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=Sigmund Freud==Dictionary=Phallus and Penis==The term "phallus" designates the representation of an erect penis, which plays a key role both intra- and inter-subjectively. [[Freud barely distinguished ]] did not distinguish between the fantasized phallus and the anatomical [[penis. He called the period between three and five years of age the "phallic stage." 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), which is clitoral in the case of girls. 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.Jacques Lacan chose to use the term "phallus" for the imaginary and symbolic representation of the penis in order to better distinguish the role of the penis in the fantasy life of both sexes from its anatomical role. Freud's famous "symbolic equation" of breast, feces, penis, and baby actual (1916-1917a [1915-1917[anatomical]], 1918b, 1924d) already implied this distinction between the real penis [[body|bodily organ]] and its phallic representations.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 <i>be</i> 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.The intermittence of its erection, its ability to fade (compare Ernest Jones's concept of aphanisis), and even the fact that half of all humans do not have it have made the erect penis eminently suited to symbolize the crucial issues of being (subject) and having (object) in both sexes. The penis constitutes the key element in the asymmetrical division that, according to Roman Jakobson, characterizes any symbolic system.When the phallus takes on the role of [[signifier, this implies that the subject grasps it in the Other, the locus ]] of the set of signifiers that determines the subject. There it signifies the Other's desire, which is to say that the Other is marked by her own incompleteness. From then on, the phallus signifies the Other's submission to the laws of symbolic exchange, and such incompleteness frees up in the subject her own 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 sexesdifference]].

==PhallusPhallic Phase== [[Freud']] called the [[development|period]] between [[development|three and five years of age]] the "[[phallic phase]]." 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 work abounds in references 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.

<!--Freud argues had his first intuition of the primacy of the phallus as early as 1905 in "[[Three]] essays on the theory of sexuality"; it is explicitly discussed in "The [[infantile]] genital organization," which Freud offered in 1923 as a complement to "Three Essays." In this later [[text]], the predominance of the phallus is linked to the problematic of castration in the following way:<blockquote>The main characteristic of this 'infantile genital organization' is its [[difference]] from the final genital organization of the [[adult]]. This consists in the fact that children of , for both sexes set great value , only one genital, namely the male one, comes into account. What is [[present]], therefore, is not a primacy of the genitals, but a primacy of the phallus. [ Freud 1923, p. 142 ]</blockquote>The fact that the essential [[role]] of only one genital organ is recognized at a certain stage in infantile [[sexual]] development implies that this primacy, from the outset, is not located in the realm of anatomical reality or on the level of organs, but precisely on the level of what a lack of the organ might [[represent]] subjectively.Freud ( 1923) makes the same radical [[distinction]] by linking castration to the phallic [[order]] and not to the penis.<blockquote>The lack of a penis [my italics] is regarded as a result of castration, and so now the child is faced with the task of coming to [[terms]] with castration in relation to himself. The further developments are too well known generally to make it necessary to recapitulate [[them]] here. But it seems to me that their discovery that some human beings do not possess the [[significance]] of the castration complex can only be rightly appreciated if its origin in the [[phase]] of phallic primacy is also taken into account. [ Freud's italics] [p. 144]</blockquote>In fact, sexual difference is constituted from the outset on the basis of this [[notion]] of lack: the [[feminine]] genital organ is different from the [[masculine]] one only because it lacks something. In addition, the product of observation (perceptual reality) is immediately elaborated on the [[subjective]] level as a conception: Freud writes "the lack of a penis leads is regarded as." As Freud ( 1923) puts it, this lack confronts the child "with the task of coming to important psychical consequences terms with castration in relation to himself" (see p. 144).--><!-- It is in the [[domain]] of these [[Freudian]] references that Lacan systematizes the problematics of the phallus as foundational to [[psychoanalytic]] theory. Specifically, Lacan establishes the phallus as the primordial signifier of desire in [[oedipal]] triangulation. The [[Castration ComplexOedipus]])complex plays itself out around locating the [[position]] of the phallus in relation to the desire of the mother, the child, and the father. A [[dialectical]] [[process]] develops in two modes: that of being the phallus and that of having the phallus. -->

However, the =Jacques Lacan=The term '[[phallic]] occupies an important [[place]] in [[Lacanian]] [[speech|discourse]]. The [[phallus' rarely appears ]] plays a central role in both the [[Oedipus complex]] and in the theory of [[sexual difference]].<!-- Although not prominent in Freud[[Lacan]]'s [[Works of Jacques Lacan|work]] before the mid-1950s, and when it does it is used as a synonym of 'penis'the term "[[phallus]]" occupies an ever more important place in his [[discourse]] thereafter. -->

