98. Seminar VI, lesson of June 3 , 1959.
99. Seminar IX, lesson of March 7 , 19 62.
10 0. See Le séminaire livre IV,pp.111‒121; Le séminaire livre V,pp.233‒243.
101. “The image of the ideal Father is a phantasy of the [standard] neurotic” (Écrits: A Selec-
tion,p. 321 ).
102. For the sake of clarity and conciseness, I shall refer here only to the boy, but my expo-
sition is equally valid mutatis mutandisfor the girl, who, Lacan says, “is without having
it” (“elle est sans l’avoir”).At the moment of symbolic castration, the girl, like the boy, re-
nounces being the imaginary phallus of the mother and, by identifying with the father,
does not have the phallus as a form of having it. This makes woman the phallus-of-man.
Note, however, that woman, despite being the phallus of man, is notthe phallus tout court:
Lacan does not say “ellel’est” but “elle estsans ...”: it is only as an inflection of the “with-
out” that woman is the phallus-of-man....
103. “The phantasy contains the −φ, the imaginary function of castration under a hidden
form” (Écrits: A Selection,p. 322 ).
10 4.Le séminaire livre V,pp.345‒346.
105. Ibid., p. 308.
106. In Seminar VI, Lacan admits that “the object a[quarepresentation of lack] plays [in the
fantasy] the same role of mirage as... the image of the specular other plays with re-
spect to the ego” (lesson of May 27 , 1959 ). See also Écrits: A Selection,p. 314.
107. “In the case of the neurotic, the −φslides under the S of the phantasy to the advantage
of the ego” (Écrits: A Selection,p. 323 ).
108 .Le séminaire livre X,p.13 9.
109. Seminar VI, lesson of May 13 , 1959.
110. “The phallus is the last in a series of figurations of the objet athat display a conspicuously
imaginary character.... The phallus is not merely one figure of the objet aamong oth-
ers but assumes a special status” (R. Boothby, Freud as Philosopher[London: Routledge,
2001 ], p. 273 ).
111 .Le séminaire livre X,p. 37.
112. See Seminar VI, lesson of June 3 , 1959 ; Le séminaire livre X, p. 35.
113 .Le séminaire livre X,pp.12 0 ‒ 122.
114. See ibid., pp.50‒52, p. 74.
115. These are clearly two different subjective positions: on the one hand, the subject con-
tinues to demand always new things, but he considers each demand as “what he really
wants”; on the other hand, the subject (temporarily) assumes the impossibility of sat-
isfying his demand for love, and by saying “No, it’s not that.. .” to what the other offers
him, he approaches pure desire (of the void). In other words, it is imperative to make
a distinction between new imaginary identifications that are the consequence of mere
frustration—in everyday life “there are as many [narcissistic] masks as there are forms
of unsatisfaction” (Le séminaire livre V,p. 333 )—and those which follow the (reciprocal)notes to pages 158–164