Reply #109: Oh, goody. Another anti-sex screed from the "brilliant" Dworkin, disguised as "social commentary".

[Warren DeMontague]

Let's cut to the chase, here. Andrea Dworkin may not have said "all heterosexual sex is rape" in so many words, but she did say that heterosexual, penetrative sex as practiced on Planet Earth is inherently oppressive, coercive, and downright evil. Essentially, her philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: That any time a male penis comes into contact with the body of a female, all women are harmed and all women are oppressed.

To some, she was "brilliant". To many of the rest of us, she was bat-shit crazy, or at least someone with some serious issues, and quite possibly a dollop of mental illness to boot. A sad figure, perhaps, but certainly not someone whose dubious 'insights' about the pernicious evil of the way the vast majority of the consenting adults on this planet happen to screw should be given a whole lot of credence.

She's right about one thing, (although I don't think she bothers to say it in so many words, busy as she is railing against the evils of penile penetration) homophobia and discrimination against gays and lesbians is wrong. Of course, as Pat Buchanan demonstrates, even a broken clock is right twice a day. And many gay men are also enthusiastic consumers of porn and guilty of "objectifying" other gay men, so one wonders how that plugs into Dworkin and her admirers' pet issue, namely, stopping consenting adults from getting off while looking at pictures of other consenting adults nude or screwing. (I bet you thought this thread was actually about homophobia- surprise! It's not, it's just yet another lame axe-grinding attempt to re-ignite the porn wars here at DU. You can thank me, later, for bringing that to your attention.)

Here are some more quotes from the "brilliant" Ms. Dworkin. Like the song says, Decide Yourself.

Men are distinguished from women by their commitment to do violence rather than to be victimized by it.

No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it.

Only when manhood is dead - and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it - only then will we know what it is to be free.

Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine.

You think intercourse is a private act; it's not, it's a social act.

Childbearing is glorified in part because women die from it.

For men I suspect that this transformation begins in the place they most dread -- that is, in a limp penis. I think that men will have to give up their precious erections and begin to make love as women do together.

Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women.

Oh, yeah. But the cult of Dworkin isn't anti-sex, or anti-male, or anti-heterosexual sex. Really! And how dare you even suggest such a ludicrous notion!