Thomas Wendt

Does Sade Go Too Far, or Just Far Enough? He seizes her ferociously, places her as I was placed, arms suspended by two black straps; mine is the task of securing the bands; he inspects the knots: finding them too loose, he tightens them, So that, he says, the blood will spurt out under greater pressure; he feels the veins, lances them on each arm, at almost the same moment. Blood leaps far: he is in ecstasy; and adjusting himself so that he has a clear view of these two fountains, he has me kneel between his legs so I can suck him; he does as much for the first one and then the other of his little friends, incessantly eyeing the jets of blood which inflame him. For my part, certain the instant at which the hoped for crisis occurs will bring a conclusion to the Countess torments, I bring all my efforts to bear upon precipitating this denouement, and I became, as, Madame, you observe, I became a whore from kindness, a libertine through virtue.1 (Sade, 643) The Marquis de Sade is perhaps best known for his outspoken stance on atheism probably better termed anti-theismand anti-morality, the most common tropes that in his novels and philosophical writing, often manifesting themselves in graphic depictions of violent sexual acts. His novels are filled with extremely detailed portrayals of taboo sexuality, including rape, sexual torture, incest, pederasty, coprophilia, slavery, and a multitude of fetishistic behaviors. Sades writing goes far beyond popular perceptions of pornographyit transcends what pornography transcends, creating a separate, almost incomprehensible categoryfar surpassing the object of desire and moving into the realm of the Real, resulting in a new form of perversion, jouissance, and desire. Discourse on pornography too often adopts legal and moralistic definitions of what it means to call something pornographic, often resulting in analyses caught up in individual

This passage serves as an example of an atypical, yet accessible illustration of the Sadean scene. The more extreme scenes tend to be very eloquent and verbose, continuing for multiple pagesi.e., they are too long to quote in an essay of this length. Efforts will be taken to paraphrase examples from the text without quoting pages upon pages of Sades prose. The reader should keep in mind that practical considerations of this kind do Sade and his writing style a certain injustice.
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and/or social opinion, questions of age appropriateness, and the unacceptability of public sexuality. The label of pornography is often reserved for the discursive and artistic products of a society that are highly desirable but at the same time so deplorable that they are relegated to their own special place. It is important to question the grounds on which pornography is condemned: Why is pornography both loved and hated? Is anything that depicts sexuality properly labeled pornography? What is the difference between pornography and erotic literature? Why is pornography uncanny? The common theme of these questions is the Lacanian concept of jouissance. Jouissance is translated literally as enjoyment; however, in Lacanian discourse, the term incorporates a much wider range of significations. Jouissance is sexual pleasure that is inherently linked to death, the death drive, and the Real; it is bliss beyond bliss, pleasure to the point that it becomes unpleasure. The pursuit of jouissance through the object-cause of desire, the objet petit a, has the quality of what Lacan calls the extimateit is both external and intimate insofar as jouissance results in the loss of subjectivity, but it is precisely this loss that is the ultimate goal of individual life as a subject. Jouissance is the result of desire that, if non-symbolically fulfilled,2 would ultimately destroy the individuali.e., it would amount to a much too direct encounter with the Real, resulting in the individuals movement from subject to an object devoid of desire. The reader of the passage quoted at the beginning of this essay, or any similar scene depicted in Justine, experiences a certain amount of jouissance insofar as there is pleasure in the sexual nature of the depiction, but the content and context of the passage forces the pleasure to go too far. In other words, it surpasses the object of desire. The notion of going too far is, as iek

Desire is fulfilled on a symbolic level all the time. The individual is protected by the symbolic veil, which masks the real aspects of desire.
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asserts, the intersection of jouissance and pornography.3 The object of desire is surpassed in a similar manner to the Sadean maxim, as Lacan articulates it: I have the right to enjoy your body, anyone can say to me, and I will exercise this right without any limit to the capriciousness of the exactions I may wish to satiate with your body. (Lacan, Kant with Sade, 648) The phrase anyone can say to me is particularly important insofar as it places the individual in a passive position to the Otherthe objective world on which the individual projects his or her desirethus situating subjectivity as dominated by the whims of the Other. Within the bounds of the Sadean maxim and jouissance, subjectivity is no longer defined as such: subjectivity exists for something else, something other. It moves from the level of the enunciationthe subject of the sentenceto the level of the enunciation, which is the undefined, unconscious aspect of desire. The enunciated is that to which the signifier points, and that which is always deferred by the bar that separates signifier and signified.4 Given its association with death and the Real, jouissance, by definition, is restricted from entrance into the Symbolici.e., the subject is not only barred from direct jouissance, he or she does not possess a master signifier5 with which to form an adequate signification. Jouissance is not part of individual reality as such, but of the Real, which is paradoxically external and intimate. One can only experience jouissance through a relationship with the Other, which results in nave, subjective anxiety:

