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Phallus
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====Sexual Difference==Phallic Phase==[[Freud]] does use called the adjective "[[phallicdevelopment|period]]" more frequently, such as in the expression the "between [[phallic phasedevelopment|three and five years of age]]", but again this implies no rigorous distinction between the terms "[[phallusphallic phase]]." and "[[phallus|penis]]", since the The [[phallic phase]] denotes a [[stage ]] in [[development]] in which the [[child]] ([[boy]] or [[girl]]) [[knows ]] only one [[biology|genital organ]] - the [[phallus|penis]]. At this stage, infants of both [[sexes]] are dominated by the question of who possesses a penis and the related issue of its masturbatory jouissance ([[gratification]]). [[Freud]] argues that [[children]] of both [[sexual difference|sexes]] set great [[value]] on the [[phallus|penis]], and that their discovery that some [[human]] [[being]]s do not possess a [[phallus|penis]] leads to important [[psyche|psychical]] consequences. Up to this point, the mother is imagined as having a penis, and the discovery that she [[lacks]] a penis, after an initial [[denial]], precipitates the castration complex.
====Lacan's Work=Not Penis===Although [[Lacan]] generally prefers to use the term "[[phallus]]" rather than "[[phallus|penis]]" in order to emphasize the fact that what concerns [[psychoanalytic theory]] is not prominent the [[biology|male genital organ]] in its [[biology|biological]] [[reality]] but the role that this organ plays in [[fantasy]]. Hence [[Lacan]]'s usually reserves the term "[[Works of Jacques Lacanphallus|workpenis]] before " for the mid-1950s[[biology|biological organ]], and the term "[[phallus]]" occupies an ever more important place in his for the [[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] functions of this [[discoursebiology|organ]] thereafter. The [[phallusJacques Lacan]] [[chose]] plays a central role in both to use the term "phallus" for [[Oedipus complexthe imaginary]] and symbolic [[representation]] of the penis in order to better distinguish the theory role of the penis in the fantasy [[sexual differencelife]]of both sexes from its anatomical role.
===Signifier===For [[Lacan]], focus on the function of the importance [[phallus]] as a [[signifier]] of [[Freudlack]] and [[sexual difference]]. The [[phallus]] in [[Lacan]]ian [[theory]] should not be confused with the [[male]] [[genital]] [[organ]], although it clearly carries those connotations. The [[phallus]] is first and foremost a [[signifier]] and in [[Lacan]]'s insight into infantile sexuality was not whether or not girls have [[system]] a penis and boys fear that theirs will be cut offparticularly privileged [[signifier]]. The [[phallus]] operates in all three of [[Lacan]]'s [[register]]s - the [[imaginary]], but the function of [[symbolic]] and the [[phallusreal]] - and as a his system develops it becomes the one single indivisible [[signifier]] that anchors the [[chain]] of [[lacksignification]]. Indeed, it is a particularly privileged [[signifier]] and because it inaugurates the process of [[sexual differencesignification]]itself.
==Oedipus complex==The [[phallus]] is one of the three elements in the [[imaginary]] [[structure|triangle]] that constitutes the [[preoedipal phase]]. It is an [[imaginary]] [[Lacanobject]] which circulates between the other two elements, the [[mother]] and the [[child]].<ref>{{S3}} p. 319</ref> The [[mother]] [[desire]]s this [[object]] and the [[child]] seeks to [[satisfy]] her [[desire]] by [[identifying]]ian with the [[theoryphallus]] should not be confused or with the [[malephallus|phallic mother]]. In the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[genitalfather]] intervenes as a fourth term in this [[organimaginary]][[structure|triangle]] by [[castration|castrating]] the [[child]]; that is, although he makes it clearly carries those connotations[[impossible]] for the [[child]] to [[identify]] with the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]]. The [[phalluschild]] is first and foremost a then faced with the [[choice]] of accepting his [[signifiercastration]] and in (accepting that he cannot be the [[Lacanmother]]'s [[systemphallus]] ) or rejecting it. ((For Lacan, the phallus is not to be equated with the penis, and as a particularly privileged signifier it performs a different function in each of the three [[orders]]: the imaginary, [[signifierthe symbolic]]and the real.))
