IntercourseIntercourse is a book that moves through the sexed world of dominance and submission. It moves in descending circles, not in a straight line, and as in a vortex each spiral goes down deeper. Its formal model is Dante's Inferno; its lyrical debt is to Rimbaud; the equality it envisions is rooted in the dreams of women, silent generations, pioneer voices, lone rebels, and masses who agitated, demanded, cried out, broke laws, and even begged. The begging was a substitute for retaliatory violence: doing bodily harm back to those who use or injure you. I want women to be done with begging. The public censure of women as if we are rabid because we speak without apology about the world in which we live is a strategy of threat that usually works. Men often react to women's words - speaking and writing - as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women's words with violence. So we lower our voices. Women whisper. Women apologize. Women shut up. Women trivialize what we know. Women shrink. Women pull back. Most women have experienced enough dominance from men - control, violence, insult, contempt - that no threat seems empty. Intercourse does not say, forgive me and love me. It does not say, I forgive you, I love you. For a woman writer to thrive (or, arguably, to survive) in these current hard times, forgiveness and love must be subtext. No. I say no. Intercourse is search and assertion, passion and fury; and its form - no less than its content - deserves critical scrutiny and respect.---- PREFACE |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - mscitrus - LibraryThingDworkin examines the social perception and construction of intercourse, asking much of the questions that need to be asked. She goes on to ask questions about intercourse and sex in general, posits ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - tole_lege - LibraryThingSeminal, controversial (understatment), in some senses iconic. I disagree with Dworkin on almost everything, but any study of modern feminism needs to include this book, simply for the influence it once had. Read full review
Contents
REPULSION 1 part one INTERCOURSE IN A MANMADE WORLD | 2 |
VIRGINITY 146 part two THE FEMALE CONDITION | 147 |
OCCUPATIONCOLLABORATION | 220 |
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Common terms and phrases
abandoned Andrea Dworkin Asked beauty becomes blood body burned carnal Church D.H. Lawrence dead death destroy Dracula dress Dworkin dybbuk emotional entered equality Eric especially exist experience fantasy fear feel female feminist force freedom fuck genital Giovanni God’s Goray hate holy human husband identity inferior Inquisitors inside integrity intercourse James Baldwin Joan Joan’s John Stoltenberg killed killer/husband Kobo Abe Kreutzer Sonata literal live lover male clothes male dominance male power man’s Marina Warner marriage married meaning men’s moral naked nakedness never night objectification obsession one’s orgasm pain passion person physical Pierre Cauchon pleasure pornography rape reality Reb Gedaliya Reb Itche Rechele refused rience rose tattoo saints sand sensuality sex act sexual intercourse sexual possession sion skin skinless social soldiers someone soul status Stoltenberg Susan Brownmiller tenderness thing tion told Tolstoy touch vagina violence virginity voices wanted wife woman women wrote
Bibliographic information
| Title | Intercourse |
| Author | Andrea Dworkin |
| Publisher | ReadHowYouWant.com, 2009 |
| ISBN | 1458723771, 9781458723772 |
| Length | 308 pages |
| Subjects | › Social Science / Pornography |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |