Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality

by Andrea Dworkin

  82

  Woman Hating

  is supposed to liberate women and men too. But the pill

  served to reinforce our essential bondage —it made us

  more accessible, more open to exploitation. It did not

  change our basic condition because it did nothing to

  challenge the sexist structure of society, not to mention

  conventional sexual relationships and couplings. Neither

  does promiscuity per se. Greer’s alliance with the sexual

  revolution is, sadly but implicitly, an alliance with male

  chauvinism because it does not speak to the basic condition of women which remains the same if we fuck one man a week, or twenty.

  There is similar misunderstanding in this statement:

  Well, listen, this is one o f the things a woman has

  to understand, and I get a bit impatient sometimes with

  women who can’t see it. A woman, after all, in this

  country is a commodity. She’s a status symbol, and the

  prettier she is the more expensive, the more difficult

  to attain. Anyone can have a fat old lady. But young

  girls with clear eyes are not for the 40-year-old man

  who’s been working as a packer or a storeman all his

  life. So that when he sees her he snarls, mostly I think,

  because she’s not available to him. She’s another taunt,

  and yet another index o f how the American dream is

  not his to have. He never had a girl like that and he

  never will.

  Now, I think that the most sensible way for us to

  see the crime of rape is an act o f aggression against

  this property symbol. . . (but I’m not sure about

  this at all —I mean, I think it’s also aggression against

  the mother who fucks up so many people’s lives). And

  I must think that as a woman, who has not done a

  revolution, have not put myself on the barricade on

  this question, I owe it to my poor brothers not to get

  uptight. Because I am that, I am a woman they could

  Woman as Victim: Suck

  83

  never hope to ball, and in the back o f my mind I reject

  them too. 4

  Here again, the alliance is with male chauvinism, and it

  is incomprehensible. Mothers fuck up people’s lives in

  direct proportion to how fucked up their own lives are

  — that fuck up is the role they must play, the creative

  possibilities they must abort. Greer surely knows that

  and must speak to it. Women who walk, as opposed to

  those who take taxis or drive (another relevant class

  distinction), are constantly harassed, often threatened

  with violence, often violated. That is the situation which

  is the daily life o f women.

  It is true, and very much to the point, that women

  are objects, commodities, some deemed more expensive

  than others —but it is only by asserting one’s humanness

  every time, in all situations, that one becomes someone

  as opposed to something. That, after all, is the core o f

  our struggle.

  Rape, o f course, does have its apologists. Norman

  Mailer posits it, along with murder, as the content o f

  heroism. It is, he tells us in The Presidential Papers,

  morally superior to masturbation. Eldridge Cleaver

  tells us that it is an act o f political rebellion — he “practiced” on Black women so that he could rape white women better. Greer joins the mystifying chorus when

  she posits rape as an act o f aggression against property

  (a political anticapitalist action no less) and suggests

  that it might also be an act o f psychological rebellion

  against the ominous, and omnipresent, mother. * Rape

  *

  G reer changed her ideas on rape. Cf. Germ aine G reer, “Seduction Is a

  Four-Letter W ord, ” Playboy, vol. 20, no. 1 (January 1973).

  84

  Woman Hating

  is, in fact, simple straightforward heterosexual behavior

  in a male-dominated society. It offends us when it does,

  which is rarely, only because it is male-female relation

  without sham —without the mystifying romance of the

  couple, without the civility of a money exchange. It

  happens in the home as well as on the streets. It is not

  a function of capitalism — it is a function of sexism.

  What Greer contributes to Suck, and to its women

  readers who might look to her for cogent analysis and

  deep imagination, is mostly confusion. That confusion

  stems from an identification with men which too often

  blunts her perception of the real, empirical problems

  women face in a sexist society. That confusion manifests

  itself most destructively in the patently untrue notion

  that a woman who fucks freely is free.

  The main body of Suck is pornographic fiction. It is

  in the fiction that we find a repetition of events, situations, images, and attitudes which most effectively reinforce conventional sexist values. “Congo Crystal Hotel, ” a story by Mel Clay, is typical of Suck fiction.

  Two men watch a pornographic movie. They have a

  sadistic sexual encounter. One of the men, Beno, goes

  off to meet Carol, a woman he has known previously.

