“Intercourse” House Party (Part 1) May 2, 2010

Posted by FCM in authors picks Tags: dworkin

i finally read dworkin’s “intercourse” all the way through, and have been processing it for about a week now. because i really like hearing myself talk and everything, but why constantly reinvent the wheel, when smart and learned feminists have been dissecting and discussing this material for decades? i mean really. this all started to seem very pointless a few weeks ago, particularly considering the roll i am currently on: bashing PIV, because its problematic for women but not for men. its not even sex. no, its not. and i am not the first person to think this way. there is very little new under the sun afterall.

so i bought a book, and read it. on this issue, i went to the source, dworkin, and her infamously radical notion: penis-in-vagina is a problem. oh yes it is. and this is going to be one of a several-part post. well, at least 2 parts. one just isnt going to cut it. because i have heard many women say that they didnt “get” dworkin, that they tried to read her and couldnt. and i have had some commenters here that advanced individualist arguments, when it came to PIV. “i like it, so i am going to continue to do it.” and thats a tough nut to crack. i mean really. i “like it” too, under the right circumstances. i never said i didnt.

so i propose that we start here, when trying to discuss it: stop thinking about the female body as synonymous with penetration. stop thinking about vaginas as “holes” to be filled with, or penetrated by stuff. because they arent.

since most readers here have their own vagina, this can be approached as a thought exercise. imagine that your vagina isnt a hole. because its not. a vagina is an organ, and most hours of most days, its a solid structure: its muscular walls touch each other. theres no room in there, at all. its not the hollow, upside-down carrot that we see in anatomy books. ffs. even the fucking anatomists get it wrong. its pathetic, and infuriating. but its true.

then, imagine that women are not just castrated men. its difficult, i know. i just came to this conclusion literally the other day. i mean, i always knew that freud was a misogynist asshole for even saying it, but i never really got it. how is this possible? i mean really. its some extremely effective brainwashing, that, to have women believing about themselves that we are defective, castrated something-else. instead of whole, functioning humans, who have vulvas, vaginae, and uterii *instead of* dicks. not that we have nothing, where a dick should be. (i know: it is TRANSPHOBIC!!! to suggest that women are not merely castrated men. oh well. get over it, because its true).

now. imagine that you know something about human beings for a second. because, you are one. imagine that humans do not enjoy being colonized. because they dont. having other people come into your neighborhood, and setting up shop in YOUR SPACE is not something that human beings enjoy, and they have never enjoyed, and they will never enjoy. people need their own physical space. its part of having an identity, as a person, and as a people. take this as a fact, because its true. and for those with an incurable individualist streak, consider this: even extremely tolerant people who want to share their space with others, get rightly pissed off when the visitors come in and start messing the place up. do they not?

thats it for now. as you can tell, this is kind of an experiemental post. see what you think, and decide if you want to play along. i would love to be able to discuss dworkin here, but i think theres some groundwork that must be laid, as it were. and i think this is it.

part 2 is here.