Phallus

This helps so much, Todd! I'm finally starting to understand this concept. The examples of the crown and the tie are very helpful. Just so I'm clear, the phallus (symbolic phallus) is a signifier, but not necessarily a signifier in the strict sense of being the material side of a sign (as in Saussure's differential theory of language)? In other words, the phallic signifier doesn't necessarily have to be a word, e.g., "No", "Dad", "Father", etc. The phallus can actually be an object, a mark, a gesture, etc., right? During the Oedipus complex, the symbolic phallus would be something semiotically linked to the person who fulfills the paternal function of limiting the child's jouissance. I know the phallus is not an object in the Real sense of "objet petit a", but it can be a literal object that functions as a signifier. Correct? And when we say that there's nothing beneath the phallus, could we reword this in Peircean terms to mean that the phallus is an indexical sign, a sign the indicates something else (as smoke indicates fire)? Yet, in the specific case of the phallus, the index is a total fake insofar as it merely indicates a void, a nothingness? In Baudrillard's terms, the phallus, then, would always be a simulation (indication) of masculine authority/power/vitality where there actually is none. Sorry to bombard you with so many questions. Ha. It's just all starting to click and I'm seeing how important this concept is. Thank you for all the help.

I wonder if much of the enjoyment taken from a series like Twin Peaks (heck, most of David Lynch's ouevre actually) is related to this idea of the absence of the phallus or the veiling of it..

I’m interested in how much Todd (and anyone else in the comments) would identify masculinity/femininity in the psychoanalytic sense directly with gender in the everyday social sense?

I’m completely new to psychoanalysis. What reading would you recommend I start with first?

So the first rule of fight club is that there can be no feminine fight club?

Sorry if this is a weird place to ask this but it seems like Why Theory? listeners contact you guys from time to time (requesting episodes) but I’ve never been able to figure out how. D’you guys have an email or a twitter or something?

What do you think is the connection between master signifier and perception? Is it possible to think of the primacy of the signifier (Lacan) on the one hand and the primacy of perception (Merleau-Ponty) on the other? Thank you very much.

"Is the Phallus White Skin?""
-Patricia Huntington

i'm dyin for you to do an object a vid todd

Todd please keep making this kind of content

WHY is the presence and masculinity a "deception", that makes absolutely NO sense???
"Symbolic phallus" indicates the underlying masculinity which is seen as dominant power, having agency, independence, courage, etc. essentially presence of positive qualities that are comprised of masculine traits. This presence is symbolised by men possessing or having the phallic symbol ( biologically the penis) whilst feminity is based on concept of absence. Ie positive & negative.
This is the fundamentals of sexual differences and difference in gender identity between men and women which then influence or society, culture, social structures, language, etc. including castration complex right?
WHY DO YOU CLAIM THIS PRESENCE IS A DECEPTION or SIMULATION. Is positivity in comparison to negativity a fallacy? Certainly not.
Sounds bizzare to deny the existence of presence. Care to explain your rationale?

If you accept the ABSENCE as objectively real by recognising its lack, then you must also accept the PRESENCE as objectively real by acknowledging the existence of the substance or essence that forms the presence.
By claiming the substance that forms the presence as a deception, is essentially denying truth or reality, which sounds absurdly nonsensical.
Example, it's like accepting darkness or enjoying ignorance as real but refusing to acknowledge that brightness and knowledge as real because for some warped reason(s), you believe the presence of light and information is a deception or not real. Claiming ignorance is bliss? 😉
How can you rationalise such nonsense? You can't make sense out of such senseless suppositions.

First you claim phallus is not a garden variety signifier as it signifies everything signified as such it essentially signifies the signification process itself.
Then, you contradict the initial statement by claiming signification is castration and claim phallus signifies castration.
So is the phallus this master (unrestricted) signifier OR the phallus is a very restricted signifier ONLY signifying castration. Both statements are paradoxical to each other, aren't they?

When Lacan said "the phallus indicates the enjoyment given up as a subject with a symbolic identity", this reference is to an imaginary phallus given up by symbolic castration for a boy, who then progress to have the symbolic phallus and girls to identify being the symbolic phallus.
Then, he said this symbolic phallus is "the signifier of the desire of the Other" and the signifier of jouissance", presumably enjoyment of the One or the Self, I suppose, given the Other normally refers to the feminine whilst the One or the Self refers to the masculine, identified as having the phallus.
Essentially, the enjoyment is the One who is having the phallus, so the enjoyment CAN'T be senseless, can it?

I had a similar thought of the importance of absence that was brought up at the end with the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony statue with that of the Sistine Chapel ceiling depiction of God and Adam's almost touching. The importance of the touching gesture in the fresco is in the gap or absence of connection being the constitutive element (that of castration).

