How Andrea Dworkin Was Right

Obviously, I didn't like Andrea Dworkin one bit (she just died a year or so ago) and I don’t support rape at all, of course.

But Dworkin did say one thing that is correct: all heterosexual intercourse (penis-vagina intercourse) is rape (at least in a slight sense). One is doing the fucking and one is getting fucked. There are no two ways about it. Although I should point out that Dworkin herself said that this was a misreading of her own highly complex writing.

It looks like she was saying that in what she sees as male supremacist society (You must be kidding if you think that the US is one!) intercourse is de facto rape because this is how patriarchy and especially us male pigs want to see it. I'm not going to go into this complex argument, but I will just direct you to a very interesting website called Rad Geek People's Daily that explains it all pretty well (the comments are especially good).

Dworkin does make some good points, even in her rebuttal. She says that women are basically allowed to be raped in marriage. Look, man, if you need to rape the wife, for Chrissake! Just get a divorce. I've been single my whole life, and I never had to rape a soul. It's kind of lonely, but it's not the end of the world.

If your wife won't have sex with you, then be mean to her. Then threaten to have an affair. Then actually have an affair - after all, she's not screwing you, so you have every right to an affair. If that doesn't work, just leave her.

An earlier post of mine linked to a gay website called Heroic Homo Sex (Warning: plenty of gay erotica and some gay porn on that site!) that seemed to have hit on some amazing insights. I'm not gay or bisexual, by the way; I'm hopelessly straight and could not be gay if I wanted to.

HHS' notion was that the whole era of promiscuity, AIDS, “gay men as sex pigs”, effeminacy, degradation, etc, that characterizes gay life today came about through the mass promotion of anal sex. By the very act of getting penetrated anally, gay men were turned submissive.

Why? Because getting penetrated and penetrating resembles rape. Fucking makes the fucker dominant (and a sort of a rapist) and getting fucked makes one submissive (and a sort of a rape victim).

HHS argues that the only way that the gay men can reverse this trend is through something called frottage (they also like other non-anal sex acts) which basically boils down to 2 guys rubbing their dicks against each other in a sort of martial combat. By having sex in this way, neither man is fucked and thereby made submissive.

Also promiscuity is reduced - HHS feels that by getting anally fucked, gay men are degraded and turned into “sex sluts” or “sex pigs”. The corollary to this is that anal sex is also degrading to women who engage in it, but it doesn't seem to turn them into promiscuous "sex pigs". Only in porn it does. So why does anal sex turn gay men but not women into "sex pigs"?

Also, effeminacy will be reduced in gay men by eliminating anal sex, since getting fucked anally in and of itself causes gay men to act effeminate.

I would also argue that the act of getting fucked in and of itself turns a woman feminine, and most men with sexual experience have seen this with their very eyes. The most evil bitch turns into a preening, coquettish Southern belle at least for a while merely by getting fucked. Probably, even pretty wimpy guys are turned a lot more masculine merely by fucking a woman (I can't speak to this one, so I'm guessing).

I have read pro-sex feminists say that getting fucked is an act of violence and and of itself (although they love it) and yes, it does resemble rape in a sense. As I’ve never been fucked, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t agree when Dworkin conflates all heterosexual fucking with rape. Clearly rape is rape, and consensual sex is consensual sex.

Of course I don’t support rape, but I’ve talked more than a few women into bed before. As in giving them orders, which they were free to refuse, like, “Get over on that bed right now!” Believe it or not, an very large percentage of females actually want to be bossed around and ordered around by a dominant male.

So, I don’t support rape, but I think Dworkin did hit something on the head there.

As far as the rest of her philosophy, I virulently disagree.

Chip Smith, the great writer who runs the highly disturbing blog The Hoover Hog, had an excellent piece on Dworkin, whom he called a tortured soul but a brilliant writer, a while back called Writing About Prostitutes.

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