ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two different paradigms of jouissance in our present time: one paradigm involves the subject’s sensual body among other bodies that, while imaginary and ambivalent in nature, vitalises the subject. The other paradigm concerns the virtual exchanges of a globalised culture plugged into digital screens, which we could think of as lathouses, after Lacan’s neologism from his seventeenth seminar. The use of the lathouse, or technoscientific gadgets able to extract enjoyment, increased significantly during the pandemic lockdown, showing a generalisation of the jouissance of the Other, which Lacan renders as inside the body and outside language. From a psychoanalytical critical perspective, I propose that the coupling of the subject and their small screen might affect the speaking body by impoverishing the Imaginary register, intruding in the structuring of lalangue, and hindering social bonding.
