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==[[Image:Kida_p.gif |right|frame|'''[[Kid_A_In_Alphabet_Land_-_Phallus|Kid A In Alphabet Land Pacifies Another Pernicious Persona - The Phony Phallus== Freud!]]'s work abounds in references to the penis. '']]

=Sigmund Freud argues that children of both sexes set great value on the penis, ===Phallus and that their discovery that some human beings do Penis==[[Freud]] did not possess a distinguish between the [[penis leads to important psychical consequences ]] as an actual (see [[Castration Complexanatomical]])[[body|bodily organ]] and the [[phallus]] as a [[signifier]] of [[sexual difference]].

However==Phallic 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 term 'related issue of its masturbatory jouissance ([[gratification]]). [[Freud]] argues that [[children]] of both [[sexual difference|sexes]] set great [[value]] on the [[phallus' rarely appears in Freud'|penis]], and that their discovery that some [[human]] [[being]]s workdo not possess a [[phallus|penis]] leads to important [[psyche|psychical]] consequences. Up to this point, and when it does it the mother is used imagined as having a penis, and the discovery that she [[lacks]] a synonym of 'penis', after an initial [[denial]], precipitates the [[Castration Complex|castration complex]].

<!--Freud does use had his first intuition of the primacy of the adjective 'phallic' more frequentlyphallus as early as 1905 in "[[Three]] essays on the theory of sexuality"; it is explicitly discussed in "The [[infantile]] genital organization, such " 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 expression 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, for both sexes, only one genital, namely the male one, comes into account. What is [[present]], therefore, is not a primacy of the phallic phase'genitals, but again this implies no rigorous distinction between a primacy of the terms 'phallus' and 'penis'. [ Freud 1923, since p. 142 ]</blockquote>The fact that the phallic phase denotes 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 which the child 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 (boy or girl1923) knows 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 one 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).--><!-- 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 [[Oedipus]] 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 penisphallus.-->

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

===Not Penis===[[Lacan ]] generally prefers to use the term '"[[phallus' ]]" rather than '"[[phallus|penis' ]]" in order to emphasise emphasize the fact that what concerns [[psychoanalytic theory ]] is not the [[biology|male genital organ ]] in its [[biology|biological ]] [[reality ]] but the role that this organ plays in [[fantasy]]. Hence [[Lacan]] usually reserves the term "[[phallus|penis]]" for the [[biology|biological organ]], and the term "[[phallus]]" for the [[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 penis in the fantasy[[life]] of both sexes from its anatomical role.

Hence ===Signifier===For [[Lacan usually reserves ]] focus on the function of the term 'penis' for [[phallus]] as a [[signifier]] of [[lack]] and [[sexual difference]]. The [[phallus]] in [[Lacan]]ian [[theory]] should not be confused with the biological [[male]] [[genital]] [[organ]], although it clearly carries those connotations. The [[phallus]] is first and the term foremost a [[signifier]] and in [[Lacan]]'s [[system]] a particularly privileged [[signifier]]. The [[phallus]] operates in all three of [[Lacan]]' for s [[register]]s - the [[imaginary]], the [[symbolic]] and the [[Imaginaryreal]] - and as his system develops it becomes the one single indivisible [[signifier]] that anchors the [[Symbolicchain]] functions of this organ[[signification]]. Indeed, it is a particularly privileged [[signifier]] because it inaugurates the process of [[signification]] itself.

While ==[[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 terminological [[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 not found in Freudfact highly unstable and that "the phallus [[concept]] is the site of a [[regression]] towards the [[biological]] organ."<ref>Macey, David. (1988) 's work, it responds to the logic implicit 'Lacan in FreudContexts's formulations on the penis'. [[London]] and New York: Verso. 1988: 191</ref>

For example, when Freud speaks of a While the [[phallus|imaginary phallus]] and the [[phallus|symbolicphallus]] are discussed more extensively by [[Lacan]] than the [[phallus|real phallus]] equation between , he does not entirely ignore the latter. On the contrary, the [[phallus|real penis and ]] has an important role to play in the baby which allows [[Oedipus complex]] of the girl to appease her penis envy by having a childlittle boy, for it is clear precisely via this [[biology|organ]] that he 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 not talking about located in the [[real organ]] [[father]].<ref>Freud, 1917c{{S4}} p. 281</ref> The [[phallus|real phallus]] is written Π in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]].

It can ==The Imaginary Phallus==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 argueddetached from the [[fragmented body|body]] by [[castration]], then<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 Lacan'which she [[desire]]s terminological innovation simply clarifies certain distinctions that were already implicit 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 Freud's work[[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]], which also represents [[phallus|phallic signification]]. [[Castration]] is written -φ (minus lower-case phi).

==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|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>

Although not prominent These arguments are stated in their most definitive form in [[Lacan]]'s work before paper on "[[The Signification of the Phallus]]".<ref>{{L}} "[[The Signification of the midPhallus|La signification du phallus]]." ''[[Écrits]]''. [[Paris]]: Seuil, 1966 [1958c]: 685-1950s, 95 ["[[The Signification of the Phallus|The signification of the term phallus]]". Trans. [[Alan Sheridan]] ''[[Écrits: A Selection]]''. London: Tavistock, 1977; New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1977: 281-91].</ref><blockquote>The phallus' occupies is not a fantasy, if by that we mean an [[Imaginary]] effect. Nor is it as such an ever more important place in his discourse thereafterobject (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 plays ]] has no corresponding [[woman|female]] [[signifier]]; "the phallus is a central role symbol to which there is no correspondent, no equivalent. It's a matter of a dissymmetry in both the signifier.'"<ref>{{S3}} p. 176</ref> Both [[Oedipus Complexsexual difference|male]] and in the theory of [[sexual difference|female]] [[subject]]s assume their [[sexual difference|sex]] via the [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].

