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In this chapter I have actively aimed to interpret the structure of the language of the unconscious in relation to male weight anxious subjects, via the interpretation of my own stories through the body of knowledge that is psychoanalysis. This has resulted in an entirely new re-theorisation of men’s relationship to fatness and the weight loss industry, perhaps this provides a start to de-veiling Bell & McNaughton’s invisible fat man (2007).

In addition to specifically re-thinking the plight of the anxious fat man this chapter also contributes in a number of ways towards the study of organisations:

Through my analysis I have demonstrated how the circuits of desire and phallic jouissance operate for the weight-anxious consumer. This is a direct challenge to theories of consumer behaviour based on a conscious rational individual. Further, even those theories that view the consumer as produced through discourse do not place emphasis on the primacy of the signifier of the unconscious that constructs the symbolic and enables the individual to develop a coherent fantasy of identity. In contrast to these approaches a Lacanian take on subjectivity radically challenges the purpose and direction of all weight loss industry organisations, as they cannot resolve anxiety – regardless of any weight lost; in fact they only exacerbate the anxious subject’s experience of anxiety. I say this

particularly to anti-obesity public health organisations that function directly as the organised Other (Stavrakakis, 2008) for everyone who does not fit into their categories of normality (the Body Mass Index) – their message to the population aggravates the experience of alienation for the weight-anxious subject. This aggravation of anxiety caused by the organised Other of the weight loss industry can also be seen operating directly within organisations as they increasingly roll-out employee weight-loss programmes targeting their ‘problem’ employees regardless of their unconscious desire. This occurs in the context of contradictory food ceremony rife in organisational life (see Driver (2008) for example) which again furthers the alienation of the weight-anxious.

In terms of method the ethics that exist within the process of autoethnography and psychoanalysis are emphasised by this chapter. Certainly the process of considering one’s self in relation to the research process is not a new thing within organisation studies, both Harding (2007) and Driver (2008) for instance undertake this to different extents. I do think that as researchers we can push the boundaries further and attempt to hear the resonance of our unconscious within our own texts – that is what I have tried to do within my analysis. For me (and Lacan) the only ethical means of approaching an anxious subject is via the social bond of the analyst’s discourse (Lacan, 2007 (1969-70)), as this places the emphasis on bearing a subject’s unconscious desire, not on elaborately facilitating their fantasy as the weight-loss organisations do so effectively. I have tried to do this in this chapter by focusing my analysis on the cause of desire (my objet a). The tension that exists in this position is not able to be resolved as by its nature this quest will fail, perhaps by falling under the discourse of the university.

Also in this chapter I both question and enact the discourse of the university which has the dual-effect of destablising the ‘knowledge’ that underpins the university and allowing a channel for the alternate knowledge of the discourse of the analyst (Kovacevic, 2007). In terms of organisation studies this demonstrates the efficacy of making every attempt within research to question the discourse of the university as it attempts to present its totalising knowledge by “making products (outputs, students) that also ‘speak product’ and thus intellectualize their alienation” (Nobus & Quinn, 2005, p. 125). Although it is impossible to avoid this as a researcher, psychoanalysis provides a channel for the subject’s desire to have a voice in the discourse of the university, even if the final product appears incomplete and constitutes a failure of sorts. This paragraph is perhaps a good summary of the politics of this chapter and perhaps my thesis, I obviously take issue with the knowledge produced as ‘truth’ by the weight loss industry but I also take issue with the dominance of the discourse of the university within the academy.

In the final section of my literature review I wrote my research question as: How does the form and function of the wider weight-loss industry work to position men for whom weight is an issue? This chapter has been my first attempt at addressing this question, by looking closely at the psychoanalytic mechanism via which the weight-anxious subject becomes entrapped in the machinations of the weight-loss industry. However, as often happens in the research process, I am not satisfied with this answer. In particular I feel that the gender aspects of this are under-theorised, that gender needs more consideration if I want to be able to understand how my anxiety, and that of other biological men becomes so closely affiliated with what is often known as ‘women’s business’. Specifically I have new research questions to ask: firstly, Am I a man? secondly How come so many

biological women are caught in a competitive masculine enterprise like weight-loss and then finally What does it mean to be biologically male but involved in the (primarily) female sport of competitive weight-loss? These are the questions I tackle in the next chapter where I pick up on the gender confusion that features in this chapter and Real-ly place it under a Lacanian lens.

6. Perhaps fat is not a feminist issue? Masculine fat in the