Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

37matter what he does to or with her when he makes love. Repudiatinghim, she writes him:You don’t need me. W hat you really need is a mirror. Becauseany stranger is for you sim ply a m irror in w hich to reflectyourself. I don’t ever again want to return to such a desert o fm irrors. 23Pushed by a deep, obsessive desire for sex with his wife, forher love— but also an increasing desire to watch her being unfaithfulwith the man he is pretending to be— he is unable totranscend the constraints of self-absorption. He gets closest toher when touch becomes a part of his imagination, a means ofcognition when he is near her but not literally touching her:Isn’t it generally rare to imagine by a sense o f touch? I did notconceive o f you as a glass doll or as abstract word symbols, buthad a tactile sense o f your presence as I got within touchingdistance o f you. T h e side o f my body next to you was as sensitiveas if it had been overexposed to the sun, and each one o fmy pores panted for breath like dogs sweltering in the heat. 24She is far from being an object or an abstraction; she is nearlyreal. His reaction is physical, hot, on his skin; close to touch,closer than when he is actually touching her. When he makeslove to her in the dark, touch is a form of greed: “ I concentratedon capturing you in every way other than sight: legs,arms, palms, fingers, tongue, nose, ears. . . your breathing,sighing, the working of your joints, the flexing of your muscles,the secretions of your skin, the vibrations of your vocal cords,the groaning of your viscera. ”25Like a man making notches on