Changes

As Jane Gallop observes, whereas orgasm is a coutnable noun, the term ''[[jouissance]]'' is always used in the singular by [[Lacan]] and is always preceded by a definite article.<ref>Gallop 1982</ref>

The term does not appear in [[Lacan]]'s work until 1953, but even then it is not particularly salient.<ref>{{E}} p.42, 87</ref>

Soon after, the sexual connotations become more apparent;; in 1957, [[Lacan]] uses the term to refer to the enjoyment of a sexual object,<ref>{{Ec}} p.453</ref> and to the pleasures of masturbation.<ref>{{S4}} p.241</ref>, and in 1958 he makes explicit sense of ''[[jouissance]]'' as orgasm.<ref>{{Ec}} p.727</ref>

It is only in 1960 that [[Lacan]] develops his classic opposition between ''jouissance'' and pleasure, an opposition which alludes to the [[Hegel]]ian/Kojevian distinciton between ''Genuß'' ([[enjoyment]]) and ''List'' ([[pleasure]]).

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.

The very prohibiton 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 excess ''jouissance''; thus ''jouissance''is "the path towards death."<ref>{{S17}} p.17</ref>

Insofar as the drives are attempts to break through the pleasure principle in search of ''jouissance'', every drive is a death drive.

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>