  He forces her to fuck and suck two Blacks, who violate

  her in every way. Carol’s husband intrudes. Beno forces

  Carol to suck her husband’s cock and as her husband

  comes, Beno shoots him. An example of the purple

  prose:

  In a sudden spasm the man clutches her head and

  arches his back and as the beginning sensations of

  orgasm overtake him Beno pulls the trigger, the explosion drowning out the sound of Carol gulping on his come and his brains splashing against the ceiling. 5

  Woman as Victim: Suck

  85

  Carol is announced: “he could smell her even before he

  saw her. ” 6 T h e rape which Beno forces on her is, o f

  course, the vehicle o f her recognition that she loves

  him, because only he could do that to her. T h e story

  contains incredible violence. Beno whips his male lover,

  Carol is beaten and raped, the husband is killed. T he

  cocks o f the Blacks are, o f course, gigantic tools o f pleasure and pain. T here is little to distinguish “Congo Crystal Hotel” from straight pornography, except for

  the awful quality o f the writing. T h e vision o f woman is

  precisely the same: insatiable cunt, to be violated and

  abused; the sadomasochistic content is the same; even

  the exaggerated genitalia o f the Blacks participate in

  the worst o f the pornographic tradition.

  “Sex Angels, ” a story by Ron Reid, chronicles the adventures o f Helen and Tony, that is, a gangbang arranged by Helen with a bunch o f tough bikers. Helen is “high class cunt who was soon to be stuffed with their

  working class cocks. ” 7 T he class analysis is central to the

  story: “the social gu lf accentuated the mounting thrill

  already high with the knowledge that the young husband was to observe his wife’s gangbanging by the pack. ” 8 The culmination o f the event, after Helen has

  been thoroughly used, is described like this:

  now hot wet fuck tube — hot slit, go on let see you fuck

  your wife now. we’ve all been through her. 9

  Helen, whose resemblance to that other well-known sex

  object, H
elen o f Troy, will not be overlooked by the

  acute observer, is a “hot wet fuck tube —hot slit. ” Indeed, one must ask, in the world o f Suck fiction, who o f us is not?

  Woman Hating

  The overwhelming fact which emerges about Suck

  fiction is that it contains and expresses the traditional

  male fantasies about women. Helen and Carol differ

  little from O and Claire. Their needs can be articulated

  in precisely the same way: cock, lots of it, all o f the time,

  rape, violation, cruelty. If only our needs were so simple. If only our needs had anything to do with it at all.

  Men have always known, in that existential-accord-

  ing-to-Mailer way, that women not only need IT but

  want IT, rape-brand-whip orchestrated. It was always

  obvious to them —a woman's “virtue” is merely facade,

  her reluctance is merely tactic. What matters is that she

  wants to be fucked —she is defined by her need to be

  fucked. We find in Suck these sacrosanct male fantasies

  applied with true counter-culture egalitarianism: to

  all beings “feminine, ” whether women or gay men.

  Projection has come home to roost and cock is crowing

  like never before —but, like the cult of cunt before it,

  the cult of cock is colored with the washes o f unresolved

  guilt and pure sadism. The onus and hatred of male

  homosexuality is heavy in Suck — ugly, heavy, and ever

  present.

  Suck has in some ways aligned itself with the cause

  of gay liberation. Suck 4 printed the “Gay Guide to

  Europe, ” a list of gay clubs, bars, pissoirs, etc., to alleviate the chronic need for information felt by the traveling gay man. Suck 6 has a story entitled “A Week

  in the Fondle Park, ” in which a man extols the quantity

  of cock sucked in one idyllic week in Amsterdam’s

  central park, which had been turned over to longhaired dopers and freaks in the summer of 1971. But in Suck, as in the parent culture which maligns any

  Woman as Victim: Suck

  87

  deviation from the ole hetero norm, the hatred attached

  to the queer is very apparent.

  “T h e Suction Game” is the story o f two men, one

  dark-skinned, one light-skinned, one overt, one latent —

  a typical colonial situation, ripe for exploitation. T h e

  acknowledged (overt) queer has the typical misogynist

  point o f view:

  Carlos explained that the male body was nature’s

  perfection and how clean men were compared to

  women. 10

  T o the n orm ally) self-enhancing John Wayne male, the

  above is self-evident and always has been. In the context o f the homosexual encounter it has added significance. It reinforces the maleness o f both partners. It makes the homosexual act an affirmation o f manhood.

  The insecurities which a homosexual identity conjures

  up in our culture, however, are hardly resolved through

  the putting down o f women. “Cocksucker” is a term o f

  insult and abuse —it means queer. Yet it is obviously

  absurd for a man to believe that what is pleasurable to

  him when done by a woman is disgusting when done by

  a man. T h e distinction here is not so very subtle: the

  political meaning o f the two acts, heterosexual fellatio

  and homosexual fellatio, is different. T he form er makes

  the man clearly the master —the woman kneels at the

  foot o f the sheikh. T he latter makes the man queer—

  ours is not to reason why, or is it?

  Carlos (overt, dark-skinned), having unzipped the

  hero’s pants, has started kissing his glorious equipment:

  Woman Hating

  Here I was standing in this tiny YM CA room, naked as

  the day I was born, with a pretty boy queer, kneeling

  in front o f me playing with my cock. The whole thing

  was sickening, but the worst part was that I was enjoying it.. . . Suddenly I didn’t give a fuck if he was queer. I just relaxed and surrendered to his sucking

  mouth. 11

  The resultant orgasm is fantastic, mind-blowing, as

  aren’t they all in Suck. Yet the imminent slander is too

  much to bear. Being sucked by a queer is one thing.

