I am interested in representing Power vs Force which illustrates the male/female dialectic of desire and drive. Force is fleeting and propulsive, whilst power is constant. Drive swallows desire, but desire cannot be digested. The unity of the phallus with the penis is brief. The phallus is the signifier of power while the penis is the signifier for the male gender; the former sometimes encapsulates the latter. When they are brought together, the union is sublime, and what results is absolute but finite power and force of an orgasm (jouissance). When they are separate, (as in the post coital deflation of a man’s erection back into a penis) it becomes clear that anyone—women in particular—can have the phallus even though they do not have penises, or that a man can have a penis, but no phallus, or power. |