Freud does ===Not Penis===[[Lacan]] generally prefers to use the adjective 'phallic' more frequently, such as term "[[phallus]]" rather than "[[phallus|penis]]" in order to emphasize the expression 'fact that what concerns [[psychoanalytic theory]] is not the phallic phase', [[biology|male genital organ]] in its [[biology|biological]] [[reality]] but again the role that this implies no rigorous distinction between organ plays in [[fantasy]]. Hence [[Lacan]] usually reserves the terms 'term "[[phallus' and '|penis']]" for the [[biology|biological organ]], since and the phallic phase denotes a stage in development in which term "[[phallus]]" for the child (boy or girl) knows only one genital [[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] functions of this [[biology|organ ]]. - [[Jacques Lacan]] [[chose]] to use the term "phallus" for [[the imaginary]] and symbolic [[representation]] of the penis in order to better distinguish the role of the penisin the fantasy [[life]] of both sexes from its anatomical role.

Lacan generally prefers ==Oedipus complex==The [[phallus]] is one of the three elements in the [[imaginary]] [[structure|triangle]] that constitutes the [[preoedipal phase]]. It is an [[imaginary]] [[object]] 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 use [[satisfy]] her [[desire]] by [[identifying]] with the [[phallus]] or with the [[phallus|phallic mother]]. In the [[Oedipus complex]] the [[father]] intervenes as a fourth term 'phallus' rather than 'penis' in order this [[imaginary]] [[structure|triangle]] by [[castration|castrating]] the [[child]]; that is, he makes it [[impossible]] for the [[child]] to emphasise [[identify]] with the fact [[phallus|imaginary phallus]]. The [[child]] is then faced with the [[choice]] of accepting his [[castration]] (accepting that what concerns psychoanalytic theory he cannot be the [[mother]]'s [[phallus]]) or rejecting it. ((For Lacan, the phallus is not to be equated with the male genital organ penis, and as a signifier it performs a different function in its biological reality but each of the role that this organ plays in fantasythree [[orders]]: the imaginary, [[the symbolic]] and the real. ))

Hence ==[[Sexual Difference]]== [[Lacan usually reserves ]] argues that both [[boy]]s and [[girl]]s must assume their [[castration]], in the term [[sense]] that every [[child]] must [[renounce]] the possibility of being the [[phallus]] for the [[mother]]; this "[[relationship]] to the phallus . . . is established without [[regard]] to the anatomical difference of the sexes."<ref>{{E}} p. 282</ref> The [[renunciation]] by both [[sexual difference|sexes]] of [[identification]] with the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] paves the way for a relationship with the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] which is different for the [[sexual difference|sexes]]; the man has the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] (or, more precisely, "he is not without having it" ['penis' for il n'est pas sans l'avoir'']), but the [[woman]] does not. This is complicated by the fact that the [[woman|man]] can only lay [[claim]] to the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] on condition that he has assumed his own [[castration]] (has given up being the biological organ[[phallus|imaginary phallus]]), and by the term fact that the [[woman]]'phallus' for the s [[Imaginarylack]] and of the [[Symbolicphallus|symbolic phallus]] functions is also a kind of this organpossession.<ref>{{S4}} p.153</ref>

While this terminological distinction is not found in Freud's workThe status of the [[phallus]]: [[real]], [[imaginary]] or [[symbolic]]? [[Lacan]] speaks of the [[phallus|real phallus]], it responds to the logic implicit in Freud's formulations on [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] and the penis. [[phallus|symbolic phallus]]:

For example==[[The Real]] Phallus== As has already been observed, when Freud speaks [[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 a 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|symbolicpenis]] equation " 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 penis [[phallus]] and the baby which allows the girl to appease her [[phallus|penis envy by having a child, it ]] is clear in fact highly unstable and that he "the phallus [[concept]] is not talking about the real site of a [[regression]] towards the [[biological]] organ."<ref>FreudMacey, 1917cDavid. (1988) ''Lacan in Contexts''. [[London]] and New York: Verso. 1988: 191</ref>

It can be arguedWhile the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] and the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] are discussed more extensively by [[Lacan]] than the [[phallus|real phallus]], thenhe 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 Lacan's terminological innovation simply clarifies certain distinctions of where the [[phallus|real phallus]] is located; the answer required for the [[resolution]] of this [[complex]] is that were already implicit it is located in Freud's workthe [[real]] [[father]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 281</ref> The [[phallus|real phallus]] is written Π in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]].

