Defining Sex and Communism with Lacan, Deleuze & Guattari
Intro
This text will aim the redefine what is meant by sex, using and attempting to explain terms used in the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan, and then exploring the movements and critiques made by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his partner, the Lacanian student Félix Guattari.
I start with my style, which means it may not be immediately clear -unless one is familiar with the style I am using- what it is I am saying. My intentions have been to try and explain what I mean within the next couple of lines provided after. If I have used a term without explanation, this is because it will be explored in the text soon after, or because the term can be easily accessed for free online (or in my previous essay, Other Jouissance and becoming-woman).
The core theme will be on the questions of what is sex? What is masculinity and femininity? And how are these questions approached in psychoanalysis and in critique of psychoanalysis.
I try to make the suggestion that the masculine/phallic signifer is incapable of having sex.
That is to say, in the case of cis-heterosexual intercourse, what I refer to as a masculine male (a Man who performs the masculine function, this is explored in the text) is incapable of having sex. Instead, they can only masturbate.
The masturbation of the masculine male can involve an Other - a secondary or beyond partner - but will never go beyond masturbation.
What most would consider to be sexual intercourse is actually just the masturbation of the masculine male using the Other. The Other in this case, be she female or otherwise belonging to the realm of the Queer or non-binary, is merely a tool for the masculine male's own gratification.
The Other's enjoyment is secondary to the masculine male's. Everything the masculine male does for her/him/they/it/+ is only to achieve his own Jouissance (orgasm or sexual pleasure/satisfaction).
"Your pleasure is my pleasure" and "my pleasure is your pleasure": Phallic Jouissance (Jφ) and Other Jouissance (JA)
Sex is not "your pleasure is my pleasure" - the pervert's surplus enjoyment/Jouissance.
Sex is "my pleasure is your pleasure" - the Other Jouissance (JA) - Jouissance through the Other.
What is meant by this?
I will here throughout refer to cultural, statistical problem of cis-heterosexual intercourse: where the female orgasm is a rarity, and so is female sexual satisfaction. In some cases, the female orgasm is a cultural myth.
The masculine Jouissance; by this I mean that the male orgasm is in the act of cis-heterosexual sex, purely masturbatory.
The Man in cis-heterosexual sex gets off, enjoys, and achieves orgasm because of his perceived ability to make the Other orgasm.
He takes so much pride in 'being good' ("i'm gonna fuck you so good") that he achieves Jouissance (sexual pleasure and satisfaction) through his own narcissistic self-image as the one who's 'doing the work'.
The Man enjoys his own ability and performance so much so that he achieves orgasm first.
He achieves his own orgasm first because he is so aroused and satisfied by his ability to make the Other orgasm, that he will orgasm before she does/they do.
His enjoyment of his ability to pleasure the Other is more pleasurable than the Other's enjoyment.
This is also what is meant by the term surplus enjoyment.
'I enjoy my own sacrificing of my own pleasure, even more than if I had experienced it as simple pleasure. By the act of 'sacrifice', it becomes more.'
That is to say "your pleasure is my pleasure" (your Jouissance is my Jouissance) - 'I fuck you so good, that I cum at the very thought of myself fucking so good, you become my fantasy of myself, and I use you to more effectively masturbate.'
Cis-heterosexual intercourse for the masculine Man is therefore masturbation.
This is what is also what is meant by the Lacanian notion of the 'pervert' - who 'knows exactly what the Other desires'.
On the contrary - Sex is when "my pleasure is your pleasure".
That is to say 'even if I still fantasize about myself and enjoy the idea of myself as the pleasuring partner (after all, all enjoyment of 'giving' is this kind of fantasmic enjoyment) I still prioritise and enjoy my partner's enjoyment more than my own. I experience my joy through the Other's joy.'
'My Jouissance is your Jouissance.'
The masturbatory element (the enjoyment of oneself as the pleasurer, I.e the pleasure of giving pleasure) can still persist in sex, but this enjoyment can be exercised either through the self ("and this makes me satisfied") or through the Other ("I am only satisfied when you are/my satisfaction is your satisfaction").
Masturbation (even with a partner) is through the function of the former:
I.e "I am the reason for my own Jouissance, even if I involve someone else. I involve you to enjoy myself even more."
"I love you, but, because inexplicably I love in you something more than you - the object petit a - I mutilate you."
-Jacques Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
'You are only involved for my pleasure' (your pleasure/Jouissance is my pleasure/Jouissance).
Sexual intercourse occurs with the function of the latter; I am only involved for your pleasure, and this I still thoroughly enjoy, insofar as it is you who is experiencing this joy for me.
You are the reason for my Jouissance.
I involve myself for your enjoyment even more.
Sex and Socialism
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence has inspired many follow ups from its suggestion that Socialism brings with it better sex:
"Studies from the mid-eighties reported that eighty per cent of East German women always experienced orgasm during sex" - https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-does-socialism-have-to-do-with-sex
If there is a correlation to be made between capitalism, masculinity, and a lack of female orgasms, it would be for me only one concept. Lacan's Other Jouissance.
Socialism brings with it (and is brought about by) Other Jouissance (JA).
This is not the opposite of the masturbatory fantasy or function, it is the masturbatory function insofar as the Other is the one who experiences their Jouissance. Insofar as the experience of Jouissance and orgasm is only after the orgasm/Jouissance of the Other has been brought about.
Lacan refers to the subject ($) who can achieve this Other Jouissance as Woman.
Of course we also know through his concept of sexuation that "there is no sexual relation" and "there is no such thing as woman".