This point will be examined in depth at the end of the essay. In The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis, Lacan interprets the bar between signifier and signified (S/s) in traditional Sausurrean linguistics as an actual bar that represents the introduction of lack into the signifying system. For Lacan, something is lost, the Phallus, in the movement from signifier to signified in the speech act. In this way, the speech act is always on the level of demand, and desire is what lies beyond. 5 Lacan terms this master signifier the Phallus, a term fraught with political and social baggage too large for the scope of this essay. For the present purpose, the Phallus can be defined as the symbol of power that is the result of a signifier. One has access to the Phallus, to a certain extent, when he or she has an adequate frame of reference in which to allow entrance into the Symbolic. Contrary to the colloquial use of the word, the Phallus is not analogous to the penis, which is merely a false symbol of the Phallus that always fails to reach its full meaning. The Phallus is asexualit has nothing to do with gender or sex, as it transcends sexuality.
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This ego, whose strength our theorists now define by its capacity to bear frustration, is frustration in its very essence. Not frustration of one of the subjects desires, but frustration of an object in which his desire is alienated; and the more developed this object becomes, the more profoundly the subject becomes alienated from his jouissance. (Lacan, Function, 208) Lacan identifies the ego as the seat of frustration insofar as it is always necessarily alienated from its goal: jouissance. In this way, the ego has an indirect relationship to its own realitythe reality that it creates as a defense, which only reveals itself through symbols. Given that jouissance cannot enter the Symbolic, the subjects desire is always, albeit necessarily, deferred or transferred onto the jouissance of the Other. This alienation is coupled with the development of the object: Lacan states that the objects development results in greater alienation, as incorporation into the Symbolic order results in a further distancing from the object itself. In other words, once one adopts an object of desire or a means of desire fulfillmentin this case, that of jouissancethe signifier functions as a gap, distancing the subject from the object. Justine presents an interesting problem to the experience of jouissance in the Other: the novel perverts the function of desire insofar as it presents the readers jouissance in a less alienated formi.e., the object is introduced but not fully developed in the Symbolic6 and represents something from the Real that the subject cannot simply dismiss as fiction. The alienation inherent to the jouissance of the Other is presented in more of a direct manner, almost, almost to the point of subjective jouissance. This perversion explains the repulsion that Justine evokes in most readers: repulsion is merely a reaction formation to the readers disturbing pleasure experienced when confronting this material. Instead of presenting jouissance in a symbolic, acceptable manner by filtering it through the Other, Justine forces a more direct encounter with that which the subject cannot incorporate into the Symbolic; the subject, then,

Such an assertion suggests that the reader has a psychotic relationship to the Sadean text. See Lacans third Seminar, The Psychoses.
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confronts the failing defenses of reality and is forced to actively take a defensive stance7 against the disturbing object. That is not to say that Justine imposes the Real directly onto the subject; however, Justine presents the object of desire and jouissance in a more literal form than something as socially taboo as, for example, pornography. ieks conceptualization of pornography8 provides another perspective from which to view Justine as a work of pornographic literature that distorts and perverts the subject and object position as well as the narrative function. When iek distinguishes between pornography and a love story, he is essentially differentiating between the pursuit of desire and the attainment of desire: [I]f we want to have a love story that takes, that moves us, we must not go to the end and show it all (the details of the sexual act), because as soon as we show it all, the story is no longer taken seriously. It starts to function only as a pretext for introducing acts of copulation. (iek, 38) The fulfillment of desirethe depiction of the sex act in an uncensored formplaces pornography in its own category. Due to this unrestricted fulfillment of desire, iek asserts that the narrative in pornography becomes completely arbitrary when compared to the sex act. Arbitrary narrative is evident in almost any given pornographic film, which often depict ridiculous plotlinessuch as the all-too-familiar scene of the plumber, dressed in torn overalls, who knocks on the lonely housewifes door and asks, Do you need your pipes cleaned?or even no plotline at all. This type of narrative is also evident in Justine. The plotline is of secondary importance to the sexual acts themselves. Justines story is one of grotesque