Although not prominent in ==The Imaginary Phallus==When [[Lacan's work before ]] first introduces the distinction between [[phallus|penis]] and [[phallus]], the [[phallus]] refers to an [[imaginary]] [[object]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 31</ref> This is the "[[phallus|image of the penis]]",<ref>{{E}} p. 319</ref> the mid[[phallus|penis]] imagined as a [[part-1950sobject]] which may be detached from the [[fragmented body|body]] by [[castration]], <ref>{{E}} p. 315</ref> the "phallic [[image]]".<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref> The [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] is perceived by the [[child]] in the [[preoedipal phase]] as the term [[object]] of the [[mother]]'s [[desire]], as that which she [[desire]]s beyond the [[child]]; the [[child]] thus seeks to [[identify]] with this [[object]]. The [[Oedipus complex]] and the [[Castration complex]] involve the renunciation of this attempt to be the [[phallus' occupies an ever more important place |imaginary phallus]]. The [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] is written φ (lower-[[case]] phi) in his discourse thereafter[[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]], which also represents [[phallus|phallic signification]]. [[Castration]] is written -φ (minus lower-case phi).

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 plays a central role 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 both the child's [[Oedipus Complexmind]] 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 theory 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 and ]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1966 [1958c]: 685-95 ["[[The Signification of the Oedipus complex== 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 one of 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 three elements in organ, penis or clitoris, that it [[symbolises]]. . . . The phallus is a signifier. . . . It is the signifier intended to designate as a [[Imaginarywhole]] triangle that constitutes the effects of the [[preoedipal phasesignified]]. <ref>{{E}} p. 285</ref></blockquote>

It is an Whereas the [[Castration complex]] and the [[ImaginaryOedipus complex]] object which circulates between revolve around the other two elements[[phallus|imaginary phallus]], the mother and 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 childsignifier.'"<ref>{{S3, 319}} p. 176</ref> Both [[sexual difference|male]] and [[sexual difference|female]] [[subject]]s assume their [[sexual difference|sex]] via the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].

The mother desires this object and Unlike the child seeks [[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 satisfy her 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 by identifying with ]] itself.<ref>{{S8}} p. 290</ref> In 1973 he states that the [[phallus or with |symbolic phallus]] is "the phallic mothersignifier 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 Oedipus complex early 1970s [[Lacan]] incorporates this [[symbol]] of the father intervenes as a fourth term [[phallus|phallic function]] in this his [[sexual difference|formulae of sexuation]]. Using predicate [[Imaginarylogic]] triangle by castrating to articulate the child; that isproblems of [[sexual difference]], he makes it impossible [[Lacan]] devises two [[algebra|formulae]] for the [[sexual difference|masculine position]] and two [[algebra|formulae]] for the child to identify [[sexual difference|feminine position]]. All four [[algebra|formulae]] revolve around the [[phallus|phallic function]], which is here equivalent with the function of [[Imaginarycastration]] phallus.

<!-- 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 then faced with [[forced]] to recognize the choice desire of accepting his castration 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' (accepting 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 he desire cannot be [[satisfied]]. By breaking the motherimaginary couple 's the phallusrepresents a moment of [[division]] [that “lack-in-being”] which re-enacts the fundamental [[splitting]] of the subject itself' (Rose 1996a: 63) or rejecting it.As a presence in absence, a 'seeming' value, the phallus is a fraud . -->

==<!-- It is through the [[intervention]] of the [[Name]]-of-the-Father that the imaginary [[unity]] between child and mother is broken. The phallus father is assumed to possess something that the child lacks and sexual difference== Lacan argues it is this that both boys and girls must assume their castration, in the sense 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 every intrudes into the [[illusory]] [[world]] of the child must renounce andbreaks the possibility imaginary dyad of being the phallus for mother and child. The child assumes that the father is one that [[satisfies]] the mother; 's desire and possesses the phallus. In this 'relationship 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 phallus 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 established without regard to installed as the anatomical difference central organizing signifier of the sexes[[unconscious]]. The phallus is the 'original' [[lost object]], but only insofar as no one possessed it in the first place.<ref>EThe 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]], 282</refan object or a [[bodily]] organ. Let us look at this more closely. -->

The renunciation by both sexes <!-- Lacan equates the process of identification 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 [[imaginarypeople]] 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 paves 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 way 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 relationship with 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 '[[symbolicveil]] phallus '. The presence of the veil suggests that there is an object behind it, which the veil covers over, although this is different for only a presumption on the part of the subject. In this way the veil enables the sexes; perpetuation of the man has idea that the object [[symbolicexists]] . 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 (or1998), more preciselyLacan further specified what he meant by the term "[[phallic jouissance]]." He used the phallic signifier (Φ) in [[writing]] his "[[formulas]] of [[sexuation]], 'he " 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 without having itentirely [[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]]''il n'est pas sans l'avoir''s [[ideas]]), but his concept of the [[phallus]] is perhaps the one which has given rise to most controversy. Objections to [[WomanLacan]] does not's concept fall into two main groups.

