The Phallus (n.) is a signifier for lacan in the same way that the king's septre puts the subject who acquires them into power such that 'his words are taken as the words of a king'. They castrate me, it is said, because I am never equal to my function.
The Phallus (n.) is not part of my being but a kind of attachment, a prosthetic, like a scepter, conferring power that its owner is never equal to.
The Phallus (n.) is a signifier, not a meaning: it does not tell us what the mother wants, it merely marks the impenetrable space of her desire.
The Phallus (n.) is the signifier of the lack that forbids access to X — and by forbidding it, gives rise to X's phantom.
The Phallus (n.) is not natural male potency set against the artificial dildo; as signifier it is already in itself a prosthetic supplement — the point where the big Other supplements the subject's failure.
The Phallus (n.) is the ultimate occasionalist object: its erection does not obey my will, yet mere thoughts can produce it — the gap between mental and bodily causes inscribed in the body.
The Phallus (n.) is not the organ expressing my vital force but an insignia, an organ without a body that I put on like a king's crown — attached to my body, never part of it, forever sticking out as an excessive supplement.
The Phallus (n.) is a stain on the human body, an excessive feature that does not fit and thereby generates the illusion of another hidden reality behind the image — its status is that of a mimicry.
The Phallus (n.) is not a lost object but loss itself given a body — which is why the line attributed to Jung gets it backwards: 'What is a penis but a phallic symbol?'
The Phallus (n.) means 'everything depends on me, yet I can do nothing': it alone escapes the will (Augustine — a fakir can stop his heart, but not this), yet it is the lightest object on earth, the only one raised by mere thought.