At first glance, this phrase, actively take a defensive stance appears to be a contradiction. The description of being actively defensive is meant to illustrate that, under normal circumstances, the subjects perception of reality is the agent of defensei.e., reality in itself serves to defend against the Real. In the case of reading Justine, however, the text itself is incorporated into reality in such a way that it breaks down the automatic defense of reality and calls for the subject to take a more active role in the interpretation of a threat to the ego. 8 ieks theory is based specifically on pornographic film. Borrowing from his theory in the present essay assumes that film and literature are both texts that signify in a similar manner.
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simplicity: the three hundred pages of dense prose do not contain much more than graphic descriptions of the sexual abuse experienced by Justine, a young maiden who travels through France attempting to make sense of virtue in a world full of vice. A man brings her back to a dwelling in the woods, keeps her captive, subjects her to various sexual proclivities, and she eventually escapes back into the forest; another man ostensibly saves her, only to inflict even greater abuse than the one before. The narrative repeats this scenario throughout the novel. Of course, one can interpret numerous philosophical themes9 in the textsuch as the problematic definitions of vice and virtue, the function of desire, and the relationship between reason and morality, to name a fewbut the concentration remains on the sexual acts themselves. The disturbing quality of Sades writing is, at least in part, due to the fact that the object of desire is presented to the reader in a direct, unveiled manner. Returning to the Sadean maxim and the inherent surpassing of the object of desire in pornography, ieks analysis becomes slightly problematic when, in reference to the difference between a love story and pornography, he says of pornography, As soon as we show it, its charm is dispelled, we have gone too far. Instead of the sublime Thing, we are stuck with vulgar groaning and fornication. (iek, 38) One must ask whether the sublime Thing10 is that which pornography surpasses, or is it the imaginary fulfillment of desire in the love story i.e., is it pornography or the love story that provides the sublime Thing? In either case, this assertion contradicts the claim that pornography goes too far. One would assume that this

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Justine is Sades self-proclaimed philosophical novel, as indicated by its subtitle, The Misfortunes of

Virtue.

Further problems arise if one assumes that iek is using the phrase sublime Thing in the strict Kantian sense, which is a sound assumption given his interest in German Idealism and continental philosophy in general. For Kant, the sublime is that which produces beauty to the point of discomfort, even horror. It is beauty beyond beauty; it overwhelms the observer. The Thing, or the thing-in-itself, is something that merely exists, devoid of any essence or judgment made from external sources; therefore, for Kant, the Thing cannot be experienced directly.

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transcendence is precisely what further alienates desire in pornography and places the viewer or reader in an uncomfortably direct position with jouissance; however, iek is implying here that reaching the object of desire is advantageous to the individual, which contradicts the Lacanian discourse with which he is working. Reaching the object of desire may be advantageous, but only on the level of demandthat is, on the conscious level of what the subject wants, or thinks that it wantswhich is contrasted to desire in that the object of desire is never attained as such until death. The Lacanian subject is certainly driven toward death, but knowledge of this drive is repressed. He also introduces the idea of a proximity to jouissance. The dichotomy of subjectivity and jouissance is broken down into a progression that situates the subject as something that can be close to or far from jouissance. In this manner, the Thing has the ability to inject itself into the subjects life through the symbolic system without coming into such close proximity as to cause anxiety. It is the concept of the sublime Thingits (un)attainability, its incomprehensibility, its potential danger to the subject, etc.that complicates the question of pornography and the way it functions in regard to desire. On a basic level, the sublime functions in a similar manner as the Lacanian end of desire, jouissance. The sublime, in its grandiose and colossal nature (Kant), is the direct presentation of the object of desire; hence, the certain level of subjective danger arises at the moment of confrontation with the Real. The sublime and jouissance are both, to a certain extent, contradictory terms in themselves insofar as they both refer to desire11 that, when

Desire is used here in its very literal sensethat is, desire is different from want or demand on the level of consciousness. The individual is aware of demands, whereas desires are the drive that is hidden from conscious awareness. For example, one might want to smoke a cigarette for the effects of nicotine; however, he or she may not know that the desire is both based on the drive toward death and the comfort resulting from oral stimulation. It is ultimately a question of knowledge versus belief: in this case, the individual knows that smoking is detrimental to his or her health but acts as if it is not, based on the necessary belief that death far removed. Desire is the driving force of life but is always deferred, veiled, and alienated, except in death and the loss of subjectivity.
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attained, results in the loss of the subject as such: the Lacanian definition of subjectivity is based on lack and desire, and once one ceases to desire, as in the case of a confrontation with the sublime or jouissance in which desire is fully obtained, the subject becomes an object. This objectification is the source of both the pleasure and pain associated with jouissance. The individual does not want to become an object, but, according to the logic of the Freudian death drive, on which Lacan relies heavily in his theory of jouissance, he or she certainly desires objectification. The individual is driven toward the end of desire, the attainment of the Thing, the jouissance of the self as opposed to something other, even at the expense of subjectivity. The subject wants to experience a deferred jouissance, the jouissance of the Other, but desires subjective jouissance of the self. Just as desire is what motivates life, jouissance is the finality of life, the necessary finitude of subjectivity. Jouissance is the only directi.e., immediate, non-symbolic, and realexperience of the sublime Thing, which, under the laws of the Symbolic system, cannot otherwise incorporate itself into individual reality. The same holds true for the sublime: one does not experience the sublime without a certain amount of damage to the self, as the sublime is cognitively incomprehensible and aesthetically devastating. In this way, the sublime is a negative pleasure that, due to its immensity, does violence to both imagination and judgment (Kant). Jouissance and the sublime, by their very definitions, are traumatic events insofar as they completely break through subjective defenses and result in individual non-existence as a desiring subject. iek identifies this breakdown of defense as the definition of pornography, but he does not go so far to say that viewing pornography brings the individual any closer to subjective jouissance; it is still in the realm of the Other. He implies a sort of movement-toward-jouissance, wherein the