  Reciprocity is something else. Could it be reciprocity

  that makes one queer?

  He was a fucking queer but I wasn’t. If he had hot

  rock that was his problem not mine. He’ll just have to

  find some other queer to suck his cock. 12

  Hot Rock Carlos is undaunted. After much patient

  persistance, our supermale hero succumbs, with reservations: “The idea was repulsive to me, but I wanted to make him happy. ” 13 The moral of the tale is simple.

  Says our hero:

  Funny I do not consider myself queer, just damn lucky

  to be able to attract so many good looking young boys

  so they could have their rock inside me. 14

  Only now does the definitive definition of queer seem

  to emerge. Cocksucking isn’t the definitive experience

  after all. One must conclude that anal intercourse,

  the closest corollary to female penetration, really defines the queer. One must conclude that being fucked in the ass separates the queers from the men and places

  Woman as Victim: Suck

  89

  them squarely among the women. O ne must conclude

  that being penetrated is queer, not to mention debasing,

  disgusting, and humiliating, which one had already

  guessed.

  Homosexual men are not only penetrated like

  women —they also lust after pain and degradation. T h e

  author o f “T h e Suction Game” has given us another

  example o f homosexual pornography, this one engagingly entided “T ough Young Dicks for Hot Kicks. ”

  Five young toughs are cruising; they pick up a longhaired boy, shove him in the back seat o f the car and order him to blow them all; the boy considers refusing, since he’d love to be beaten then and there, but instead submits since greater abuse can always be had through submission than through resistance; the young

  toughs brutally rape the long-haired boy, then piss and

  shit all over him. He is, o f course, ecstatic:

  Gee did I smell o f come and teenage sweat and urine

  and I had two more toss-offs myself thinking about

  their tough young faces and dicks enjoying me for

  hot kicks. 15

  T h e stereotype o f the homosexual which emerges

  from the general run o f Suck fiction is not very different

  from the stereotype o f woman. T h e homosexual is

  queer, asshole, cocksucker, faggot; the woman is hole,

  hot wet fuck tube, hot slit, or just plain ass. He thrives

  on pain and so does she. Gangbanging is their mutual

  joy. Huge, throbbing, monster, atom-smashing cock is

  god and master to them both. T h e parts they play in the

  sadomasochistic script are the same: so are costumes,

  attitudes, and other conventional cultural baggage. It

  90

  Woman Haling

  is not hard to see that the struggle for gay male liberation and women’s liberation is a common struggle: both mean freedom from the stigma of being female.

  The fantasies (indicative of structural mental sets) which

  oppress male homosexuals and women are very much

  alike. Women and male homosexuals are united in

  their queerness, a union which is real and ve
rifiable —

  affirmed by Suck, which contributes to the cultural

  oppression of both.

  The pages of Suck have, sadly, nothing to do with

  sexual liberation — there is no “counter” to the culture to be found anywhere in them. They are, instead, a catalogue of exactly those sexist fantasies which

  express our most morbid psychic sets. They chart the

  landscape of repression, a landscape that is surprisingly

  familiar. As women, we find that we are where we have

  always been: the necessary victim, there we are, the

  victim again; the eternal object, there we are, the object again. Through the projection of archetypal sadomasochistic images, which are the staple of the sexist mentality, we become more a prisoner, robbed and

  cheated of any real experience or authentic communication, thrown back into the intricate confusion of being women in search of a usable identity.

  Part Three

  THE HERSTORY

  We are a feelingless people. If we could

  really feel, the pain would be so great that

  we would stop all the suffering. If we could

  feel that one person every six seconds dies

  of starvation (and as this is happening, this

  writing, this reading, someone is dying of

  starvation) we would stop it. If we could

  really feel it in the bowels, the groin, in

  the throat, in the breast, we would go into

  the streets and stop the war, stop slavery,

  stop the prisons, stop the killings, stop

  destruction. Ah, I might learn what love is.

  When we feel, we will feel the emergency: when we feel the emergency, we

  will act: when we act, we will change the

  world.

  Julian Beck, The Life of the Theatre

  T he rapes, tortures, and violations o f O, Claire, Anne,

  Suck's Helen, et al., are fiction, documenting the twisted

  landscape o f male wish-fulfillment. Here we have her-

  story, the underbelly o f history, two acts o f gynocide

  committed against women by men, their scope and substance largely ignored. One is not surprised to find that they document that same twisted landscape.

  I isolate in particular Chinese footbinding and the

  persecution o f the witches because they are crimes