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With the logic o f Real-as-impossible you h ave this notion of the unattainable object - the l ogic of desire, whe r e desire is structured around a pr imordial void. I would argue that the no tion of drive that i s present here c annot be read in these transcendentalist term s : that is to s ay, i n terms of an a priori loss where empiric a l obje cts never coincide with das Ding, the Thing. The vulgar example that I wo uld give here is the following. Let us s ay you are in love with a woma n . and that y o u a r e obsessed wi t h her vagin a . You do all the p o s sible things : y o u p enetrate it, ki s s it, whatever - i t' s your problem; I won ' t go into tha t . Now, from a trans c endental ist perspective the idea is that this is a typical illusi o n : you think the vagina is the Thing itself, but really it's not, and you should accept the gap between the void o f the Thing and the contingent object filling it up. But when you are in such an intense s exual love relationship, I don ' t think the idea can be that the vagina is j ust an ersatz for the impo s s ibl e Thing. N o, I think that it is this p arti cul a r object, but that this obj ect is strangely split. There is a s elf- distance - you know it is the vagi n a , but you get never e n ough - the split is within the object itself The split is no t b etween the e mpirica l reality and the impossible Thing. No, it is rather that the vagina is both itself and, at the s ame time, something e l s e
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