Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

This anguish ended only with killing her, because only in deathwas she incapable of defying him, defying and defeating his useof her body as if it were his own. Her death ended his pain, becausedeath ended her rebellion against her object status andher assertion of will in this body that belonged to him. Deathended longings she had, including a desire for affection from,even intercourse with, another man. Death ended her desire,put her back in her place, not wanting, incontestably an object,because objects do not will and want and search and are notsubjects in a human quest for love or affection or sex. His wife,in wanting another man, had her own quest for love, her ownheart and will and desire, and so he killed her, because he couldnot stand it. Here is the heart of the contradiction, the internaltension at the center of this sexual system of value and cognition:alive, in rebellion, flesh he is near and inside of, she is nothuman; with her dead, more objectlike than human, his pain isended and he recognizes her, for one moment, as human—perhapsbecause she is now someone he no longer needs to fuck.But the killing, according to the killer/husband, was not onegross act of physical and violent rage. Instead, the killing wasslow, over the long years of their marriage, a consequence ofthe sex he wanted from her. In the first month of their marriageshe became pregnant; he kept fucking her during her pregnancy:“‘You think I am straying from my subject? Not at all! Iam telling you how I killed my wife. ’”60There were continuouspregnancies, but he kept fucking her despite her suffering anddespair: “ ‘so many children! The torments exhausted her! ” ’61She learned birth control and became young and energetic andvital again, but then she wanted someone else— she wantedlove from someone not “ ‘befouled by jealousy and all kinds ofanger. ’”62But the husband kept fucking her anyway, no matter