Changes

Perhaps, sexual difference enters here in an unexpected way: the reason why the supergo is stronger in man is that it is man, not woman, who is intensely related to this excess of the surplus-jouissance over the pacifying functionning of the symbolic Law. In terms of the paternal function, the opposition between the pacifying symbolic Law and the excessive supergo injunction is the one between the Name-of-the-Father (the paternal symbolic authority) and the "primordial father," allowed to enjoy all women. This rapist "primordial father" is a male (obsessional), not feminine (hysterical), fantasy: it is man who is able to endure his integration into the symbolic order only when this integration is sustained by some hidden reference to the fantasy of the unbridled excessive jouissance embodied in the unconditional supergo injunction to enjoy, jouir to go to the extreme, to trangress and force constantly the limit. It is man in whom the integration into the symbolic order is sustained by the superego exception."

* Bruce Fink notes that the translation of plus-de-jouir rendered in Television (New York: Norton, 1989) as "over-coming" is deficient. Since plus-de-jouir is based on plus-value (Marx's surplus value), it means a surplus, extra or supplemental jouissance: the plus should be understood in the sense of Encore, More. He stresses that "the more sensual sense of being 'overcome' with or 'overwhelmed' by pleasure is related to the Other jouissance.