The status of the [[phallus]]: [[real]], [[imaginary]] or [[symbolic]]? [[Lacan]] speaks of the [[phallus|real phallus]], the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] and the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]]:
=====[[The Real ]] Phallus===== As has already been observed, [[Lacan]] usually uses the term "[[phallus|penis]]" to denote the [[real]] [[biology|biological organ]] and reserves the term "[[phallus]]" to denote the [[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] functions of this [[biology|organ]]. However, he does not always maintain this usage, occasionally using the term "[[phallus|real phallus]]" to denote the [[biology|biological organ]], or using the terms "[[phallus|symbolic phallus]]" and "[[phallus|symbolic penis]]" as if they were synonymous.<ref>{{S4}} p. 153</ref> This [[apparent ]] confusion and semantic [[slip]]page has led some commentators to argue that the supposed distinction between the [[phallus]] and the [[phallus|penis]] is in fact highly unstable and that "the phallus [[concept ]] is the site of a [[regression ]] towards the [[biological ]] organ."<ref>Macey, David. (1988) ''Lacan in Contexts''. [[London ]] and New York: Verso. 1988: 191</ref>
While the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] and the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] are discussed more extensively by [[Lacan]] than the [[phallus|real phallus]], he does not entirely ignore the latter. On the contrary, the [[phallus|real penis]] has an important role to play in the [[Oedipus complex]] of the little boy, for it is precisely via this [[biology|organ]] that his [[sexuality]] makes itself felt in infantile [[masturbation]]; this intrusion of the [[real]] in the [[imaginary]] [[preoedipal]] [[structure|triangle]] is what transforms the [[structure|triangle]] from something [[pleasure principle|pleasurable]] to something which provokes [[anxiety]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 225-6; {{S4}} p. 341</ref> The question posed in the [[Oedipus complex]] is that of where the [[phallus|real phallus]] is located; the answer required for the [[resolution ]] of this [[complex]] is that it is located in the [[real]] [[father]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 281</ref> The [[phallus|real phallus]] is written Π in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]].
As we saw above, the child slowly comes to realise that it is not identical to, or the sole object of, the mother's [[desire, ]] as her desire is directed elsewhere. He/she will therefore attempt to once again become the object of her desire and [[return ]] to the initial [[state ]] of blissful union. The simple dyadic relationship between the mother and child is thus turned into a [[triangular ]] relationship between the child, the mother and the object of her desire. The child attempts to [[seduce ]] the mother by becoming that [[object of desire]]. Lacan calls this [[third ]] term the [[imaginary phallus]]. The imaginary phallus is what the child assumes someone must have in order for them to be the object of the mother's desire and, as her desire is usually directed towards the father, it is assumed that he possesses the phallus. Through trying to satisfy the mother's desire, the child [[identifies ]] with the object that it presumes she has lost and attempts to become that object for her. The phallus is imaginary in the sense that it is associated in the child's [[mind ]] with an actual object that has been lost and can be recovered. The Oedipus complex, for Lacan, involves the process of giving up the identification with this imaginary phallus, and recognizing that it is a signifier and as such was never there in the first place. What Freud called castration, therefore, is a symbolic process that involves the [[infant]]'s [[recognition ]] of themselves as '[[lacking]]' something - the phallus. For Lacan, castration involves the process whereby boys accept that they can [[symbolically ]] 'have' the phallus only by accepting that they can never actually have it 'in reality' and girls can accept 'not-having' the phallus once they give up on their 'phallic' identification with their mothers (we will discuss this very complicated [[idea ]] in more detail in the chapter on sexual difference). This is the function of the Oedipus complex in Lacan.<!-- According to Lacan, the phallus at the outset represents what else the mother desires is in addition to the [[baby]]. Thus, a [[pre-oedipal]] [[triangle]] of mother, phallus, and infant arises. At first the infant tries to be the phallus for the mother until the [[moment]] of a crucial transformation when the child, after identifying the phallus as a static image of [[completeness]] and sufficiency, sees it as representing the mother's desire, and thus her lack. From then on, the phallus takes the [[form]] of something [[missing]] (-') within any imaginary, and hence [[libidinal]], [[frame]] of reference. Thus the phallus comes to [[signify]] desire, Lacan says. -->
These arguments are stated in their most definitive form in [[Lacan]]'s paper on "[[The Signification of the Phallus]]".<ref>{{L}} "[[The Signification of the Phallus|La signification du phallus]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1966 [1958c]: 685-95 ["[[The Signification of the Phallus|The signification of the phallus]]". Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]] ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. London: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1977: 281-91].</ref><blockquote>The phallus is not a fantasy, if by that we mean an [[Imaginary]] effect. Nor is it as such an object (part-, [[internal]], [[good]], bad, etc.). It is even less the organ, penis or clitoris, that it [[symbolises]]. . . . The phallus is a signifier. . . . It is the signifier intended to designate as a [[whole ]] the effects of the [[signified]].<ref>{{E}} p. 285</ref></blockquote>
Whereas the [[Castration complex]] and the [[Oedipus complex]] revolve around the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]], the question of [[sexual difference]] revolves around [[phallus|symbolic phallus]]. The [[phallus]] has no corresponding [[woman|female]] [[signifier]]; "the phallus is a symbol to which there is no correspondent, no equivalent. It's a matter of a dissymmetry in the signifier.'"<ref>{{S3}} p. 176</ref> Both [[sexual difference|male]] and [[sexual difference|female]] [[subject]]s assume their [[sexual difference|sex]] via the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].
