——Male Existential:
‘There is an entity x that says “no” to the phallic function.’
Nevertheless, there is the belief in another jouissance, in a jouissance that could never come up short.
(Fink, Lacan to the Letter. 2004, 160)
Does the primal father exist in the usual sense? No, he ex-sists: the phallic function is not simply negated in some mild sense in his case; it is foreclosed (Lacan indicates that the bar of negation over the quantifer stands for discordance, whereas the bar of negation over the phallic function stands for foreclosure), and forclosure implies the utter and complete exclusion of something form the symbolic register. As it is only that which is not foreclosed from the symbolic order that can be said to exist, existence going hand in hand with language.
The primal father —implying such a foreclosure— must ex-sist, standing outside of symbolic castration. He can be said to ex-sist, because, like object (a), the primal father can be written: ∃x Φx
Now the mythical father of the primal horde is said NOT to have succumbed to castration, and what is symbolic castration but a limit or limitation? He thus knows no limits. The primal father lumps all women into the same category: accessible. The set of ALL women exists for him and for him alone. His mother and sisters are just as much fair game as are his neighbors and second cousins.
The effect of castration (the incest taboo, in this case) is to divide that mythical set into at least two categories: accessible and inaccessible. Castration brings about an exclusion: mom and sis are off-limits (110).
… a man could only really jouir d’une femme from the position of noncastration … to get off on a woman, to really enjoy her, to take full advantage of her, not from something one imagines that one’s pleasure really comes fro her, not from something one imagines her to be, wants her to be, fools oneself into believing she is or has …
Only the primal father can really get off on women themselves. Ordinary masculine mortals must resign themselves to getting off on their partner object (a). Thus only the mythical primal father can have a true sexual relationship WITH a woman. To him there is such a thing as a sexual relationship. Every other man has a “relationship” with object (a) —to wit, fantasy— not with a woman per se.
The fact that every single man is nevertheless defined by both formulas —one stipulating that is is altogether castrated and the other that some instance negates or refuses castration— shows that incestuous wishes live on indefinitely in the unconscious. Every man, despite castration (that splitting up of the category of women into two distinct groups), continues to have incestuous dreams in which he grants himself the privileges of the imagined pleasure-finding father who knows no bounds (111).