Intercourse

by Andrea Dworkin

Book Overview

The book that Andrea Dworkin's best known for-in which she provoked the argument that ultimately split apart the feminist movement-is being reissued for the young women and men of the twenty-first... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029079713
• ISBN13: 9780029079713
• Release Date: August 1988
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Intercourse

After Betty Friedan, Andrea Dworkin seems to top the list as one of the most referenced feminists. Her popularity did not prepare me in the least for what exactly her book de jour is. That is, Intercourse, the book coined as "saying" "all sex is rape," is actually an intriguing literary criticism with a brief peppering of art history. Any quotes I previously listed by Dworkin were taken out of context in that it would only make sense that after Dworkin is read a conversation must occur on art's ability (and lack of) to reflect and represent life. Dworkin's book begins at Tolstoy and moves through biographies of he and his wife and his literary work The Kreutzer Sonata. The book provides a feminist and specific sexual critique on how sexuality is represented throughout classical, fictional pieces ranging from Tennessee Williams to James Baldwin to Bram Stoker to the Bible and how these works reflect the reality of the culture they were produced in. This bundle of information is presented to the reader and then weaved together in a luxurious manner to critique present views on sexuality. (Absolutely fascinating to me as this is what I did for my late modern art assignment last semester.) Similar to Reading Lolita in Tehran, it is not necessary that you've actually read any of these works. However, as with any literary criticism it's a bit difficult to rebut or disagree with it without reading the actual texts the critique is based on. Overall, it's a brilliant piece of feminist literature that is blunt and honest and thought provoking. Whether or not you agree with everything (or anything) that Dworkin says, it's a thought stimulating book that consistently questions the reader.

like a slap to the face.

this book is not an easy read. it is full of information that provokes and ravages "comfort levels" that allow us to mindlessly tolerate the deep cruelty that goes on will not be ideas most people will want to entertain, but allowing oneself to entertain the idea that this sort of cruelty exploitation and violence can and does exist, if not in your day to day experience, somewhere in the world, should be enough to cause any person who still retains a morself of humanity outrage. As humans we have the ability to transcend survival of the fittest and exploiting the "weaker" for the needs of the stronger in our own human family, and this book removes the gauze from any eyes that may be confused about just how brutal life can be in the body of a woman in times and places where being such is not genuinely honored. This book IS like a slap to the face, and upon first reading it can cause discomfort, but like a slap to someone in a daze, it's also sobering in it's unabashed straightforward call-it-as-it-is style. It makes you realize how often communication especially by women is modified to be innocuous and palatable to the reader. At the very least this book is refreshing in that it is as far from that as it gets, but it's much more. It is important to the evolution of a society to name the subtle and flagrant violence and humiliation that is inflicted on some to keep others in power. This book does that. To call things as they are and point to how society is structured around a certain segment [namely males] at the expense of another is NOT doing so to demonize that segment but to name what goes on and point out that what society has allowed to be comfortable for men to believe is complicit and fine for women is not actually so. Only through truly knowing women in their own right and authenticity is it possible to have healthy relations between the sexes.

Amazing!

Holy gawd, a male who loved this book! And I did. It's sad how most people can only see the sophomoric caricatures their biases craft in this book, rather than the real story: which is not hatred for males, nor an indictment of all heterosexuality as rape. Though it will be read that way if a person can *only* concieve of sex which contains an element of domination: take away the domination aspect, and for them, sex is abolished. The men and women (such as the odious Camille Paglia) who fear this book have minds too entrenched in patriarchal pseudoscientific essentialist nonsense to get over that. As for me, I love sex. I think it's beautiful -- and that's also why I love this book. It suggests to me that intercourse can retain that beauty, and that it doesn't have to be debased by being used as a weapon and a tool of oppression. Dworkin is a brilliant mind whose works have altered my life.

See the truth in it if you dare.

This is one of those books that "changed my life". She pulls no punches, but is neither extremist nor militant. She does not hate men, only exposes the brutality behind much of what is called fantasy. Women are a class in this society, and any analysis of our condition as a class must include intercourse. We get quite enough go-go cheerleading sugar-coating of what sex is and what role it plays in society (Like the vapid Suzie Bright). This book provides a needed exposure of the dark side, which festers and thrives in seclusion. If we seek equality and liberation in every aspect of our lives except for sex we will never reach our goal. I do not harbor resentments toward men, as some other women reviewers here seem to. But I would be ignorant if I denied that much woman-hating finds its expression in sex and pornography. I always had a queezy feeling about certain manifestations of sex in our culture, and Andrea Dworkin helped to articulate the problem for me. GO ANDREA!