Unlike the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]], the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] cannot be [[negation|negated]], for on the [[symbolic]] plane an [[absence]] is just as much a positive entity as a [[presence]].<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref> Thus even the [[woman]], who [[lack]]s the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] in one way, can also be said to possess it, since not having it the [[symbolic]] is itself a form of having.<ref>{{S4}} p. 153</ref> Conversely, the assumption of the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] by the man is only possible on the basis of the prior assumption of his own [[castration]]. [[Lacan]] goes on in 1961 to state that the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is that which appears in the place of the [[lack]] of the [[signifier]] in the [[Other]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 278-81</ref> It is no ordinary [[signifier]] but the [[real]] [[presence]] of [[desire]] itself.<ref>{{S8}} p. 290</ref> In 1973 he states that the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is "the signifier which does not have a signified".<ref>{{S20}} p. 75</ref>
The [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is written ф in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]]. However, [[Lacan]] warns his students that the complexity of this [[symbol]] might be missed if they simply identify it with the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 296</ref> The [[symbol]] is more correctly [[understood ]] as designating the "[[phallus|phallic function]]."<ref>{{S8}} p. 298</ref> In the early 1970s [[Lacan]] incorporates this [[symbol]] of the [[phallus|phallic function]] in his [[sexual difference|formulae of sexuation]]. Using predicate [[logic ]] to articulate the problems of [[sexual difference]], [[Lacan]] devises two [[algebra|formulae]] for the [[sexual difference|masculine position]] and two [[algebra|formulae]] for the [[sexual difference|feminine position]]. All four [[algebra|formulae]] revolve around the [[phallus|phallic function]], which is here equivalent with the function of [[castration]]. ------ desire and signification. It is desire that drives the process of symbolization. The phallus is the ultimate object of desire that we have lost and always search for but never had in the first place. To summarize, before we explore this complex idea further, the phallus stands for that moment of rupture when the child is forced to recognize the desire of the other; of the mother. 'The mother is refused to the child in so far as a prohibition falls on the child's desire to be what the mother desires' (Rose 1996a: 61). The phallus, therefore, always belongs somewhere else; it breaks the mother/child dyad and initiates the order of symbolic exchange. In this sense the phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that it represents the object presumed to satisfy the mother's desire; at the same time, it is symbolic in that it stands in for the recognition that desire cannot be satisfied. By breaking the imaginary couple 'the phallus represents a moment of division [that “lack-in-being”] which re-enacts the fundamental splitting of the subject itself' (Rose 1996a: 63). As a presence in absence, a 'seeming' value, the phallus is a fraud . --------
<!-- desire and signification. It is through desire that [[drives]] the intervention process of the Name-of-the-Father that the imaginary unity between child and mother is broken[[symbolization]]. The father phallus is assumed to possess something the ultimate object of desire that the child lacks we have lost and it is this that always [[search]] for but never had in the mother desiresfirst place. It is important here though not to confuse the Name-of-the><!--Father with To summarize, before we explore this complex idea further, the actual father. The Name-phallus stands for that moment of-rupture when the-Father child is a symbolic function that intrudes into [[forced]] to recognize the illusory world desire of the child andbreaks the imaginary dyad other; of the mother and child. 'The mother is refused to the child assumes that in so far as a [[prohibition]] falls on the father is one that satisfies child's desire to be what the motherdesires's desire (Rose 1996a: 61). The phallus, therefore, always belongs somewhere else; it breaks the mother/child [[dyad]] and possesses initiates the phallusorder of symbolic exchange. In this sense, argues Lacan, the Oedipus complex involves an element of substitution, phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that is it represents the object presumed to say, the substitution of one signifier, satisfy the mother's desire of ; at the mothersame [[time]], it is symbolic in that it stands in for another, the Name-of-the-Fatherrecognition that desire cannot be [[satisfied]]. It is through this initial act of substitution that By breaking the process of signification begins and child enters imaginary couple 'the symbolic order as phallus represents a subject moment of lack. It is also for this reason [[division]] [that Lacan describes the process of symbolization itself as 'phallic'. It is through the Name“lack-ofin-thebeing”] which re-Father that the phallus is installed as enacts the central organizing signifier fundamental [[splitting]] of the unconscioussubject itself' (Rose 1996a: 63). The phallus is the As a presence in absence, a 'originalseeming' lost objectvalue, but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place. The phallus, therefore, is not like any other signifier, it is the signifier of absence and does not 'exist' in its own right as a thing, an object or a bodily organ. Let us look at this more closelyfraud .-->
