sire is the desire of the Other as desire of lack, this could apply equally to desiring
the Other’s desire as the object of one’s fantasy which representslack, and to the pure
desire of the Other’s desire as an irreducible real lack, as the prephantasmatic real
void in the symbolic order which generated the subject’s desire in the first place.
It is indeed the case that the identification of the subject’s desire with the Other’s
desire (as “mitigated” void) on the level of the “marionettes of fantasy” should not
be confused with another, more “essential” level on which, despite phantasmati-
zation, the desire of the Other remains unknown for the subject, and causes anxi-
ety when it is encountered.^121
From a slightly different standpoint, this clarification should also allow us to see
how the subject’s desire of the Other’s desire in the fundamental fantasy is still a
desire for recognition;consequently, it is incorrect to relegate the desire for recogni-
tion to the pseudo-Hegelian notion of consciousdesire that Lacan embraced in the
early 195 0s. When Lacan says that desire is the desire of the Other’s desire as lack,
this does not necessarily exclude the possibility that this same desire is also, at the
same time, a desire for unconsciousrecognition in the fundamental fantasy: due to
the complex nature of the fantasy in which, paradoxically, lack is represented, un-
conscious desire is both a desire for lack and a desire to suture this lack. Insofar as
lack is sutured in fantasy, the subject’s desire as desire of the Other’s desire as lack
remains a desire for (phantasized) recognition—a desire to be desired or, better,
loved by the Other. The subject’s fundamental fantasy sutures lack only insofar as
S is at the same time the object aof the Other’s desire (in the subject’s fantasy).
To recapitulate: on the level of fantasy, the subject’s desire is the Other’s desire
and, conversely, the Other’s desire is the subject’s desire: hence ( 1 ) the subject’s
desire is the object aof the Other’s desire and, more importantly, ( 2 ) the sub-
ject’s desire is ultimately the desire to be the object aof the Other’s desire. On the
contrary, pure desire desires “that which desires” (le désirant)in the Other, the real
alterity of the Other which lies beyond the phantasmatic veil of unconscious recog-
nition. All this can be reformulated by saying that the subject’s desire of the Other
as desire for the Other’s desire qualack is nothing but the desire for the Other as the
desire to reproducedesire; one can continue to desire the Other’s desire qualack only
if one continues to reproduce one’s desire in Sa(where astands for the Other’s
desire as “domesticated” lack). Any direct attempt to face the Other’s desire con-
ceived as “raw lack” beyond fantasy unleashes anxiety and, as we have seen, this
could entail the paradoxical termination of desire.
What precisely does Lacan mean when he states that the subject is the object aof
the Other’s desire, and that this condition should ultimately be regarded as the
kernel of the subject’s own phantasmatic desire?^122