Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

“ the key to her strength and power; if she were robbed of it,she would be disarmed, the spell would be broken, she wouldsink to the common level of women. ”52She no longer had thepower of a witch, having recanted; and she was no longer a soldier,dressed female. Chained and female, the men were nolonger afraid of her; and it was a rape, or an attempted rape, ora gang-rape, that caused her to resume male clothing and go toher death:After she had renounced and abjured and resumed man’sclothing, I and several others were present when Joan excusedherself for having again put on man’s clothes, saying and affirmingpublicly that the English had had much wrong and violencedone to her in prison when she was dressed in woman’sclothes. And in fact I saw her tearful, her face covered withtears, disfigured and outraged. . . 53One writer said that she had been “beaten bloody, ”54and herconfessor “heard it from Joan’s own lips that a great Englishlord entered her prison and tried to take her by force. That wasthe cause, she said, of her resuming man’s clothes. ”55The Englishlord, said Michelet, “had bravely attempted to rape a girl inchains; and when he did not succeed, he had showered her withblows. ”56 She described “warders who are always throwingthemselves on me trying to violate me. ”57 And Pierre Cusquel, amason, who had talked with Joan twice, claimed thatshe had not worn and was not wearing this male attire exceptingin order not to give herself to the soldiers with whom shewas. Once, in the prison, I asked her why she was wearing thismale attire and that was what she answered me. 58