When it comes to the ethical ramifications of desire, Lacan thinks: no. You don’t give in. You’ll just want something else later, so why indulge something that could prove harmful to other people? But I think it’s reinforcing an imprisoning structure to phrase it in terms of giving in or not giving in. You’re only creating more desire by making something forbidden. We need desire to live, but there are different kinds, and it’s the forbidden kind Lacan worried about, without realising it was his own moralising that was feeding it.

Yeah. That’s what I remember you saying. Basically telling my father, with me right there, that you don’t believe in monogamy.

But I do. I did. It’s just that I see it as something you practise, rather than some kind of law, which you can violate, and for which you should be punished.

But you’re not practising it now.

I’m not.