travis@hudson.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey) (10/11/90)
In article <547.9010101851@subnode.lfcs.ed.ac.uk> jha@lfcs.edinburgh.ac.UK (Jamie Andrews) writes: > > I recently read a review of Andrea Dworkin's new book > in which the reviewer said that Dworkin had done a complete > about-face, and now supports pornography, prostitution, and > S/M sex. Has anyone seen the book or other reviews? > > It's a work of fiction, and I couldn't tell how serious > the reviewer was being, but it seemed pretty straight. If > this is true, it's amazing. It sounds fake to me -- but you should know that in the early 70's, Andrea Dworkin was very impressed with the socially liberating powers of pornography, including S&M. I'm pretty sure she wrote a very appreciative review of The Story of O. Unfortunately, I can't remember the details, and she didn't mention this article in her book on Pornography. [I think we'll wait on this until a definitive posting comes up -- we could speculate on whether she did or didn't until the cows come home...Anyone know for sure? --CLT] t
falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) (10/13/90)
In article <9010110554.AA11679@hudson.cs.columbia.edu> travis@hudson.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey) writes: >It sounds fake to me -- but you should know that in the early >70's, Andrea Dworkin was very impressed with the socially >liberating powers of pornography, including S&M. I'm pretty sure >she wrote a very appreciative review of The Story of O. Ouch. That book is one of the most horribly brutal things I've ever read. It's about a woman who's being systematically abused. Eventually her lover gives her as a gift to another man and the abuse gets worse. Towards the end, she's branded with her new master's monogram, leaving scars half an inch deep. The frightening thing is that nothing's restraining her from getting up and walking away from the situation -- she *chooses* to stay and take the abuse. I kept waiting for the brutality to end and the sex to begin, but it never happened. Then I was waiting for the heroine to come to her senses and call the cops or something, but that didn't happen either. I can't believe *any* woman would like that book, but I guess it's true. It was a woman to recommended it to me. Supposedly it was a woman who wrote it. Delta of Venus by Anais Nin is similar. Almost every story depicts rape or brutality, yet the feminist community seems to love it. Sometimes I think that the feminist definition of pornography vs. erotica is more a matter of writing style than content. -ed falk, sun microsystems sun!falk, falk@sun.com card-carrying ACLU member.
falk@peregrine.Eng.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) (10/16/90)
In article <547.9010101851@subnode.lfcs.ed.ac.uk> jha@lfcs.edinburgh.ac.UK (Jamie Andrews) writes: > I recently read a review of Andrea Dworkin's new book >in which the reviewer said that Dworkin had done a complete >about-face, and now supports pornography, prostitution, and >S/M sex. Has anyone seen the book or other reviews? > It's a work of fiction, and I couldn't tell how serious >the reviewer was being, but it seemed pretty straight. If >this is true, it's amazing. Is this "Ice and Fire"? If so, it's not really that new, it's a couple of years old. I remember a review that quoted a line something like "She fucks me hard. Sometimes she fucks me until I bleed". I haven't read it, but the reviewer implied that the book would classify as pornography and be bannable under the Dworkin-McKinnon laws. It came out about the same time as her book "Intercourse" which was a treatise on how the act of sexual intercourse is a form of oppression against women. As near as I can tell, Dworkin is only against pornography, prostitution, and S/M if it involves men. Or does she really have a new book? -ed falk, sun microsystems sun!falk, falk@sun.com card-carrying ACLU member.
jha@lfcs.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews) (10/19/90)
Since I started this, I guess I'd better clear it up. The book is _Mercy_, published within the last few weeks, and the review I read of it was by a Janet Barron, in the British magazine _New Statesman/Society_. A friend here in Edinburgh responded to my original soc.feminism message; I sent her quotes from the review which stated that Dworkin had done an about-face and was supporting prostitution, pornography, and S/M sex. My friend's response was: >Oh, love it! The reviewer has got mixed up about which bits >are sarcastic and which bits are meant to be taken straight! >"Mercy" includes an intro and an epilogue which are supposedly >written by "not Andrea". They are a very unfair (and quite funny) >satire of women who disagree with Andrea Dworkin's views, >supposedly written by just such a woman. The bits the reviewer >quotes come from these, not from the body of the book. >Guess who didn't bother to read the whole book, and will soon >be feeling very, very embarrassed? So it looks like a reviewer's mistake that I inadvertently inflicted on the net. Sorry. This does strike me as a typical Andrea Dworkin thing to do. Incidentally, I don't particularly agree with everything Dworkin says about these topics, but I think she's definitely an important thinker. --Jamie. jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk "Where in New York shall I bury my twenties?"
szady@athena.mit.EDU (Does it really matter?) (10/22/90)
Re the Story of O. Precisely because it is voluntary....therefore it is CONSENTING s/m. drew