I'm going through Bruce Fink's lovely book 'The Lacanian Subject' with a group of friends (actually on the recommendation of your fab book on The Rules of The Game), but I'm struggling with some bits of it, especially in connection to the more philosophical aspects of the theory discussed by yourself, zizek, etc. In particular, how on earth are we to make sense of traversing the fantasy as "[involving] a going beyond of castration", or of the "subjectifying the cause"? (I'm also a bit confused by his repeated emphasis of bringing "part" of the real back into the symbolic order – how can we even speak of the real as having parts? – but that's a bit less important to the thrust of the book)

Mr McGowan, I've been asking myself about masculinity and symbolic castration and I was wondering if it's actually a case of study looking for a new masculinity that transcends many of the issues it implies in this century.

what would you say is the difference between objet petit a and the phallus? The dynamic of "men want to have it women want to be it" resembles the dynamic present between obsessional/hysteric towards objet a in their fundamental fantasies. Also, given that the phallus signifies something the (m)other desires, does that mean the phallus is the signifier of the others desire, a.k.a signifier of the lack in the other?

todd will you adopt me please

Many great examples! Thank you. For many Lacanians, the phallus is their intelligence, so they tend to shy away from providing their own unique examples because doing so could reveal that they don't actually understand it. So, good examples are few and far between in the Lacanian universe. When someone authoritative, like Zizek, comes up with a good example, it gets recycled by everyone. But you have to wonder: If Lacanian theory is so powerful as they claim, there must be countless examples all around us. Why is everyone so evasive? Because they have to hide the fact that they are hiding.

In order to provide clear examples that allow people to understand Lacanian concepts, you have to be willing to be exposed. Women do tend to be more honest about not understanding something. I think your willingness to provide these great examples shows that you are not wearing a toupée.

This video is pure gold, keep it up

Early in the video McGowan picks two fringe cases that show the breakdown of signification and point towards its essential inadequacy; but the truth is that most signification does not ‘break down.’

Under the microscope its inadequacies may be revealed, but most of the time we tend not to operate at the microscopic/quantum scale: most signification is ‘good enough’ at the level of the everyday. We may shift focus when problems arise, but otherwise we remain at the surface, in the complacency of what Dawkin's termed 'Middle World'.

The 'lie' of Middle World is only a lie when viewed from the hinterlands. If atoms are the truth, then collections of atoms ('things') become mere illusion; if truth lies at the periphery, then the centre becomes false. The lie is necessary because most people need to believe that things are real and solid, and that their symbolic identity has substance and meaning - after all, we aren’t all mystics like Lacan.

Hey Todd, could you say that Llewelyn Moss in No Country For Old Men has an unconscious neurotic desire not to ensure the safety of his wife and mother-in-law and get away with the money but to reject castration while Anton Shigur has an unconscious psychotic desire to monopolize castration?

And to this extent, could we look at Llewelyn as an example of a politically liberal form of enjoyment while Shigur represents a hard right or conservative form of political enjoyment?

This is such a helpful video, thank you! As someone trying to understand this concept as to write about it in my dissertation, you have helped enormously. Your examples and multiple ways of explaining certain parts really made this concept finally makes sense to me so thank you!

Such a comprehensive, illuminating, reader-considerate, plus even entertaining elucidation of the topic. Truly a gem scholar 👍🏻

I come back to this video often as a way of reminding myself Lacan is understandable when approached in the right way. The clip from Mulholland Drive made me think about how drag queens, who are themselves playing with the absurdity of the phallus and signification, so often lip sync in their routines

tEoftPS=tEoSenselessness tryna make heads or tails...so the shame/loss of EotS = oblivion?

shame/loss=oblivion?

so circumcision's in Lacan's view? what about circumcision then and now(porn, maybe some person with a penisgets circumcised later in life or for porn...)?

wait so obvs phallus can be negative and positive so feminism must be anti phallic, not negative phallic. or feminism is not negative phallocentrism, feminism is sans phallus.

Tuareg men traditionally wear turbans and veil their faces and are very proud of this tradition. For them, this is an emblem of their masculinity. Their women aren't veiled. Exception to every rule, or is this theory just BS?

"O MAI GOD SPIDERMAN WAS TEHRE🗣️🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯"

Yes.

I can't hear you; I have my penis in my ear.

This reminds me of an incident recounted in the book Proust's Duchesses: Louis XIV had to have a fistula removed from his anus (pre-anesthesia) and passed out from the pain. But when he awoke, he told his worried court: "The man is suffering, but the king is fine."

I think the Gherkin in London is one even though it's more like a "plug" 😁

The Washington Monument took 36 years to erect.