Formulas of Sexuation

[@OH-pc5jx]

Just super! Makes one of the most famously cryptic points in psychoanalysis crystal clear! I love the videos you make like this, they’ve gotta be some of the clearest explanations of Lacan I’ve seen, and the use of film is really helpful and pretty straightforward/clear compared to some of what you get

[@nightoftheworld]

What’s supremely interesting is that Duke Morrison (John Wayne) himself was a tortured person. Though he represented the pinnacle of American machismo he avoided military service in WW2 opting to stay at home with his kids. He admitted to not being able to live up to his on-screen persona which brought him endless guilt and suffering in reality. Apparently he disliked being alone and was a repressed/tortured artist with all the fears of inadequacy that come along with being human.

[@ngonidzashemwanjira208]

I am an Artist and your work is actually very helpful to my work

[@grubernitsch]

I've linked this so often Todd, can't thank you enough.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

thanks

[@DanPatN]

You should mention your KZbin channel on the next episode of Why Theory. This is great work here.

[@mishah.3498]

My favorite video on KZbin

[@blankname5177]

18:51 why would we prefer group with feminine subjectivity than male since they prone to breaking up? as an Anarchist I like it but otherwise it doesn't make sense. Can you kindly explain that professors?

[@nigelharvey640]

You mentioned that the feminine Jouissance can jump between being masculine or feminine. that would seem to imply that there are 3 different types of desire for the feminine then? 1. The Masculine Barred S to objet a 2. The Feminine Barred La to Phallus 3. The Feminine Barred La to S(Barred A) What exactly is the 2nd one representing? The Phallus to my understanding was the thing that gives access to the Maternal Function’s Desire. Is that saying, a woman can desire the Approval of the Big Other (society I guess) by the Phallus? - 1 would be a woman who’s desire is triggered but separated from their access (the desire to “conquer a No”) - 2 would be access to the approval and recognition of society at large (the desire to have complete access & acceptance throughout the social order) - 3 would be desire to belong somewhere beyond the symbolic order all together (the desire to connect with that which subverts/excluded from the order) Another 2 questions: 1. What necessitates these forms of Desire in the first place? What is the logical chain from Impossible Feminine Ideal & these many different types of desire? 2. What’s the difference between Masculine desire for Objet a & Feminine desire for S(Barred A)? The barrier is present in both and desire seems to be implied in the latter. 3. What is the difference between wanting the Phallus (means of providing enjoyment to the Other) & wanting the S(Barred A) (that which the Big Other Lacks, if I’m understanding correctly)?

[@farbodk6933]

Very helpful! Thank you for the hard work

[@RichEvans]

Fantastic explanation. Thank you for making this video!

[@p.anphobia]

the movie example made me think of the end of fallout 1, wherein the player returns to his home vault out from the post apocalyptic wasteland and after saving the entire vault twice, is exiled to the wasteland for the fact that he will inspire the rest of the men to leave and be the destruction of the vault if he comes back. i think that it displays a example of the notion of the man who is not lacking being prohibited by civilization.

[@MarceloKuroi]

I'm totally amateur, and I can see a hint of what I'm looking for, but can you explain us what Slavoj Zizek said in his documentary film "the pervert guide to cinema" about feminine desire against (self-created) masculine desire (learned, specially through cinema)?

[@ronwalimuni8645]

Great work. This solved some problems I had. Would you pls do a video in the future for this " Woman is a symptom of a man"

[@toddmcgowan8233]

OK, thanks for the suggestion.

[@hinayasir501]

Excellently explained...thankyou so much

[@macguffin8540]

So would it be fair to say those identifying with the masculine side are quantitatively disgraced and those identifying with the feminine side are qualitatively dispersed? Lack being the point of equality and the manner of its presentation the cause of differentiation? I believe Brene Brown found in her study of shame that though (self identifying) men and women experience shame the same way the metaphor associated with it was different. For men all shame was collected into a single box (not being man enough) and for women shame was attached to a web of meanings. If this is a correct representation of her work (can’t find her paper to read directly) might she not have rediscovered Lacanian sexuation here?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

Yes and yes. I like the distinction very much between disgrace and dispersal.

