Para sempre é sempre por um triz

Abstract

In the Seminar 21, Les non-dupes errent (1973-74) Lacan writes that “the noding is the modal,” articulating the Borromean knot to the ways of jouissance that he had already identified in the sexuation formulae, in the previous act. He states that there two structurally distinct types of knots: the Olympic knot and the Borromean knot. The Olympic knot is ordinal, once one of the spheres — the one in the middle — prevails over the other two. This type of knot is the one which tries to write the sexual relationship. Depending on the register the dominant function will occupy — the Symbolic, the Imaginary, or the Real, we will have a typology of love that tries to write the relationship: love to God, the Courteous love or the masochist love. Curiously, to guarantee the impossible, as the courteous love usually does is as questionable as to guarantee the possible, or worse, to take it as necessary. Very well, on the opposite side of the Olympic knot, the Borromean knot is cardinal – there is no order, or the prevalence of register over another one. This is the characteristic which allows Lacan to write “there is no sexual relationship” from this knot. As Lacan contends, the 3 is Real since the 1 does not reach the 2. The 2 is odd! Great way of stating that there is no sexual relationship.