proper has taken place, all signifiers are doubly inscribed(in the conscious diachronic
chain and in the unconscious synchronic chains).
The complex signifying function of the Desire-of-the-Mother necessarily has im-
portant repercussions for the status of the Name-of-the-Father: insofar as both
are considered to be signifiers, the substitutive operation between the two can
rightly be named a (paternal) metaphor. On the other hand, given that the Desire-
of-the-Mother is, at the same time, only a protosignifier, a nonorganized flow of
ideational representatives whose imaginary–symbolic signifying elements are
still somehow in direct contact with the Real of a trauma, the Name-of-the-Father
can also be seen as a sign. As we have previously concluded from a slightly dif-
ferent perspective, by promoting phallic signification, the Name-of-the-Father bi-
univocally signifies an enigmatic “What does she want?” which the child has not
thus far been able to symbolize (completely). It is precisely in this sense that the
phallus should in its turn be regarded as the Master-Signifier (S1) of the uncon-
scious of those subjects who have successfully entered and resolved the Oedipus
complex. To use one of Lacan’s most effective expressions from Seminar V, the
phallus is in the end a “signe constituant.” Interestingly enough, at this stage, Lacan
seems to apply such an expression only to those signs / imaginary signifiers (such
as the whip, the stick, etc.) which, in “abnormal” Oedipal relations, help the child
to actively enter the symbolic order in an “alternative” way (which will be marked
by masochistic perversion).^203 “Signes constituants” are here qualified as that “through
which the creation of value [of other signs] is ensured,” as well as that “through
which this real something that is involved... is hit by a ball which makes it a
sign.”^204 These “alternative” Master-Signifiers are needed as substitutes whenever
a disturbance in the dialectic of frustration between the child and the mother pre-
vents the emergence of the phallic Gestalt.^205
More generally, we should emphasize that, as long as the transcendence of the
paternal Law grants the self-sufficiency of the symbolic Other, Lacan does not ex-
plicitly recognize the existence of a standardphallic fantasy which corresponds to a
successful implementation of the Oedipus complex. Fantasy is secluded in the
domain of perversions, and the inevitable overlapping of the “normalization/
normativation” of appropriate sexuation with masochism is disregarded. Things
will change as soon as Lacan arrives at the conclusion that “there is no Other of the
Other”: this simply means that there is no transcendent Law, and that the Symbolic
is thus per se—independently of psychotic and perverse pathologies—an order that
is structurally lacking. At that point, despite remaining responsible for correct
sexuation/Oedipal resolution, the Name-of-the-Father will be: (a) perfectly iden-
tified with the symbolic phallus; (b) qualitatively “lowered” to the level of any