The Fragile Absolute

My friend Mike was on a Slavoj Zizek kick and he sent me this. It's dated but always relevant.

I read this paragraph in Zizek's _Fragile Absolute_ and it was just
screaming out your name:


"One should not confound this primordially repressed myth (this
fundamental fantasy) with the multitude of inconsistent daydreams that
always accomnpany our symbolic commitments, allowing us to endure
them. Let us recall the xample of a 'straight' sexual relationship.
The sucess of Peter Hoeg's _The Woman and the Ape_ indicates that sex
with an animal is today's predominant form of the fantasy of full
sexual relationship, and it is crucial that this animal is as a rule
male: in contrast to cyborg-fantasy, in which the cybordg is, as a
rue, a woman (Blade Runner)--that is , in whcih the fantasy is that of
Woman-Machine-- the animal is a male ape copulating with a human
woman, and fully satisfying her. Does this not materialize two
standard common daydreams: that of a woman who wants a strong animal
partner, a potent 'beast' not a hyserical impotent weakling; and that
of a man who wants his female partner to be a perfectly programmed
'doll' who fulfils all his wishes, not a living being? What we should
do in order to penetrate the underlying 'fundamental fantasy" is to
stage these two fantasies together: to confront ourselves with the
unberable ideal couple of a male ape copulating with a female cyborg,
the fantasmatic support of the 'normal' couple of man and woman
copulating. The need for this redoubling, the need for this
fantasmatic supplement to accompany the 'straight' sexual act as a
spectal shadow, is yet another proof that 'there is no sexual
relationship.' (Fragile Absolute, p. 65-66)