individual experiences various levels of proximity to jouissance,12 never quite reaching it directly, but he stops short of taking such a specific position. ieks analysis situates the sublime Thing contra groaning and fornication, thus failing to recognize the influence that the sublime and the Thing, each as the end of desire, have on the individual. Such a formulation implies that pornography is an ostensible means to a confrontation with the sublime Thing, a way by which the individual attains the end of desire; however, despite the assertion that pornography goes too far and moves beyond desire, which may be true to an extent, the pornographic text presents the object of desire as just as veiled a form as any other way of experiencing it. The pornographic text, be it written or filmic, exists somewhere in between the Symbolic system, in which everything is alienated from the thing-initself, and the sublime, in which the connection between subject and Thing is direct and immediate. Pornography is a text that is neither completely incorporated into the symbolic system nor is it removed from language to the extent that it poses a threat; it is somewhere in the middle of reality and the Real. Given pornographys resistance to categorization within the structure of the subject, pornographic film and literature continue to be multi-billion dollar per year industries while at the same time are condemned as the epitome of immorality. It is debatable whether the average twenty-first century American is any less sexually conservative than past generations, but one aspect of sexual repression is certain: it has entered into a new discourse apart from questions of morality and obscenity. Sexuality has become such a ubiquitous presence in television, film, and advertising that there is no longer any doubt of its ability to sell a product; the success of the

C.f. Arthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. In a similar, but much more organized manner than iek tacitly implies, Schopenhauer maps out the various levels of sublime experience, ranging from the everyday experience of beauty to the full sublime, which he equates to a complete realization of the immensity of the universe and individual existence as nothingness.
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pornography industry is the logical conclusion of the intersection between sex and capitalism. Despite its popularity, however, pornography still evokes a sense of discomfort. It remains a subject outside the normative range: even if pornography has entered into its own discursive field, in which one can talk about viewing and/or reading pornography, it is still a subject whose acceptability is relegated to certain situations. The attraction to pornography is due to its presentation of the sublime Thing in its symbolic form. Pornography is a representation of jouissance that allows the individual to symbolically advance one step further toward a confrontation with the sublime Thing without directly doing so. iek makes many assumptions, some of which are less sufficiently supported than others, in his preceding analysis. He fails to explain the extent to which one can assume a proximity to the Thingthat is, whether its apprehension is all-or-nothing, or whether one can approach the Thing and observe it without coming too close. Most importantly, a concrete definition of the Thing is completely absent; and not only in iek but also in Lacan, Hegel, and Kant. Such lack of verisimilitude, however, does not imply any kind of deficiency of theoretical rigor but rather an exemplification of the concept itself. The Thing is, paradoxically, by its very definition, the ultimate undefined and indefinable. In a certain sense, the Thing is philosophys biggest defensive mechanism: it is a blanket term for all that cannot be determined by way of philosophical analysis, which for Hegel is the Thing, and for Kant is the thing-in-itself or the noumenon. On the other hand, the Thing represents so much more than philosophical uncertainty. It is not only the vast unknown; it is that which lies beyond physical death, the object for which life is ultimately striving. Due to its extimacy, similar to that of the objet petit a,

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the Thing becomes the objectification of the notion that the ego is not in charge of its own house.13 (Martyn, 175) Lacan borrows the concept of the Thing directly from Hegel and situates it within psychoanalysis as the prehistoric Other that is impossible to forget. (Lacan, Ethics, 71) One may not be able to forget this prehistoric Other, but at the same time, on may not fully apprehend it. For this reason, any idea the Thing must always be a Vorstellungreprsentanz literally, a representative of a representation. In a very Platonic move, Lacan identifies the Thing as something that cannot be represented as such; its representation must be removed a step further by its representative. It is at the same time something so external and ultimately threatening that even a conception of it must be three times removed from the subject, but it is also its intimacy that makes it so threatening. It is both that which is so far removed from the Real and the Real itself. If the Thing was merely external, the subject would be able to simply avoid it; however, insofar as the Thing is the object of desire that one cannot forget, its intimacy makes it both absolutely necessary and an object of aversion. The Things existence is not the source of its perceived threatening nature; it is specifically its non-existence that makes it so subjectively dangerous. For the desiring subject, the Thing becomes a source of anxiety due to its amorphous (non)existence: [A]t the level of the Vorstellungen [representation, conception], the Thing is not nothing, but literally is not. It is characterized by its absence, its strangeness. (Lacan, Ethics, 63) The unidentified nature of the Thingthe idea that it is essentially a lack in meaning, defined only by its negationresults in anxiety concerning desire: what does the subject desire other than the Thing, the end, the gap