[@OH-pc5jx]

I love the implicit formulation of non-castration as ‘a man has to be who he is’ - in otherwise, non-castration is self-identity

[@OH-pc5jx]

Really interested in the idea of ideality (on the side of the master signifier) as a contrast to university (on the side of the missing signifier)

[@PeterZeeke]

gyaaaaad damn. that was confusing... but still much easier to follow than most explanations. thanks!

[@knowledgewillevolve]

Love this. I found it very useful. Thanks!

[@benjaminnicoll3923]

Many thanks for this video, Todd. This kind of work is indispensably helpful. One thing I'm struggling with, though-even after having read Zupančič-is the difference between the objet a and the missing signifier. They both seem to designate the same thing, to me?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I love this question simply because I struggled with it for a long time myself. But I think that there is a clear distinction to be made. The objet a is what causes desire. It is a stain in the structure of signification, a point of excess that coincides with the subject's desire (or lack). The missing signifier is the absence that makes the entire system of signification possible. So one is a point that expresses singularity, while the other is universal. One might say that it is the difference between everyday repression (the objet a) and primal repression (the missing signifier).

[@benjaminnicoll3923]

​@@toddmcgowan8233 The singularity/universal distinction really clears things up for me, and I can see how it maps onto the masculine/feminine positions in the formulas of sexuation. Thanks for the reply, Todd-that question had been bugging me for a while!

[@stanislavkhudzik8314]

Very accessible and brilliantly illustrated exposition of graphs! However, I find that you focus mainly on the manifestation of the difference in the realm of imaginary and the way it mediates the real through fantasy. I feel that the issue of language is somewhat missing from your account though being of fundamental importance when dealing with difference in modes of enjoyment. As of course you know there are various ways to tie phallic enjoyment to language but the way I got to understand it with some degree of clarity is through early intersubjective Lacan. When the speaker starts a talk he creates a totality of discourse while simultaneously excluding the speaking subject from it, creating a semblance of universality. This exclusion being simultaneously the basis of male linguistic authority, phallic enjoyment, and pre-requisite of discourse as the language of One. The feminine enjoyment which is also an enjoyment of mystic that can never be put into words is the enjoyment of the listener which does not exist in the symbolic but is merely present (also because the feminine is excluded from the realm of Lawmaking discourse which you pointed out). However, this presence actually upsets and undermines the discourse of One since the singular gaze and gesture unsettle the semblance of a closed totality of discourse by pointing that there is something unsaid, unique, inexplicable, and uncountable in the listening Other, splitting the subject of the speech. I find that your illustration with the Far from Heaven episode analysis is very beautiful in that regard. And the way to do away with the anxiety-provoking singularity of the gesture for Law, of course, is to fashion "a woman" as its mirror reflection, the Gestalt, an angel without a lack, a reflection of the linguistic totality of symbolic in the imaginary that allows ignoring the not-all of the feminine.

[@Lastrevio]

Wonderfully explained!

[@vitoroliveirajorge368]

brilliant. Thank you for this explanation.

[@pritch481]

Many thanks for your very illuminating videos and articles. Looking at the lower formulae, I wonder whether the relative positions of the symbols are significant (does S(A-bar) have to be above a?); and, maybe more importantly, why Phi is on the male (left) side . Also, are your final remarks only in reference to the lowest arrow, from La-bar to Phi?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I don't think that we should read too much into the relative positioning of the symbols in the lower half, actually. About the phi, that's an insightful question. There is a way in which it should be outside, simply because the masculine ideal must be outside the set in order to constitute the whole. And yes, my final remarks only concerned the lowest arrow.

[@mrgordo333]

Please do a film analysis on Jack Reacher

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I just did. Thanks for the suggestion. I really, really love the film.

[@mrgordo333]

@@toddmcgowan8233 Thank you so much! 👍😀

[@aso5171]

please more videos on this topic.

