Perversion the Social Relation

52 Bruce Finkword is the death of the thing; the thing (the "real lack"), once named,comes into being as a word that can be linked up with other words,joked about, and so on. The word is far less dangerous than the thing itsupposedly signifies or designates, for it actually annihilates the thing,drains away some of its oppressive force.Once that which the mOther is missing is named, the object the childwas for his mOther can no longer be. For once desire is articulated inwords, it does not sit still, but displaces, drifting metonymically fromone thing to the next. Desire is a product of language and cannot besatisfied with an object. The naming of the mOther's desire forces thechild out of his position as object, and propels him into the quest forthe elusive key to her desire. What does she want? Something ineffablethat seems to characterize the endless series of things her desire alightsupon—what in Western society is known as the phallus. No longer thereal object (the real organ) required to complete her, the child can goon to seek to possess what her desire points to, connotes as desirable, asphallic.The mother's lack has to be named or symbolized for the child tocome into being as a full-fledged subject. In perversion, this does notoccur: no signifier is provided that can make that lack come into beingat the level of thought, easing its real weight. Neither the mother northe father provides the articulation necessary for symbolization. As wesee in Freud's work, the question of the mOther's lack often centers, inperversion, around the mOther's genitalia, her sexual difference fromher son.There are two moments of the paternal metaphor. This naming of themOther's desire/lack is the second (logical) moment. If the first momentof the paternal metaphor is the father's prohibition of the child's pleasurablecontact with its mother (prohibition of jouissance), le Nom duPère taking the form of the father's "No!," the second moment involvesthe symbolization of the mOther's lack—that is, its constitution as lackdue to the fact that it is given a name (here we see le Nom du Père asthe name provided by the father, or the father himself as the name of themOther's desire).The two substitutive moments can be represented schematically asfollows: