Jacques Lacan On Masochism Philosophy Essay

Jacques Lacan On Masochism Philosophy Essay A consideration of Lacans interpretation of the Oedipal complex will provide further support for the contention that homoeroticism is both internal to and disruptive of masculine identity. Lacan follows Freud in assigning a central role to the Oedipal complex and its relation to castration, but he articulates the phenomenon in terms of his understanding of the relationship between subject and signification. In Lacans account the subject finds his way to selfhood through the work of the signifying system. The subject does not employ the cultures signifying elements to construct an identity but finds itself in signification, spoken by the signifier. Given this relationship to signification, the subjects self, meaning and desire are articulated from the site of the Other. The externalised reference point for the subjects self-identity creates a gap, a loss, a lack, a sense of alienation at the heart of subjectivity. Forever trying to close the gap of subjectivity the subject is constant ly substituting objects for the phallus in an attempt to restore a fantastic wholeness that may never have been there in the first place. Although Lacan insists that the phallus is a pure and transcendent signifier, that it is neither an object nor an organ, but only a fantasy and an ideal he often describes the phallus using terms that evoke the penis. Also, his description of how the subject realises and overcomes the castrating, alienating loss that accompanies its entry into language establishes a strong equivocation, if not an identification, between the phallus and the penis. Although all subjects experience the alienation attending the entry into language and thus all subjects seek the phallus and its fantastic substitutes, the subject comes to realise something about where the phallus and is not, given that the Other is the source and site of desire. Given the desire of the Other for the subject, the subject comes to an awareness that the Other does not possess the phallus, but is searching for it; the desire of the Other creates a longing on the part of the subject to become the phallus for the Other. Although the structural terms of Lacans description are subject and Other, implying that any desiring other could come to be understood as lacking the phallus and requiring completion by and through the subject. Lacan exclusively describes the lacking Other as the lower-case other, or more precisely, the mother. Whereas neither the subject nor the Other have an official gendered identity when discussed in the most general terms, Lacans description of the symbolic order requires that desiring others be positioned in specific gendered roles so that the subject can imaginatively overcome its alienation. In fact, in order for the symbolic structure to operate on Lacans understanding the only answer to the ever-circulating lack generated by the self-alienation of signification that can serve to cover the gap in subjectivity is the Name-of- the-Father; there is no maternal or feminine equivalent. The actual father in a relation akin to that of the penis and the phallus is, of course, always a stand-in for the symbolic Father, a vague approximation of the figure that secures the Law and halts the flow of the chain of signification initiated by the desire and language of the Other. At the same time in an account similar to the admission that the phallus is the image of the penis where the actual father does not sufficiently approximate the symbolic Father, the subject is likely to succumb to psychosis, unable to find its moorings in the ever-flowing tide of language, unable to structure a stable self. Lacan identifies a number of ways in which the actual father can fail to resemble sufficiently or successfully the symbolic father. First, if the actual mother fails to treat the actual father as an authority figure, as a figure who could instantiate and enforce the Law, then the relationship to the symbolic Father will be marred. Second, if the actual fathers life is riven with failures to attain the achievements and successes culturally assigned to male subjects, then he will also falter in resembling the symbolic Father. Third, if the actual father is so overwhelmingly successful, establishes himself as such a close approximation to the symbolic Father, then he also presents a problem for the subject because the actual fathers inevitable weaknesses and flaws will appear that much more glaring and hypocritical in relation to the symbolic Father he almost exactly approximates. Given the multiple ways in which the actual father can fail to resemble the symbolic Father, given Lacans a dmission that the actual father is always an imposter for the symbolic Father, given his admission that even the symbolic Father is only a fantastic substitute for the phallus which is itself only an imaginary object, are we compelled to conclude that virtually all subjects must be psychotic to some degree or another? Regardless of how we answer this question, Lacans theoretical discourse reveals, at the very least, an attempt to secure a privileged function for paternal authority, a longing for the (f/F)ather to rescue the subject from the chaos, lack and loss that the (m)Others desire generates. In this way, although not explicitly acknowledged in these terms, Lacans theory of the subject betrays a desire for the father that Freudian discourse willingly admits. What is missing from this account of alienation, desire and the phallus is any explicit recognition that the subject could experience the father as the desiring other. The logic of the Lacanian structural order demonstrates why this must be ruled out as a possibility. On the one hand, if the father could be the other who desires the subject, then the father would be recognised as lacking the phallus in the same way that the mother does. In Lacans system, desire signals lack; if the father is (also) a site of lack then the symbolic order will collapse because the Name-of-the-Father exists precisely as an answer to the ever-present, ever circulating lack signified by the phallus. On the other hand, if the father is either the source of a homoerotic desire for the son or the object of the sons homoerotic desire, then, given the sexual order that Lacan assumes and the dominant fiction presupposes, the actual father is distanced from the symbolic Father because of the kind of sexual desir e circling around him. Insofar as homoerotic desire flows between the father and son, psychosis inevitably results i.e., homoeroticism makes the subjects achievement of a self impossible. At the same time, the subjects quest for an un-alienated sense of self is fuelled by a desire to rest secure in relation to the Father and the Fathers Law. The longing for selfhood is discursively represented by Lacan as a captivation with the (F/f)ather that both is and cannot be homoerotic. Freuds representation of normative masculinity can keep homoerotic desire discursively alive because it strives to make the objective facts of biology that institute the heterosexual and patriarchal organisation of desire and identity appear natural and inevitable. The boy will always choose the penis; the penis signifies maleness and implies heterosexual desire. Because Lacans account of subjectivity does not take anatomy