Martyn is playfully commenting on Lacans criticism of the Cartesian cogito. Lacan disagreed with Descartes on the point that the subject has power sufficient to utter I as a signifier of the subjects entire being; the cogito does not consider the unconscious as an aspect of subjectivity that the subject cannot symbolize. The I, the ego, exists but is only one small part of the subject, and has relatively little agency compared to the unconscious.
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between reality and the Real? The Thing, in its essential non-existence for the conscious subject, is located in this gap; therefore, apprehension of the Thing amounts to filling the gap, ceasing desire, and the death of the subject as such. The gap is filled with primordial meaning that links the Real and Imaginary systems, and insofar as this gap sustains desire, closing the gap is not a representative of death, nor is it a symbolic death, but it is death itself. In Lacanian terms, labeling the Thing as primordial signifies a very specific category specifically, that of the pre-linguistic. The Thing exists even prior to the substance,14 which implies that it is also trans-individual, existing for the individual before the individual qua organic life enters the world. Hence, Lacan defines the Thing as the beyond-of-the-signified. It is as a function of this beyond-of-the-signified and of an emotional relationship to it that the subject keeps its distance and is constituted in a kind of relationship characterized by primary affect, prior to any repression. (Lacan, Ethics, 54) Such an assertion implies that the Thing is not only beyond the signified but is the beyond-of-the-signifiedi.e., the Thing incorporates everything that lies beyond the limits of signification, as opposed to one aspect of the beyond. The Thing incorporates the entire contents of the Real, as the Real is that which is beyond the Symbolic, and everything outside it. In this way, the Thing is the immanence of the Real, the constant threat for the Real to impose itself on the subject, even despite the subjects tendency to seek the Real through unconscious methods. Even through the unconscious, which, according to Lacans interpretation of Freudian theory, operates free of negationthat is, negation is a retroactive and defensive function of the egothe subject does not come into contact with the Thing outside the realm of negation. In other words, the Thing creeps into subjectivity as a threat, but it is still the final object of desire

Substance is Lacans term for the individual prior to integration within the linguistic system. Substance is whole insofar as it has not yet been exposed to the lack of the signifier, and thus it is devoid of desire.
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to the subject. Lacan locates the subjects progression and unending quest for the Thing in terms of the Other: The world of our experience, the Freudian world, assumes that it is this object, das Ding, as the absolute Other of the subject, that one is supposed to find again. It is to be found at the most as something missed. (Lacan, Ethics, 52) Subjectivity, then, insofar as its nature as a lack drives its progression toward some kind of wholeness, is nothing more than a progression toward the Thing that is always experienced in its absence. Such indirect experience further alienated the subject from his or her own status as an individual, thus making the subjects essential lack that much more apparent. The subject defends against this threat of ontological transparency by seeking symbolic representations of the Thing within the Imaginarythat is, in things such as books, film, and other forms of art. Sades work is an example of this type of art. By transgressing the bounds of the literary form by going too far, Sades writing provides the reader with a space in which he or she is able to approach the Thing from a safe distance. As much as the subject avoids the Thing in his or her conscious life, the subject also knows on a certain unconscious level that the Thing is lifes finality, the end of desire. The progression toward the end of the drive and its manifestation in the constitutive lack (desire) are precisely what defines the subject within the world as a movement toward the Thing. Due to its threatening nature on the level of the ego, the subject seeks symbolic means of satisfying the drive, which, for the present purpose, takes form in transgressive literature such as that of the Marquis de Sade. Such art allows the subject to step outside the bounds of the linguistic system and the demand of the Other, albeit temporarily, resulting in a momentary alleviation of the anxiety evoked by death. It is a means by which the individual assumes an active role in his or her own mortality; by actively seeking representations of transgression, in the act of owning desire for the self and essentially becoming

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an agent of ones own death, the subject thus masters his or her own ontological state. Just as the subject is dominated by the death drive, the drive to return to a state of non-organic existence, there also exists a drive to subvert the death drive through the active interest in representations of death, in the sense of the cessation of desire, which allows the subject to experience death symbolically, with at least a modicum of agency. It is this drive to subvert death by seeking its most accurate and disturbing representation in art is the essence of Sades work. I will refer to this drive as the drive-toward-transgression. Given Lacans dependence on Freuds earlier theories on the foundations of psychoanalysis, and Lacans interpretation of said theories, it is necessary for the present purpose to revisit Freuds notion of the instinct and Lacans subtle revision of it. Among other topics, Freud did not remain consistent throughout his career on the topic of instincts, constantly revising and rethinking his earlier assertions. Perhaps his final and most comprehensive formulation is found in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, a text that came late in his life and reflected the influence of World War I on psychoanalytic thought. The instinct takes on a practical tone in the form of childs play, the famous articulation of the fort-da game: [The mothers] departure had to be enacted as a necessary preliminary to her joyful return, and that it was in the latter that lay the true purpose of the game. [] At the outset [the child] was in a passive situationhe was overpowered by the experience; but, by repeating it, unpleasureable though it was, as a game, he took on an active part. (Freud, 15) For Freud, the childs game of throwing away his toy and then bringing it back is a means by which he can take pleasure in his mothers departure and eventual return; it gives the child a sense of active control over the situation by bringing the toy, the mother, back when his anxiety grows too strong. Pleasure is the result of the active role that the child assumes in the return of the lost object of desire. In this way, instincts always lead to a form of pleasure and they are

