Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

Adam—and die material power he still has, especially in publishingand media— have set limits on the public discourse (byboth men and women) about this book.In general women get to say yea or nay to intercourse,which is taken to be a synonym for sex, echt sex. In this reductivebrave new world, women like sex or we do not. We areloyal to sex or we are not. The range of emotions and ideas expressedby Tolstoy et al. is literally forbidden to contemporarywomen. Remorse, sadness, despair, alienation, obsession, fear,greed, hate— all of which men, especially male artists, express—are simple no votes for women. Compliance meansyes; a simplistic rah-rah means yes; affirming the implicit rightof men to get laid regardless of the consequences to women isa yes. Reacting against force or exploitation means no; affirmingpornography and prostitution means yes. “ I like it” is thestandard for citizenship, and “ I want it” pretty much exhauststhe First Amendment’s meaning for women. Critical thoughtor deep feeling puts one into the Puritan camp, that hallucinatedplace of exile where women with complaints aredumped, after which we can be abandoned. W hy— sociallyspeaking— feed a woman you can’t fuck? Why fuck a womanwho might ask a question let alone have a complex emotionallife or a political idea? I refuse to tolerate this loyalty-oath approachto women and intercourse or women and sexuality or,more to the point, women and men. The pressure on womento say yes now extends to thirteen-year-old girls, who face asocial gulag if they are not hot, accommodating, and loyal; increasinglythey face violence from teenage boys who think thatintercourse is ownership. The refusal to let women feel awhole range of feelings, express a whole range of ideas, addressour own experience with an honesty that is not pleasing