Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

it: except for the fact that it is submissive, conforming, giving upan individuality that would withstand object status or defy it.Something happens inside; a human forgets freedom; a humanlearns obedience; a human, this time a woman, learns how togoose-step the female way. Wilhelm Reich, that most optimisticof sexual liberationists, the only male one to abhor rape really,thought that a girl needed not only “ a free genital sexuality” butalso “an undisturbed room, proper contraceptives, a friend whois capable of love, that is, not a National Socialist. . . ” 18Allremain hard for women to attain; but especially the lover whois not a National Socialist. So the act goes beyond complicityto collaboration; but collaboration requires a preparing of theground, an undermining of values and vision and dignity, asense of alienation from the worth of other human beings— andthis alienation is fundamental to females who are objectifiedbecause they do not experience themselves as human beings ofworth except for their value on the market as objects. Knowingone’s own human value is fundamental to being able to respectothers: females are remade into objects, not human in anysense related to freedom or justice— and so what can femalesrecognize in other females that is a human bond toward freedom?Is there anything in us to love if we do not love eachother as the objects we have become? Who can love someonewho is less than human unless love itself is domination per se?Alienation from human freedom is deep and destructive; it destroyswhatever it is in us as humans that is creative, that causesus to want to find meaning in experiences, even hard experiences;it destroys in us that which wants freedom whatever thehardship of attaining it. In women, these great human capacitiesand dimensions are destroyed or mutilated; and so we findourselves bewildered—who or what are these so-called persons