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always repeated: the satisfaction of an instinct may cause displeasure for one system but pleasure in another (Freud), as satisfaction and the activity associated with it is always pleasurable, and [m]ost of the unpleasure that we experience is perceptual unpleasure. (Freud, 9) In other words, the experience of displeasure is only on the level of perceptionwhich is fraught with defenses, remnants and manifestations of repressed desires, and outright fabricationsand does not equal displeasure for the entire psyche. There is a split, as always, between conscious experience and unconscious knowledge. Freud then distinguishes between two types of instincts, Eros and Thanatos, the instincts toward life and death, as those which lead what is living to death, and others, the sexual instincts, which are perpetually attempting and achieving a renewal of life. (Freud, 55) Of key importance in this passage are the words death and perpetually. With respect to death, Freud asserts more than the death of the individual as a living being; death refers to a return to nonorganic existence, or in other words, the return to the state of existence prior to birth. Death can occur in a more abstract ontological manner than physical death, which Lacan terms jouissance. The perpetual nature of life instincts points to the repetition involved with instinct satisfaction; they are in a constant state of repeating their efforts to sustain the life of the individual. The sexual instincts are always aiming at the future, attempting to ensure that a future will always exist. Of course, despite the efforts of the life instinct, death will always win. The result is a conflict: life instincts attempt to repress death, as the realization of deaths immanence contradicts the subjects desire, while the death instinct attempts to inject itself into the individuals conscious life and thus destroy it.

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Freud further specifies that life and death instincts have the opposing aims of progression and regression, which are in constant struggle with each other. He situates the opposition in the distinction between humans and animals, a question of conscious experience: Is it really the case that, apart from the sexual instincts, there are no instincts that do not seek to restore an earlier state of things? that there are none that aim at a state of things which has never yet been attained? I know of no certain example from the organic world that would contradict the characterization I have thus proposed. There is unquestionably no universal instinct towards higher development observable in the animal or plant world, even though it is undeniable that development does in fact occur in that direction. (Freud, 49-50) It is apparent that Freud is hinting at human conscious awareness by placing so much emphasis on development and progress. He categorizes the instincts into their direction of movement, with the sexual instincts moving forward and the death instincts backwardprogression versus regression. The sexual instincts, then, aim toward a development of human consciousness that progresses the individual toward a higher goalthe Thing, perhapswhile the death drive regresses the subject back to that pre-organic existenceagain, the Thing. In other words, the Thing lies on both sides of the subjects present existence: it is pre-birth and post-death, and in a certain sense, it is everything that does not exist in memory or in the right now. The Thing is always just barely beyond memory and immediate conscious perception; it haunts the subject from a place he or she cannot remember and constantly threatens to approach the subject directly from the future. Sade creates a literary fantasy space in which the reader can view the Thing represented as fantasy in the present, thus the experience is not subjectively overwhelming. The text functions as a material object that represents the Thing in the future, and the readers choice to read it is the drive-toward-transgression in actionnot only transgression of the literary space but also of instinctual movement. The reader takes pleasure in the pain of the text, the idea that

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the text contradicts the activity of the life instinct. When reading the following passage, the reader takes pleasure in Juliettes pleasure, which is experienced along with the pain of imagining oneself in such a situation, or even that such a situation would ever occur: This scoundrels favorite caprice, said Noirceuil, is to have a little boy of five or six bound to the shoulders of a beautiful woman; a knife is taken to the tender victim, innumerable gashes are so inflicted as to cause the flowing of blood to collect and run in a single rivulet down between the buttocks and over the asshole of the woman, who is obliged to shit during the operation. As for Belmor, he kneeling before that behindthe formulation of the details is correct as I give them, Comte? The Comte nodded. Belmor, kneeling before that behind, laps up the blood while one after the other three men discharge themselves limp into his bum. [] Fuck! [Juliette] exclaimed joyously, throwing my arms around the Comtes neck, your mania makes my head fairly reel; I entreat you to employ my bottom in connection with quantities of such operations, and depend upon me to omit nothing that may contribute to the perfection of your ecstasies. (Sade, Juliette, 497-498) The obvious references to taboo subjects such as child abuse, consumption of blood, and torture (and probably murder) are certainly unsettling, but this is only the beginning. Juliette does not merely consent to her involvement in the activity; she begs to be a part of it, consciously surrendering herself to such torture and pain. Unlike her sister, Justine, who is forced into the situation of the victim, Juliette not only subjects herself to victimization but also pleads for it, begs her would-be master to take no restraint in the satisfaction of his desires, completely without regard to the expense on her body and consciousness. This willful consent and sincere desire to become her masters toy is frightening for the reader in a fundamental, ontological level. Essentially, Juliette rejects her own agency and subjectivity to satisfy someone elses desire; she becomes an object in the very strict sense, nothing more than the tool of the others desire. She transgresses both herself as a desiring subject and the Law that governs the instincts of self-preservation.

