Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

jesting and frivolity that evening. ” 13Women who had stoppedmenstruating were told “ to eat the foreskin of a circumcised infant”; and those who wanted to be loved “were told to havetheir men drink the water in which their breasts had beenwashed. ” 14The false Messiah most honored was Sabbatai Zevi,and the Messiah’s wife, Sarah, was also honored, having “ oncebeen an inmate of a brothel in Rome. ” 15Especially, the women were out of hand and out of line, increasinglydeviant and lawless. One woman came to Goraypreaching, spreading news of miracles and words of solace; shepromised salvation:Crowds o f women followed her about, tirelessly asking questionafter question— and she replied in phrases from the holytongue, like a man. 16Women were “in mannish boots, their heads covered with tornshawls. . . ” 17 And Rechele, incarnating this deviation towardthe masculine, had studied the holy tongue and Latin. InGod’s legal universe, this does not occur. Freud outlined preciselythe implicit orthodox Jewish view of gender when hewrote:the appeased wish for a penis is destined to be converted into awish for a baby and for a husband, who possesses a penis. It isstrange, however, how often we find that the wish for masculinityhas been retained in the unconscious and, from out o f itsstate o f repression, exercises a disturbing influence. 18Goray was disturbed; the women presumed in the direction ofmasculine privilege.