Cyberflashing Lacan

Abstract We explore cyberflashing through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis, including such notions as anxiety, the gaze, Law, castration and disavowal. Many instances of cyberflashing qualify as a perverse act, an act which is driven by anxiety, and which involves inducing anxiety or jouissance (libidinal enjoyment) in another. Our account helps explain the repetitive nature of such acts in the face of negative reactions and despite their frequent failure to achieve what might be seen to be their more immediate aim (that of arousing the recipient of the message and encouraging them to have sex with the sender).