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At the same time, however, the readers displeasure in the text also manifests itself, perhaps unconsciously, as pleasure in the indirect satisfaction of the drive. Insofar as Juliette revokes consideration for her own desire, making herself an object that exists purely for the other, she chooses a closer proximity to death, thus indirectly fulfilling the death drive while still organically alive. Her action is a wish fulfillment in its most extreme, and therefore satisfying, sense. It is in the transgression of the Law15 that places the individual, the reader, through the lens of Juliette, in a position of perceived agency in non-agency: one sees evidence, although fictitious, of the ability to transgress Law in order to experience the unconscious pleasure of approaching something within life that so closely resembles death. Of course, the subject is not consciously aware of the pleasure involved in this event, as pleasure of instinct satisfaction occurs on an unconscious level whereas displeasure is perceptual (Freud). The individual, then, is only aware of the displeasure in perceptionin reading the text, perhaps. In this way, transgression of the Law is contingent on the distinction between demand and desire, and between instinct and drive. There is a fundamental difference between how the desiring subject manifests his or her desires versus his or her demandshow they take different forms, different means of satisfaction, and different considerations of their results. Lacan articulates such a distinction within the realm of Kantian ethics and the Sadean scene. Transgression is inherently linked to desire, which exists as a sort of anomaly to the ethical system. Kant asserted that the universal Law of morality is one in which duty overrides

I am using Law in the Kantian sense to mean a universal principle that would apply to all moral, rational beings. The Law dictates that the action of the individual is within the bounds of moral principles. In this case, the moral principle would be directed toward the self, and would take the form of self-preservation or the sexual instinct. The Law asserts that the individual continue life as a desiring subjectsomething that Juliette not only purposefully disobeys but also takes pleasure in her self-denial.
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individual desire.16 Lacan, on the other hand, maintains the unavoidable nature of desire, the idea that desire will always take precedence: Thus by leading you on to the ground of the ethics of psychoanalysis this year, I have brought you up against a certain limit that I illustrated through a confrontation, or heightening of the difference by contrast, of Kant and Sade, however paradoxical that may seem. I have lead you to the point of apocalypse or of revelation of something called transgression. This point of transgression has a significant relation to something that is involved in our inquiry into ethics, that is to say, the meaning of desire. And my discussions of previous years have taught you to make a strict distinction between desire and need in Freudian experience, which is also our own daily experience. (Lacan, Ethics, 207) Similarly, Sade views the binary of vice and virtue within the context of ethics in that one is compelled towards one or the other based on something similar to an instinct: In all of lifes events, [Noirceuil] went on, at least, in all whose wherein we have freedom to exercise choice, we experience two impressions or, if you prefer, two inspirations: one invites to do what men call goodand to be virtuousthe other to elect what the call evilor vice. What we must examine is this conflict; we must find out why we are of two minds and hesitate. There would be no hesitation, the law-abiding citizen assures us, were it not for our passions; they hold in check those impulsions to virtue which, he reckons, Nature ingrained in our souls: master your passions and youll hesitate no more. But how has he come to suppose, this righteous man who addresses me, that the passions are the effects only of these latter wicked inspirations, and that virtues are always the effects of the former? what incontrovertible evidence has he to prove his hypothesis? (Sade, Juliette, 142) Lacans assertion that transgression is inevitablei.e., that prohibition, the Law, and the Nameof-the-Father all exist only in relation to their antithesis, transgressiontranslates into the literary form through Noirceuil, who argues that vice is equally important as virtue when considering Natures creation. The passions of which Noirceuil speaks are something very similar to what Lacan identifies as an impetus for transgression, the meaning of desire. Desire essentially functions as a transgression in itself insofar as it seeks finality in deaths very infinitude; desire does not end until the end, the death of the individual qua subject. Drive, on

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C.F. Kants Critique of Practical Reason

