the phallus & the penis

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Dec 1 09:30:56 PST 1998


Jim heartfield wrote:


>Yes, indeed, what utter ignorance to confuse the phallus with a penis.
>How gloriously naive. Ha ha ha. Amazingly, the Oxford English Dictionary
>makes the self-same error! Don't they know that words mean just what
>Lacan wants them to mean?

Who are you policing the language for, James, the Academie Francaise?

Here's the Phallus entry from the (Lacan-influenced) Langauge of Psycho-Analysis, by Laplanche & Pontalis.

Doug

----

PHALLUS

= D.: Phallus.- Es.: falo. -Fr.: phallus. -L: fallo. -P: falo.

In classical antiquity, the figurative representation of the male organ. In psycho-analysis, the use of this term underlines the symbolic function taken on by the penis in the intra- and inter-subjective dialectic, the term 'penis' itself tending to be reserved for the organ thought of in its anatomical reality.

Only on a few occasions does the term 'phallus' occur in Freud's writings. In its adjectival form, however, it is used in a variety of expressions, the most important being 'phallic stage'*. In contemporary psycho-analytical literature there has been a gradual tendency to use 'penis' and 'phallus' in distinct senses: the former denotes the male organ in its bodily reality, while the latter lays the stress on the symbolic value of the penis.

The phallic organisation, which Freud gradually came to recognise as a stage* of libidinal development in both sexes, occupies a central position in that it is correlated with the castration complex at its acme and governs the setting-up and the resolution of the Oedipus complex. The choice offered the subject at this stage is simply that between having the phallus and being castrated. Clearly the opposition here is not between two terms denoting two anatomical realities - as is the case when we contrast penis and vagina-but rather between the presence and the absence of a single factor. In Freud's view, this primacy of the phallus for both sexes is a corollary of the fact that the little girl is ignorant of the existence of the vagina. Even though the mode of the castration complex varies from the boy to the girl, it is nevertheless centred solely, in both cases, on the phallus, which is thought of as detachable from the body. In this light, an article such as 'On Transformations of Instinct, as Exemplified in Anal Erotism' (1917c) serves to show how the male organ has a part to play in a series of interchangeable elements constituting 'symbolic equations' (penis = faeces = child = gift, etc.); a common trait of these elements is that they are detachable from the subject and capable of circulating from one person to another.

For Freud, the male organ is not only a reality that can be identified as the ultimate point of reference in a whole series of references. The theory of the castration complex* also assigns a dominant role to it, as a symbol this time, in so far as its absence or presence transforms an anatomical distinction into a major yardstick for the categorisation of human beings, and in so far as, for each individual subject, this absence or presence is not taken for granted and remains irreducible to a mere datum: instead, it is the problematic outcome of an intra- and inter-subjective process (the assumption by the subject of his own sex). It is doubtless with this symbolic value in mind that Freud, and, more systematically, contemporary psycho-analysis, speaks of the phallus: reference is made, with varying degrees of explicitness, to the use of this term in antiquity to refer to the figurative representation (painted, sculpted, etc.) of the male member as an object of veneration with a pivotal role in initiation ceremonies (Mysteries). 'In this distant period, the erect phallus symbolised sovereign power, magically or supernaturally transcendent virility as opposed to the purely priapic variety of male power, the hope of resurrection and the force that can bring it about, the luminous principle that brooks neither shadows nor multiplicity and maintains the eternal springs of being. The ithyphallic gods Hermes and Osiris are the incarnation of this essential inspiration' (1).

How are we to understand 'symbolic value' here? First, it would be mistaken to assign a specific allegorical meaning to the phallus-symbol, however broad it might be (fecundity, potency, authority, etc.). Secondly, what is symbolised here cannot be reduced to the male organ or penis itself, in its anatomical reality. Lastly, the phallus turns out to be the meaning - i.e. what is symbolised behind the most diverse ideas just as often as (and perhaps more often than) it appears as a symbol in its own right (in the sense of a schematic, figurative representation of the male member). Freud pointed out in his theory of symbolism that the phallus was one of the universal objects of symbolisation; and he thought that the property of being something little (das Kleine) could provide a tertium comparationis between the male organ and what is used to represent it (2a). Yet to pursue the logic of this remark, we might conclude that what really characterises the phallus and reappears in all its figurative embodiments is its status as a detachable and transformable object-and in this sense as a part object*. Nor is this conclusion contradicted by the fact that the subject as wholeperson may be identified with the phallus - a fact perceived by Freud as early as The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a) (2b, 2c) and largely borne out by analytic investigation. For what happens at such moments is that the person himself is assimilated to an object that can be seen and exhibited, or that can circulate, be given and received. In particular, Freud showed how, in the case of female sexuality, the wish to receive the father's phallus is transformed into the wish to have a child by him. This instance, furthermore, casts doubt on the wisdom of setting up a radical distinction between penis and phallus in psychoanalytic terminology. The term 'Penisneid' (see 'Penis Envy') crystallises an ambiguity which may be a fruitful one, and which cannot be disposed of by making a schematic distinction between, say, the wish to derive pleasure from the real man's penis in coitus and the desire to possess the phallus qua virility symbol.

In France, Jacques Lacan has attempted a reorientation of psycho-analytic theory around the idea of the phallus as the 'signifier of desire'. The Oedipus complex, in Lacan's reformulation of it, consists in a dialectic whose major alternatives are to be or not to be the phallus, and to have it or not to have it; the three moments of this dialectic are centred on the respective positions occupied by the phallus in the desires of the three protagonists (3).

(1) LAURIN, C. 'Phallus et sexualité féminine', La Psychanalyse, 1964, VII, 15.

(2) FREUD, S. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a): a) G.W., 11-111, 366; S.E., V, 362-63. b) G.W., 11-111, 370-71; S.E., V, 366. c) G.W., 11-111, 399; S.E., V. 394.

(3) Cf. LACAN, J. 'Les formations de l'inconscient', comptes-rendus of seminars, 1957-58, by PONTALIS, J.-B., in Bulletin de Psychologie, 1958, XI, 4/5; XII, 2/3; XII, 4.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list