This is complicated by the fact Firstly, some [[feminist]] writers have argued that the man can only lay claim privileged position [[Lacan]] accords to the [[symbolicphallus]] phallus on condition means that he has assumed his own castration (has given up being merely repeats the patriarchal gestures of [[imaginaryFreud]] phallus(e.g. Grosz, 1990). Other feminists have defended [[Lacan]], and by the fact arguing that his distinction between the [[womanphallus]]'s lack of and the [[Symbolicphallus|penis]] phallus is also provides a kind way of possessionaccounting for [[sexual difference]] which is irreducible to [[biology]] (e.g.<ref>S4Mitchell and Rose, 153</ref>1982).

The status of the phallus: second main objection to [[Real]], [[Imaginary]] or [[Symbolic]]?  Lacan speaks of the [[real]] phallus, the [[imaginary]] phallus and the [[symbolic]] phallus: ==The [[real]] phallus== As has already been observed, Lacan usually uses the term 'penis' to denote the [[real]] biological organ and reserves the term 'phallus' to denote the [[imaginary]] and [[symbolic]] functions s concept of this organ.  However, he does not always maintain this usage, occasionally using the term '[[real]] phallus' to denote the biological organ, or using the terms '[[symbolic]] phallus' and 'is that put forward by [[symbolicJacques Derrida]] penis' as if they were synonymous.<ref>S4Derrida, 153</ref>  This apparent confusion and semantic slippage has led some commentators to argue that the supposed distinction between the phallus and the penis is in fact highly unstable and that Jacques. (1975) "Le facteur de la vérité." 'the phallus concept is the site of a regression towards the biological organ'.<ref>Macey, 1988The Post Card: 191</ref> While the From [[imaginarySocrates]] phallus to Freud and the [[symbolic]] phallus are discussed more [[symbolic]] phallus.  The phallus has no corresponding female signifier; Beyond''the phallus is a symbol to which there is no correspondent, no equivalent. It's a matter of a dissymmetry in the signifierTrans.'<ref>S3Alan Bass, 176</ref>  Both male Chicago and female subjects assume their sex via the London: [[SymbolicUniversity]] phallus. Unlike the [[Imaginary]] phallusof Chicago Press, the 1987 [[Symbolic1975]] phallus cannot be negated, for on the [[Symbolic]] plane an absence is just as much a positive entity as a presence.<ref>see E, 320: 413-96</ref>  Thus even the and echoed by [[Womanothers]], who lacks the . [[SymbolicDerrida]] phallus in one wayargues that, can also be said to possess it, since not having it the despite [[SymbolicLacan]] is itself a form 's protestations of having.<ref>S4anti-transcendentalism, 153</ref>  Conversely, the assumption of the [[Symbolicphallus]] 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 operates as a [[Symbolictranscendental]] phallus is that element which appears in the place of the lack of the signifier in the Other.<ref>S8, 278-8 1</ref>  It is no ordinary signifier but the [[Realacts]] presence of desire itself.<ref>S8, 290</ref>  In 1973 he states that the as an [[Symbolicideal]] phallus is 'the signifier which does not have a signified'.<ref>S20, 75</ref>   The [[Symbolicguarantee]] phallus is written <fi in Lacanian algebra.  However, Lacan warns his students that the complexity of this symbol might be missed if they simply identify it with the [[Symbolicmeaning]] phallus.<ref>S8, 296</ref>  The symbol is more correctly understood as designating 'the phallic function'.<ref>S8, 298</ref>  In the early 1970s Lacan incorporates this symbol of the phallic function in his formulae of sexuation.  Using predicate logic to articulate the problems of sexual difference, Lacan devises two formulae for the masculine position and two formulae for the feminine position.  All four formulae revolve around the phallic function, which is here equivalent with the function of castration. ==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.   Firstly, some feminist writers have argued that the privileged position Lacan accords to the phallus means that he merely repeats the patriarchal gestures of Freud (e.g. Grosz, 1990).  Other feminists have defended Lacan, arguing that his distinction between the phallus and the penis provides a way of accounting for sexual difference which is irreducible to biology (e.g. Mitchell and Rose, 1982).    The second main objection to Lacan's concept of the phallus is that put forward by Jacques Derrida (Derrida, 1975) and echoed by others.  Derrida argues that, despite Lacan's protestations of anti-transcendentalism, the phallus operates as a transcendental element which acts as an ideal guarantee of meaning.   