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the other hand, is often viewed in Lacanian discourse as something that operates without assuming an end. The drive evokes pleasure in its perpetual movement around the object of desire without ever coming into direct contact with it. The drive-toward-transgression, in this sense, manifests itself in Sades literature through representation, as representation is removed from the object and is therefore an indirect means of experiencing it. The Sadean text never presents the Thing as an object but only as a representation of the object that is always out of reach. It is this drive-toward-transgression, the circular (in)experience of the final object of desire, that makes the Sadean scene so pleasurable. The reader circles around the Thing filtered through language and the printed page, always desiring its attainment while demanding the continuation of the pursuit. In other words, the Thing presents itself through literature on the distinction between desire and demand in two ways: 1) through the readers demand to experience the Thing as a filtered, veiled object that always defers its meaning away from its true existence17; and 2) through the underlying cause of demand, desire, which pushes the subject toward its own finality. The drive-towards-transgression ensures that the subject both continues the circular pursuit of the Thing while also preventing the subject from reaching the endthat is, until the Thing manages to break the defenses of the ego and imposes itself on the subject. Such an imposition is inevitable, but the subject, through its conscious defenses, attempts to delay this event as long as possible due to the logic of the life instinct. It is evident, then, that there is a conflict between the life instinct and death drivea conflict that Freud certainly identified and analyzedthat manifests itself in the drive-toward-transgression. Transgression becomes a way for the subject to quell the anxiety concerning this conflict; in transgressing both the life instinct

There is an important distinction here between what the Thing is as an object that exists, and what the Thing means to the subject, who always experiences it only through the lens of representation. Representation is susceptible to interpretation and individual bias, whereas existence in-itself, apart from any subjective influence.
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and the death drive through the active perusal of deaths representation in the loss of subjectivity, the subject, by viewing the other in an anti-subjective18 position, creates a sort of temporary synthesis between life and death. Similar to the childs fort-da game, the subject takes an active stance in the face of eventual death, an activity that manifests itself in the seeking of representations in the external world. One way to obtain such a representation is to find examples in art, especially in literature that depicts the very loss of subjectivity the subject desires. The Marquis de Sades texts are only one example of transgressive literature, which is not transgressive simply due to its graphic content, but also due to its effect on the reader, who uses the text as a means to active mastery over the knowledge of eventual death and its subsequent repression. The Freudo-Lacanian model of repression holds that the repressed impulse will always return: if the subject can become an agent of its return, as opposed to a passive recipient of the uncanny feelings that result, the egos distress is then assuaged by the indirect nature of representation. The drivetoward-transgression is essentially a drive to experience death without actually dyingby seeking the pornographic experience as iek articulates it, the subject is able to assume the position of the object while still maintaining the agency and desire that define the subject as such. This drive, then, fulfills a wish to subvert death by taking action both against and with it.

I use this term instead of objective since the other is always an object in the eyes of the subject. In this case, the relationship is complicated insofar as the event describedthat is, the subject viewing the other as an object under the guise of a subject within the literary space, thus making both distinctions problematicsituates the fictional character as someone without the illusion of subjective agency, as she has rejected it, but still operating within the bounds of desire. In this sense, Juliettes existence rejects the subjective but does not adopt the objective.
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Bibliography Bataille, Georges. The Use Value of D.A.F. Sade. Sade and the Narrative of Transgression. Eds. David Allison, Mark Roberts, and Allen Weiss. New York: Cambridge, 1995. Pages 16-32. Bataille, Georges. Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Trans. Mary Dalwood. San Francisco: City Lights, 1986. Blanchot, Maurice. Lautramont and Sade. Trans. Stuart Kendall and Michelle Kendall. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1989. Hnaff, Marcel. The Encyclopedia of Excess. Sade and the Narrative of Transgression. Eds. David Allison, Mark Roberts, and Allen Weiss. New York: Cambridge, 1995. Pages 142-170. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics. Trans. Thomas Abbott. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909. Klossowski, Pierre. Sade My Neighbor. Trans Alphonso Lingis. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1991. Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VII The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Dennis Porter. Ed. Jacques-Allain Miller. New York: Norton, 1992. Lacan, Jacques. crtis. Kant with Sade. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: Norton, 2006. Pages 645-670. ---The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York: Norton, 2006. Pages 197-268.
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--The Freudian Thing, of the Meaning of the Return to Freud in Psychoanalysis. Trans. Bruce Fink. New York, 2006. Pages 334-363. de Sade, Marquis. Justine. Trans Richard Seaver and Austryn Wainhouse. New York: Grove, 1965. de Sade, Marquis. Juliette. Trans. Austryn Wainhouse. New York: Grove, 1968. Schehr, Lawrence. Sades Literary Space. Sade and the Narrative of Transgression. Eds. David Allison, Mark Roberts, and Allen Weiss. New York: Cambridge, 1995. Pages 228-250. iek, Slavoj. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.

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