mode of ''jouissance'' fixed in the fantasy. The consequent crossing of the fantasy leaves the subject having to endure being alone with his/her own ''jouissance'' and to encounter its operation in the drive, a unique, singular way of being alone with one's own ''jouissance''. The cut of the analytic act leaves the subject having to make his/her own something that was formerly alien. This produces a new stance in relation to ''jouissance''.

In [[psychosis]], ''jouissance'' is reintroduced in the place of the Other. The ''jouissance'' involved here is called ''jouissance'' of the Other, because ''jouissance'' is sacrificed to the Other, often in the most mutilating ways, like cutting off a piece of the body as an offering to what is believed to be the command of the Other to be completed. The body is not emptied of ''jouissance'' via the effect of the signifier and castration, which usually operate to exteriorise ''jouissance'' and give order to the drives.

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