…

There is no sexual relationship, certainly, except between fantasies.

The sexuation formula thus tells us that there is no such thing as a sexual relationship at least in three senses. First, instead of sexual relationship, there are two asymmetrical jouissances. Whereas phallic jouissance erases the Otherness of the Other, feminine jouissance reaches some ecstatic mystery. “There is no such thing as a sexual relationship because one’s jouissance of the Other taken as a body is always inadequate–perverse, on the one hand, insofar as the Other is reduced to object a, and crazy and enigmatic, on the other.” Man is pervert, and woman is psychotic. Sexual relationship is a pathological relation between the pervert and the psychotic. Second, instead of sexual relationship, there are two unconscious fantasies. Whereas man locates his mother in the place of woman, woman discovers her father in the place of man. “There is no sexual relationship, certainly, except between fantasies.” Sexual relationship is a parent-child relationship between lost mother and son, ideal father and daughter. “There is no sexual relationship, except for neighboring generations, namely, the parents on the one hand, the children on the other.” Third, instead of sexual relationship, there are two signifiers, ‘man’ and ‘woman’. Contrary to the common belief that sexual relationship is realized through the body, Lacan observes that our body is inscribed by the signifier. “Only signifiers copulate among one another in the unconscious, but the pathematic [pathèmatiques] subjects that result from it in the form of body are led to do the same, they call that fucking.” Man and woman as signifiers merely describe sexual non-relationship through the signifier of fucking. Man and woman are pathematic subjects, for they suffer from the effect of the signifier so that they cannot enact a harmonious (pre-symbolic) relationship or complete (non-symbolic) satisfaction through their sexual intercourse. Sexual relationship is a discursive relationship between two signifiers, which provokes the dream about making a bodily relationship. In sum, there is no sexual relation; rather, there are two disparate jouissances. Consequently, there is a relationship only between fantasies or signifiers.

On Love: Between Lacan and Badiou,

Youngjin Park