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

camp. ”17 As long as language is a weapon of power— usedto destroy the expressive abilities of the powerless by destroyingtheir sense of reality— we do know. Beaver knows.Some have said that pornography is a superficial target;but, truly, this is wrong. Pornography incarnates male supremacy.It is the DNA of male dominance. Every rule ofsexual abuse, every nuance of sexual sadism, every highwayand byway of sexual exploitation, is encoded in it. It’swhat men want us to be, think we are, make us into; howmen use us; not because biologically they are men butbecause this is how their social power is organized. Fromthe perspective of the political activist, pornography is theblueprint of male supremacy; it shows how male suprem ­acy is built. T he political activist needs to know theblueprint. In cultural terms, pornography is the fundamentalismof male dominance. Its absolutism on womenand sexuality, its dogma, is merciless. W omen are consignedto rape and prostitution; heretics are disappearedand destroyed. Pornography is the essential sexuality ofmale power: of hate, o f ownership, of hierarchy; of sadism,of dominance. T he premises of pornography are controllingin every rape and every rape case, whenever a womanis battered or prostituted, in incest, including in incest thatoccurs before a child can even speak, and in m u rd er—m urders of women by husbands, lovers, and serial killers.If this is superficial, what’s deep?5W hen I first wrote this book, I was going to use these linesfrom Elizabeth B arrett Browning’s letters as an epigraph:“If a woman ignores these wrongs, then may women as asex continue to suffer them ; there is no help for any of1 7 . G e o r g e S t e i n e r , Language and Silence ( N e w Y o r k : A t h e n e u m , 1 9 7 7 ) , p p . 6 5 -66.