as its foundation, it cannot admit the possibility of homoerotic desire into the realm of masculine identity without revealing the arbitrary resolution of the alienating effects of signification in favour of the heterosexual and patriarchal status quo. If the boy finds himself in a universe comprised solely of others, lack and desire, then there must be some mechanism for fixing the relationship between some others, some lacks and some desires, if the gendered and sexualised division of power is to be maintained. Taking Freuds thoughts on mourning and melancholia as her primary texts, Judith Butler argues in Gender Trouble that the lost, repressed, perpetually unacknowledged, eternally mourned object of homosexual desire is necessary to the consolidation of masculinity and that a strong sense of oppositionally defined gender identity serves to maintain the lost homosexual object through a constant gesture of disavowal. Butler also demonstrates through a close reading of Freud and Lacan on the Oedipal complex that the social prohibition on homosexuality is transformed by their texts into a heterosexual disposition that provides heterosexual desire with a natural rather than cultural origin. More importantly, however, Butler concludes her discussion of the relationship between heterosexual desire and the lost homosexual object with a consideration of the relationship between disavowed homoerotic desire and the construction of the female subject. The woman-as-object must be the sign that [the masculine subject] not only never felt homosexual desire, but never felt the grief over its loss. Indeed, the woman-as-sign must effectively displace and conceal that preheterosexual history in favour of one that consecrates a seamless heterosexuality. Butler contends that the construction of the woman as a sexual object and the repression of the homosexual substratum of masculinity are implicated. Given this mutual implication, it seems that tracing the figuration of homoerotic desire in representations of normative masculinity has the potential to alter the construction of womens relationship to sexuality and subjectivity. This section began with the suspicion that there might be sites in psychoanalytic theory, in addition to discussions of masochism, where the dominant fiction regarding masculine subjectivity could be unsettled. Through a discussion of both Freuds and Lacans understandings of the masochism and the Oedipal complex, I have sought to map one of these sites, to trace the presence of homoeroticism in psychoanalytic representations of masculinity, even where it is absent from the explicit terms of the discourse. Attending to this homoerotic substratum of normative masculinity provides three critical insights for the larger questions motivating the dissertation. First, based on this account of the relationship between normative masculinity and homoerotic desire, we can understand why masculinity resists being the object rather than the agent of the gaze. Where the masculine subject is exposed to the gaze, erotic desire is never far behind. When erotic desire envelops the male body, it often renders that body capable of homoerotic contemplation or at least suggests the possibility of homoerotic contemplation of the male body generally. Such a presentation of the male body brings to conscious attention the thin, if not discernible, line between normative and homoerotic masculinity. Castration, loss, lack, otherness, visibility; these are the characteristics that the dominant fiction attempts to exclude from its articulation of masculine subjectivity. What makes this task of exclusion, repression and displacement nearly impossible is the conjunction of masculinitys dependence on display for securing its privileged position and spectacles tendency for exposing the lack inherent in masculinity as well as the dependency of masculinity on the other to retain its ascendant position. Masochistic fantasies help to secure the venerable and desirable status of the paternal figure, but they do this at the cost of demonstrating the dependence of masculine subjectivity on the ever-receding, unattainable love of a masculine other. Phallic visual displays often serve to align the penis with the phallus, but they also function to expose the insufficient and paltry nature of the organ when placed alongside the imaginary ground of its significance. Narratives of womans nature as irredeemably and essentially castrated, as naturally and inevitably passive in relation to male (heterosexual) desire certainly constrict the cultural possibilities available to female subjects, but they often reveal the desperate anxiety to disavow the narcissistic, homoerotic dimensions of masculine subjectivity. Representation poses a dilemma for masculinity: the display of its power is both necessary for the justification of its privileges and an essential feature of its demise. Freud and Lacan have attempted to cover up the cracks inimical to their own enunciative function in order to secure an authoritative position for masculine subjectivity; like even the most masterful artists, however, the discursive elements exceed their progenitors; the device is, more often than not, in many ways laid bare. The dominant fiction of masculine power, privilege and plenitude is both more resilient and more vulnerable than it might at first appear. This can make a political project that depends on hermeneutic intervention as its primary strategy, like the one pursued here, seem astonishingly naÃÆ'Â ¯ve and refreshingly incisive in turn. As such a hermeneutically grounded vision of political change assumes, revelation of the dominant fictions fictional and political character can be accomplished only by a close examination of the fictions terms and structures. To state this claim in the terms of the material under consideration, perversion is intelligible and identifiable only in relation to the Oedipal drama; subversion is accomplished primarily through a diagnostic, symptomatic and internal critique of the dominant fiction. This is not an empirical claim about the veracity or universality of the Oedipal structure, but rather a methodological claim about how best to do the work of transfor ming the dominant fictions regarding masculinity, femininity, and subjectivity. The structuring and definitional terms of the prevailing discourse must often be taken as the starting points for any oppositional discourse, for the sake of intelligibility, legitimacy, credibility, authority. This strategy of close, but subversive, reading will continue to guide my interpretation of other representations of masculinity and the male body. The political work of reconfiguring cultural fantasies about the meaning of masculinity will depend, at least initially, on the ability to re-signify the features of the relevant hegemonic discourses. Without expecting a completely new narrative outside the reigning signifying practices, this perspective is informed by a belief in the possibility of variable narratives using the terms of the dominant signification system to disturb the hegemonic understanding of masculine identity. Whether such hope is fantastic or delusional will be demonstrated in pa rt by the analysis of the next chapter, but can ultimately be confirmed only by the fantasies and practices that such interpretive interventions instigate. 2,447 words