Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

STIGMAST IG M A C O M E S F R O M T H E L A T I N F O R “ M A R K , ” T H E G R E E Kfor “ tattoo” ; its archaic meaning is “ a scar left by a hotiron ” a brand; its modern meaning is a “mark of shame or discredit”or “an identifying mark or characteristic. ” 1The plural,stigmata, commonly refers to marks or wounds like the ones onthe crucified Christ, suggesting great punishment, great suffering,perhaps even great guilt.Inside a person, sexual desire— or need or compulsion— issometimes experienced as a stigma, as if it marks the person,as if it can be seen; a great aura emanating from inside; an interiorplay of light and shadow, vitality and death, wanting andbeing used up; an identifying mark that is indelible; a badge ofdesire or experience; a sign that differentiates the individualcarrying it, both attracting and repelling others, in the end isolatingthe marked one, who is destroyed by the intensity andultimate hopelessness of a sexual calling. The person, madefor sex or needing it, devoted to it, marked by it, is a person incarnatedrestless and wild in the world and defined by fucking:fucking as vocation or compulsion or as an unfulfilled