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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 the [[significance]] of the [[Castration Complex|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 is regarded as."
As Freud ( 1923) puts it, this lack confronts the child "with the task of coming to terms with castration in relation to himself" (p. 144).
When [[Lacan]] 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 [[phallus|penis]] imagined as a [[part-object]] 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 [[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|imaginary phallus]]. The [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] is written φ (lower-[[case]] phi) in [[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|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|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|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. -->
==The Symbolic Phallus==
<!-- When the phallus takes on the role of signifier, this implies that [[The Subject|the subject]] grasps it in the [[Other, the]] locus of the set of [[signifiers]] that determines [[The Subject|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. -->
The [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] which circulates between [[mother]] and [[child]] serves to institute the first [[dialectic]] in the child's life, which, although it is an [[imaginary]] [[dialectic]], already paves the way towards the [[symbolic]], 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 [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] in the [[seminar]] of 1956-7 are accompanied by statements that the [[phallus]] is also a [[symbolic]] [[object]]<ref>{{S4}} p. 152</ref> and that the [[phallus]] is a [[signifier]].<ref>{{S4}} p. 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}} p. 290</ref> and the [[signifier]] of ''[[jouissance]]''.<ref>{{E}} p. 320</ref>
<!-- 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 . -->
<!-- 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|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|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|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|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|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 -->
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==Phallic Jouissance==
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{{See}}
* [[Algebra]]
{{Also}}
* Hook, Derek (2006). [http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/960/1/Lacanthemeaning.pdf Lacan, the meaning of the phallus and the ‘sexed’ subject] [online]. London: LSE Research Online. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/960
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