==The Unlike the [[phallus and |imaginary phallus]], the Oedipus complex== 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 three elements [[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 [[Imaginaryphallus|symbolic phallus]] triangle is that constitutes which appears in the place of the [[lack]] of the [[signifier]] in the [[preoedipal phaseOther]]. <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>

It The [[phallus|symbolic phallus]] is an written ф in [[Lacan]]ian [[algebra]]. However, [[ImaginaryLacan]] object which circulates between warns his students that the other two elements, complexity of this [[symbol]] might be missed if they simply identify it with the mother and [[phallus|symbolic phallus]].<ref>{{S8}} p. 296</ref> The [[symbol]] is more correctly [[understood]] as designating the child"[[phallus|phallic function]]."<ref>S3, 319{{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|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 object sense the phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that it represents the child seeks object presumed to satisfy her the mother's desire; at the same [[time]], it is symbolic in that it stands in for the recognition that desire by identifying with cannot be [[satisfied]]. By breaking [[The Imaginary|the imaginary]] couple 'the phallus or with represents a moment of [[division]] [that “lack-in-being”] which re-enacts the fundamental [[splitting]] of [[The Subject|the subject]] itself' (Rose 1996a: 63). As a presence in absence, a 'seeming' value, the phallic motherphallus is a fraud . -->

<!-- It is through the [[intervention]] of the [[Name]]-of-the-Father that [[The Imaginary|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|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 intervenes |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 fourth term in subject of lack. It is also for this [[Imaginaryreason]] triangle by castrating that Lacan describes the child; process of symbolization itself as 'phallic'. It is through the [[Name-of-the-father|Name-of-the-Father]] that the phallus isinstalled as the central organizing signifier of the [[unconscious]]. The phallus is the 'original' [[lost object]], he makes but only insofar as no one possessed it impossible for in the child to identify with 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 [[Imaginarything]], an object or a [[bodily]] phallusorgan. 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 faced with the choice child can only become a subject itself in [[The Symbolic|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|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 accepting reach. The phallus provides the vital link between --><!-- ==Phallic Jouissance== In his castration seminar on [[female]] sexuality (1998), Lacan further specified what he meant by the term "[[phallic jouissance]]." He used the phallic signifier (accepting 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 cannot be fantasizes his castration. In Lacan's symbolic notation, the phallus takes on the [[formal]] role of a [[supplement]], which adds to the [[Castration Complex|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 mothersexes. --><!-- ===Criticisms of Lacan===Of all [[Lacan]]'s [[ideas]], his concept of the [[phallus) or rejecting it]] is perhaps the one which has given rise to most controversy. Objections to [[Lacan]]'s concept fall into two main groups.

==The Firstly, some [[feminist]] writers have argued that the privileged position [[Lacan]] accords to the [[phallus and sexual difference== ]] means that he merely repeats the patriarchal gestures of [[Freud]] (e.g. Grosz, 1990). Other feminists have defended [[Lacan argues that both boys and girls must assume their castration]], in the sense arguing that every child must renounce his distinction between the possibility of being [[phallus]] and the [[phallus |penis]] provides a way of accounting for the mother; this 'relationship [[sexual difference]] which is irreducible to the phallus [[biology]] (e. g. Mitchell and Rose, 1982). is established without regard to the anatomical difference of the sexes'.<ref>{{E}} 282</ref>

The renunciation second main objection to [[Lacan]]'s concept of the [[phallus]] is that put forward by both sexes [[Jacques Derrida]].<ref>Derrida, Jacques. (1975) "Le facteur de la vérité." ''The Post Card: From [[Socrates]] to Freud and Beyond''. Trans. Alan Bass, Chicago and London: [[University]] of identification with Chicago Press, 1987 [1975]: 413-96</ref> and echoed by [[others]]. [[Derrida]] argues that, despite [[Lacan]]'s protestations of anti-transcendentalism, the [[imaginaryphallus]] phallus paves the way for operates as a relationship with the [[symbolictranscendental]] phallus 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 different for the sexes; the man has defined only by its differences from other [[signifier]]s? The [[phallus]], in other [[words]], reintroduces the [[symbolicmetaphysics]] of [[presence]] which [[Derrida]] denominates as [[logocentrism]] phallus (or, more preciselyand thus [[Derrida]] concludes that, 'he is not without having it' by articulating this with [[''il n'est pas sans l'avoir''phallocentrism]]), but the [[WomanLacan]] has created a [[phallocentrism|phallogocentric system of thought]] does not. -->

This is complicated by the fact that the man can only lay claim to the =See Also={{See}}* [[Algebra]]* [[Biology]]||* [[Castration complex]]* [[Desire]]||* [[Development]]* [[Father]]||* [[Imaginary]]* [[Lack]]||* [[Mother]]* [[Oedipus complex]]||* [[symbolicPart-object]] phallus on condition that he has assumed his own castration (has given up being the * [[imaginaryPreoedipal]] phallus), and by the fact that the ||* [[womanSexual difference]]'s lack of the * [[Symbolic]] phallus is also a kind of possession.<ref>{{S4Also}} 153</ref>

Lacan speaks of the [[real]] phallus, the [[imaginary]] phallus and the [[symbolic]] phallus=References=<div style="font-size:11px" class="references-small"><references/></div>