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

it that way. ” ’7 The weak are women as a class— economically,socially, and sexually degraded as a given condition of birth: andthe women in these photographs graphically embody devotion tothe male sexual system that uses them. “Really liking it that way” isthe ultimate survival necessity of women raped as a matter ofcourse—women who exist to be used by men, as these models do.“The essence of rape, ” as Suzanne Br0gger wrote, “. . . lies not inthe degree of psychological and physical force. . . but in the veryattitude toward women that makes disguised or undisguised rapepossible. The same attitude that requires a woman to be dead, or atleast a bloody mess, before she has earned the right to be considereda victim at all. ”8 The essence of rape, then, is in the conviction thatno woman, however clearly degraded by what she does, is a victim.If the harlot nature of the female is her true nature, then nothingthat signifies or reveals that nature is either violating or victimizing.The essence of rape is in the conviction that such photographs—inany way, to any degree—show a female sexuality independent ofmale power, outside the bounds of male supremacy, uncontaminatedby male force. The rape of women who appear to “really likeit that way” by camera is the first definition of the female as victimin contemporary society—not dead, not a bloody mess. N ot yet.There are two photographs, part of a four-picture, two-pagelayout with text. In the first photograph, a woman stands upright.The front of her body faces the camera directly. H er head is tiltedslightly backwards and turned to the left, so that she is looking up.H er eyes are black. Her eye makeup is thick and black, emphasizingthe blackness of her eyes. Her hair is black, thick, and wavy.H er lips are full. Her skin is olive in some places, brown in others,depending on how the light falls. Her nipples are dark and so is herpubic hair which is abundant. Her breasts are full. She wears blackhigh heels, spiked, that appear to be open at the toes, and blackgloves that extend slightly past the elbows. Her arms are raisedabove her head. H er hands are chained together at the wrists andattached to a horizontal pole. Her body is bound in black straps: a Vopening up from her crotch, wrapped around her waist, an upsidedownV that crisscrosses between her breasts to form another V that