 In his 1958 écrit “The Signification of the Phallus,” Lacan provides a succinct formula for defining “desire” in relation to both need and demand. He stipulates that desire is what remains after need is subtracted from demand. What, exactly, does this equation mean? Through being translated into demands, needs come to be saddled with surpluses of more-than-biological significances; vital requirements take on the excess baggage of meanings over and above the level of brute, simple organic survival. Largely by virtue of what O/others add to the child’s experiences of needs through superimposing interpretations of these needs as socio-symbolic demands, the meeting of the child’s needs in response to his/her demands makes these needs into, first and foremost, litmus tests of where he/she stands in relation to these thus-addressed significant O/others. Being given specific items of food by a parent in response to a demand expressing hunger can indicate to the child not only that the parent understands that a need to eat has to be met, but also, and more importantly, that he/she is loved by the parent, that he/she enjoys a privileged position in relation to the parent’s attention and priorities. Lacan therefore asserts that each and every demand is, at bottom, a demand for love. Returning to the equation “demand – need = desire,” what is desired when a demand is addressed to another is not so much the meeting of the thus-expressed need, but, in addition to this, the very love of another.