How can there be such a thing as a '"privileged signifier'", asks [[Derrida]], given that every [[signifier ]] is defined only by its differences from other signifiers?  The phallus, in other words, reintroduces the metaphysics of presence which Derrida denominates as logocentrism, and thus Derrida extensively by Lacan than the [[realsignifier]] phallus, he does not entirely ignore the latter.  On the contrary, the [[real]] penis has an important role to play in the Oedipus complex of the little boy, for it is precisely via this organ that his sexuality makes itself felt in infantile masturbation; this intrusion of the [[Real]] in the [[Imaginary]] preoedipal triangle is what transforms the triangle from something pleasurable to something which provokes anxiety.<ref>S4, 225-6; S4, 341</ref> s? The question posed in the Oedipus complex is that of where the [[real]] phallus is located; the answer required for the resolution of this complex is that it is located in the [[real]] father.<ref>S4, 281</ref>  The [[real]] phallus is written H in Lacanian algebra. ==The other [[Imaginarywords]] phallus==When Lacan first introduces the distinction between penis and phallus, reintroduces the phallus refers to an [[Imaginarymetaphysics]] object.<ref>S4, 31</ref>  This is the 'image of the penis',<ref>E, 319</ref> the penis imagined as a part-object which may be detached from the body by castration,<ref>E, 315</ref> the 'phallic image'.<ref>E, 320</ref>  The [[Imaginarypresence]] phallus is perceived by the child in the preoedipal phase as the object of the mother's desire, as that which she desires beyond the child; the child thus seeks to identify with this object.  The Oedipus complex and the [[Castration ComplexDerrida]] involve the renunciation of this attempt to be the denominates as [[Imaginary]] phallus.  The [[Imaginarylogocentrism]] phallus is written 9 (lower-case phi) in Lacanian algebra, which also represents phallic signification.  Castration is written -e (minus lower-case phi).   ==The [[Symbolic]] phallus== The [[Imaginary]] phallus which circulates between mother and child serves to institute the first dialectic in the child's life, which, although it is an thus [[ImaginaryDerrida]] dialecticconcludes that, already paves the way towards the by articulating this with [[Symbolicphallocentrism]], since an [[Imaginary]] element is circulated in much the same way a signifier (the phallus becomes an '[[Imaginary]] signifier').  Thus Lacan's formulations on the [[Imaginary]] phallus in the seminar of 1956-7 are accompanied by statements that the phallus is also has created a [[Symbolic]] object<ref>S4, 152</ref> and that the phallus is a signifier.<ref>S4, 191</ref>  The idea that the phallus is a signifier is taken up again and further developed in the 1957-8 seminar and becomes the principle element of Lacan's theory of the phallus thereafter; the phallus is described as 'the signifier of the desire of the Other',<ref>E, 290</ref> and the signifier of jouissance.<ref>E, 320</ref>  These arguments are stated in their most definitive form in Lacan's paper on 'The signification of the phallus'.<ref>Lacan, 1958c</ref>  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, 285</ref> Whereas the [[Castration Complex]] and the Oedipus complex revolve around the [[Imaginary]] phallus, the question of sexual difference revolves around the concludes that, by articulating this with phallocentrism, Lacan has created a |phallogocentric system of thought.  == [[Kid A In Alphabet Land]] == [[Image:Kida_p.gif |right|frame]]'''Kid A In Alphabet Land Pacifies Another Pernicious Persona - The Phony Phallus!''' You're An Abominable Erection! You Demand To Be Raised To The Level Of Signifier, But You Need To Be Veiled, To Hide What You Haven't Got! Wouldn't You Like It Both Ways! But By Making The Woman Rigid, You Make Her Frigid! Humph! You're Only So Much Meat!->

* [[Desire]]* [[Dark continent]]||* [[Development]]* [[Eros]]* [[Female sexualityFather]]* [[Feminism and psychoanalysis]]||* [[Imaginary identification/symbolic identification]]* [[Lack]]* [[L and R schemas]]* [[Look/gaze]]* [[Monism]]||* [[Mother goddess]]* [[Name of the FatherOedipus complex]]* [[Optical schema]]||* [[PerversionPart-object]]* [[Psychoses, chronic and delusionalPreoedipal]]* [[Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic father]]||* [[Sexual differences]]* [[Sexuation, formulas ofdifference]]* [[Symbolic, the (Lacan)]]* [[Symptom/sinthome]]* [[Topology]]* [[Want of being/lack of being]]{{Also}}