Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

destruction, it is no surprise to find that there are men who havesexually objectified the woman who is that violated object: especiallythe prostitute ravaged by the life or the racially degradedwoman, both of whom are seen as pure and dangerous sexuality,used, reeking with violation. This woman is the sexual object forthose men who want to violate, as Baudelaire expressed it, theabominable:Woman is hungry and wishes to eat. T hirstyand wishes to drink.She is in heat and wishes to be fucked.Is that not splendid?Woman is natural, that is to say abominable. 36T he prostitute is the emblematic used woman, natural in that shemost purely fulfills her sexual function; the despised— by virtue ofrace, class, or ethnicity— compose the bulk of the prostituted;prostitution signifies in and of itself male power in every sphere andconstitutes in and of itself a bedrock of sexual excitement. AsFlaubert wrote: “It is perhaps a perverted taste, but I loveprostitution for itself and independently of what it means underneath.I’ve never been able to see one of these women, in low-cutdresses, pass, beneath the light of the gas lamps, without my heartbeating fast. ” 37 But it is precisely what prostitution means “underneath”that makes for the excitement. At the end of SentimentalEducation, Flaubert’s novel about the passage of male youths intocynical m aturity, Frederic and Deslauriers, two great friends,remember the first time they visited a brothel: “. . . the verypleasure of seeing at a single glance so many women at his disposalaffected [Frederic] so powerfully that he turned deathly pale, andstood still, without saying a w ord. ” 38 T he whores laugh, he runs,and since he has the money, his friend is compelled to follow him.T he novel ends as the two men agree that u[t]hat was the happiesttime we ever had. ” 39 Looking back, they realize that they had neveragain experienced such a formidable sense of power, such anabsolute recognition of the meaning of their masculinity, and thatthis feeling constituted happiness.