<!-- It is through the [[intervention]] of the [[Name]]-of-the-Father that the imaginary [[unity]] between child and mother is broken. The father is assumed to possess something that the child lacks and it is this that the mother desires. It is important here though not to confuse the [[Name-of-the-Father]] with the actual father. The Name-of-the-Father is a symbolic function that intrudes into the [[illusory]] [[world]] of the child andbreaks the imaginary dyad of the mother and child. The child assumes that the father is one that [[satisfies]] the mother's desire and possesses the phallus. In this sense, argues Lacan, the Oedipus complex involves an element of [[substitution]], that is to say, the substitution of one signifier, the desire of the mother, for [[another]], the Name-of-the-Father. It is through this initial act of substitution that the process of signification begins and child enters the [[symbolic order]] as a subject of lack. It is also for this [[reason]] that Lacan describes the process of symbolization itself as 'phallic'. It is through the Name-of-the-Father that the phallus is installed as the central organizing signifier of the [[unconscious]]. The phallus is the 'original' [[lost object]], but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place. The phallus, therefore, is not like any other signifier, it is the signifier of absence and does not '[[exist]]' in its own [[right]] as a [[thing]], an object or a [[bodily]] organ. Let us look at this more closely. -->
<!-- Lacan equates the process of giving up the imaginary phallus with Freud's account of [[castration anxiety]], but he argues that the process of castration in Freud is more complicated than [[people ]] generally [[think]]. Castration involves not just an anxiety [[about ]] losing one's penis but simultaneously the recognition of lack or absence . The child is concerned about losing its own penis and simultaneously recognizes that the mother does not have a penis. The idea of the penis, therefore, becomes metonymically linked to the recognition of lack . It is in this sense that Lacan argues that the phallus is not simply the penis; it is the penis plus the recognition of absence or lack . Castration is not the [[fear ]] that one has already lost, in the case of girls, or will lose, in the case of boys, one's penis but rather the symbolic process of giving up the idea that one can be the phallus for the mother. The intervention of the father distances the child from the mother and also places the phallus forever beyond its reach. If the symbolic father is seen to possess the phallus, then the child can only become a subject itself in the symbolic order by renouncing the imaginary phallus. The problem for Lacan is how does one symbolically represent 'lack' - something that by definition is not there? His solution is the idea of the '[[veil]]'. The presence of the veil suggests that there is an object behind it, which the veil covers over, although this is only a presumption on the part of the subject. In this way the veil enables the perpetuation of the idea that the object [[exists]]. Thus, both boys and girls can have a relationship to the phallus on the basis that it always remains veiled and out of reach. The phallus provides the vital link between--><!-- ==Phallic Jouissance== In his seminar on [[female]] sexuality (1998), Lacan further specified what he meant by the term "[[phallic jouissance]]." He used the phallic signifier (Φ) in [[writing]] his "[[formulas]] of [[sexuation]]," which posit that every human being has to be on one side or the other of the sexual [[divide]]. A woman always has something of the phallus (she is not entirely [[castrated]]), and the man is only supposed to "have" the phallus when he fantasizes his castration. In Lacan's symbolic notation, the phallus takes on the [[formal]] role of a [[supplement]], which adds to the castration complex the fact that "there is no sexual relation," as Lacan said, referring to the [[impossibility]] of writing an equation of the relationship between the sexes. --><!-- ===Criticisms of Lacan===Of all [[Lacan]]'s [[ideas]], his concept of the [[phallus]] is perhaps the one which has given rise to most controversy. Objections to [[Lacan]]'s concept fall into two main groups.
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