(Other Jouissance and becoming-woman refers to websites and sources where Lacanian concepts can be further explored, as well as a comparison between the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan and the schizoanalytic works of Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari.)
The concept of gender, masculinity and feminity for Freud was not a biological mystery, but a psychological one. Even in Freud can there be seen a confused tracing of masculinity embodied by a Woman, and feminity embodied in the male.
"We are accustomed to say that
every human being displays both male and female instinctual impulses, needs
and attributes; but though anatomy, it is true, can point out the characteristic of
maleness and femaleness, psychology cannot."
-Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
For Lacan, the solution to this conundrum of the psychology of gender is simple.
Gender (including biology and what we refer to as 'sex') belongs to the 'realm of the signifer'.
Gender and sex are linguistic. They belong to language.
"Lacan states that "jouissance, insofar as it is sexual, is phallic, which means that it does not relate to the Other as such." However, he argues that there is a specifically feminine jouissance, a "supplementary jouissance" which is "beyond the phallus," a jouissance of the Other. In order to differentiate between these two forms of jouissance, Lacan introduces different algebraic symbols for each; Jφ designates phallic jouissance, whereas JA designates the jouissance of the Other."
https://nosubject.com/Jouissance"Between male and female human beings there is no such thing as an instinctive relationship' because all sexuality is marked by the signifier."
-Jacques Lacan, Conférence à Genève sur le symptôme
Woman, for Lacan, is a fantasy which knows it is.
Woman is a symptom of man, insofar as Man is incapable of understanding what Woman is. Man believes Woman hides a secret, the secrecy of being a Woman, and the man is this castrated (symbolically) from her. The secret, known by the Woman, is that there is none. Woman is no secret at all.
Woman knows itself to be a Parrhasian Veil - which hides only the fact that nothing is hidden.
Woman knows itself not to be. It is in this sense that Lacan means both "there is no sexual relation" and that "Woman does not exist".
The trans evaluation of this line of thought, transgender psychoanalysis as such, recognises too this function of the signifer. If the feminine function of Woman is knowing that it isn't. Then some woman embody the masculine function by believing that it is. The trans male embodies the masculine by knowing Woman exists and that he is not. The trans woman however can either continue the masculine function, to believe in Woman as something with an essence, as something masculinity escapes, and therefore to remain castrated from it. Or, the feminine function can flourish, and trans woman knows themself to be not. The trans woman can know Woman does not exist, and can enjoy this. By embracing Woman as 'n'existe pas'.
What goes for Woman also goes for sex. And for gender. That is 'n'existe pas'. Through their own abolition, the realisation that they are hiding nothing (what Sartre calls nihilation) allows it to express itself freely. To explore itself by embracing itself as a nothingness. A pure potentiality.
Orgasms for females find significant increases when with another female partner, engaging with a more sexually caring partner, or under socialism.
While not arguing for a causality, my argument is for a strong correlation between these three things.
This correlation as Lacan posits it is Other Jouissance, or what Deleuze & Guattari call: becoming-woman.
Communism, Other Jouissance and becoming-woman are all the same thing.
Each contain the element of enjoying the Other's orgasm more than ones own. To enjoy the Other's enjoyment more than one's own.
This means that the surplus enjoyment (the enjoyment of the sacrifice of enjoyment) of one is equal to or only brought about by this enjoyment existing in the Other.
'I only achieve Jouissance when you do.'
Or as Marx puts it, gettungswessen; 'I only orgasm when everyone does.'
Only Woman can experience Other Jouissance and can bring about Other Jouissance for Lacan, but becoming-woman can do so for D&G - who say all becoming is through becoming-woman:
"Although all becomings are already molecular, including becoming-woman, it must be said that all becomings begin with and pass through becoming-woman. It is the key to all the other becomings."
-Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus.
Communism and Other Jouissance is the very act which D&G speak of as becoming.
Capitalism is the perverted masturbation which will use any means necessary to achieve its orgasm. It cares only for its own Jouissance. This is why under socialism and in sex different from the typical cis-heterosexual, there are more female orgasms, sexual satisfaction, and Other Jouissance
By cis-heterosexual, I mean in Lacanian terms, the intercourse between a masculine signifying individual and their feminine signifying partner.
The complexity of these signifiers in relation to thousands of other elements, from biology to desire, is unspoken. It goes beyond gender.
What I mean is the masculine, who castrates themself from Woman, and therefore from experiencing the Other Jouissance - who can only masturbate, and not have sex.
Who only has sex to masturbate.
That's not to say women can't do this too! There are many cases of women who function through the masculine, by accepting Woman as an essence who is entirely cut off and alienated from Man. By accepting Woman therefore as a 'symptom of man'. These would be the "women" that cannot achieve Other Jouissance.
On the other side, Man can also fully embody the feminine function. To realise masculinity and feminity as fake. To become-woman and achieve Other Jouissance.
Queerness is here an essential core of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Queerness embraces subject as not existing. As non-all. Queerness is the embracing of the signifiers which guide subjectivity, to be able to move beyond itself.
Queerness is the very promoting of Other Jouissance, of Sex. Woman is Queer. Becoming-Woman is the queer function and the queer act. Communism is Queer
Sex is not masturbation. Masturbation is not sex. Do not be afraid to experience Other Jouissance, becoming-woman, or to enjoy the orgasm of the Other.
The way out of capitalism is not through masturbation, but through sex.
All sex is Other Jouissance, masturbation is Phallic Jouissance.
All sex is becoming-woman.