[@MorbidSymptoms]

These posts are clarifying - thank you!. In terms of the homology between "there is no sexual relation" and "there is no class relation" would it be that labor is the class with no ideal? Does Mean Girls also say something about the difficulties of working-class mobilization? I know theorists have mentioned this in passing but has anyone thought through what this means for the antinomies of class struggle?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

It's really a great point. I do think that there are implications that follow from seeing the class nonrelation in terms of the sexual nonrelation. And the primary thing is exactly what you say. If there is no working class ideal, then where does the unity come from? I think there are interpreters of the formulas who would say that there is no possible unity on this side, but that's not my position.

[@macguffin8540]

These videos are wonderful! I compulsively check for a new one, and am always revisiting others. The exclusion on the masculine side confuses me a bit. It uses the existential signifier to indicate existence, but I am assuming that the existence it refers to is not the non-castrated father, but the set that is generated by his exclusion (all x are subject to phallic function) and that the reason why alpha males, such as Shane, must be excluded is that they don’t exist at the level of the concept either, except as excluded? The boy in Shane is frantically asserting Shane could have avoided being wounded if he had seen the gunman who wounded him, disavowing his castration, indeed the boy is as much concerned with this as with Shane leaving (or his leaving precisely is tied to this idealising). The universal signifier of ‘all x’ doesn't imply existence, relying on an exclusion to totalise, so that reading the two together we see the internal hitch (as we are dealing with westerns) of that side?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

You're exactly right. The existence is structural, from the perspective of those who are on the inside and belong. Great reading of the ending of Shane, by the way.

[@wynshiphillier313]

You can make sure you get updates by clicking on the "bell" icon next to "SUBSCRIBE." There's no need to compulsively check.

[@macguffin8540]

@@wynshiphillier313 🤣“I am in chains. Don’t touch my chains.”

[@wynshiphillier313]

@@macguffin8540 Don't touch my chains? 🤔

[@macguffin8540]

@@wynshiphillier313 The Kafka quote is a poor joke suggesting that maybe compulsive checking is a symptomatic site of enjoyment that might be resistant to sensible advice. The initial comment was mostly about conveying my enthusiasm for Todds work. Going to pounce on his new book.

[@DrewShotwell]

I wonder if Doleres from Westworld in Season 1 is a good example of Feminine Impossibility.

[@Vickonastick]

Is this one of the reasons ppl have such an issue with male cross-dressers but do not seem to devote the same animus towards women who dress more masculine?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I think that's right

[@xenoblad]

It’s weird. I had no conception of the ideal man or woman until people started telling me there was one much later in to my adulthood. I had an idea of an ideal person(something close to Aristotle’s virtuous person with less bigotry), and I just assumed all people regardless of gender should ascribe towards that ideal. Am I interpreting the word “ideal” differently then you and/or Lacan?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I don't think one has to have an image of the ideal operative. It's structural, not at all personal. I think a lot of people avoid it.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

@Egawa C Sorry, it's just my personal explanation, not Lacan's, so there is no reference.

[@LottiLama]

thank you so much!! does Lacan account anywhere for oversexualisation of the female sex compared to the male one? In many centuries of philosophy, the female sex is always the scene for any discussion os sex/ sexuality tout court. If not, would you have an idea why Lacan doesn't account for this?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

I think it's explained in the formulas, actually. It is due precisely to the not-all, which makes the female sex take on the sheen of mystery, whereas the male sex is clearly defined through the exception. I think in some sense the whole theory is an attempt to answer your question, although he could have been more explicit about this, for sure.

[@LottiLama]

@@toddmcgowan8233 thank you for your answer! makes a lot of sense!

[@snguyen7311]

So the guy who leaves is ideal man?

[@toddmcgowan8233]

Interesting, why do you say that? I don't see that implied in what I say here.

[@snguyen7311]

I just don’t understand what makes the ideal man.

[@toddmcgowan8233]

The ideal man does not exist. It's a structural position that no one can actually occupy

[@reviraemusic]

One could not be a sex object and virgin at the same time? I got confused... it seems that "purity" is the ultimate sex object, doesn't it?