ABSTRACT
The chapter opens with a new theme: the function of identifications in sexuated identity. It begins with the Freudian Oedipus, which suggests that “anatomy is destiny” and that the subject identifies itself with its anatomical sex, albeit not without symptomatic “obstacles”. It shows that Lacan initially followed Freud’s conceptualisation but displaced the problem of sexuated identity with what it includes of the drives to the phallic signifier, reformulating the difference between the sexes and their relations based only on phallic mediation.
It then elaborates on Lacan’s thesis of the dialectic of having and being the phallus. It shows that this thesis, although consistent, concerns only sexual love and desire and does not address the register of corporeal jouissance and sexual orgasm. The genital jouissance is supposed to be subordinated to the dialectic of the subject and the Other, that is, subordinated to what operates in the symbolic, but phallic dialectic and unconscious desire do not account for the question of the jouissance of bodies, and the latter are therefore not commanded by the various identifications already evoked. This insufficiency is indicated by Lacan’s question at the beginning of seminar Encore, namely, where does the jouissance of the body of the Other come from?
The chapter then concludes with a discussion of Lacan’s ultimate elaborations on this question. It evokes the novelty of seminar Encore, the thesis of the “signifier enjoyed”, which puts an end to the heteronomy of the two dimensions of language and jouissance. It shows that, based on this thesis, Lacan constructs a reply to the question of the jouissance of the sexual relation; it is that of the partner-symptom, which will be discussed in detail in the last chapter of the seminar.
