Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

side of the virgin; and so, of course, was Mary with her greatand sacred power. Maxentius and Olybrius did not have toreckon with the divine significance of virginity; but Christiansoldiers did. And there was an aura of magic created by the gossipand legend around the persona ofjoan herself, a deviant virginin that she was a soldier and a deviant soldier in that shewas a woman. Virgin and soldier: she was dangerous in both regards.A man who wanted to fuck her might be killed: whetherby magic or in combat. She was not the usual easy pickings.The stories about her insisted on her vocation as a soldier butemphasized the lethal magic of her virginity. For instance, onceshe was saluted by a soldier who recognized her as La Pucelle.He bragged to a companion: “ If I could only get hold of her fora night, by God, she wouldn’t be a virgin much longer. ” Joanheard and answered: “You mock God and yet you shall soondie. ”36In less than an hour, the soldier drowned.The soldier understood that Joan was genitally female andtherefore socially arrogant in her chastity; he wanted to fuckher to bring her down, put her in her place, use her for whatshe was. His comprehension of her status was appropriatelymetaphysical. She is; therefore she is female, carnal, accessible.This is the underlying a priori reality of male supremacy; but itis overladen with ideology and a baroque psychology of maledesire. Male desire is presented as a response to female beauty.It is dogmatically maintained, in the ideology, that men fuckwomen because the women attract, are sensual, are pretty, havesome dimension of beauty or grace, however lowdown or elegant,that brings on desire. The ravaged junkie-prostitutes onour contemporary streets who quantitatively do the elephant’sshare of the fucking in this society or the toothless bawds ofhistory who got fucked more than the elegant ladies by all