Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

woman’s sensuality being, in the words of the Bible, a narrowpit, a deep ditch; “ How can he be clean that is born of awoman? ” (Job 4: 4). Pudendum comes from the Latin pudere,“ to be ashamed. ” In Jewish and Islamic tradition, the word foruterus means grave:T h e phrase, “ her grave is open, ” refers to the woman’s body,and to the uterus in particular. According to an early Muslimtradition, Muhammad made the following statement to Ali: “Awoman, when she gives birth, goes apart with the child. Hershame is open thus. ..”T h e expression “ grave” for uterus occurs in the Mishna andthe Talmud. W hen a child is being born, the “ grave opens, ”that is to say, the womb o f the mother opens. T h e “ grave” beginsto open when the woman is placed on the birth stool, orwhen blood begins to issue from her body. . . 39Inescapably, a woman’s body incarnates shame, her genitals especiallysignifying dirt and death: whether referred to in aPlayboy party joke as “gash”40or expounded on by Freud:Probably no male human being is spared the fright o f castrationat the sight o f a female genital. W hy some people becomehomosexual as a consequence o f that impression, while othersfend it off by creating a fetish, and the great majority surmountit, we are frankly not able to explain. 41Just seeing those genitals turns a man gay or makes him rubup against rubber for a lifetime; to “ surmount it, ” this greatfear caused by these monstrous female genitals, means tomount her successfully, unintimidated by the wound, her