From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: Dworkin...
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 14:51:24 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Aug28.052723.8947@news.columbia.edu> mig@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Meir I Green) writes:
>In article <l-cn-sd.payner@netcom.com> payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne) writes:
>>Here are some quotes from Andrea Dworkin, a feminist lawyer.
>>This material is from _Reason_ magazine. There is much more...
>>
>>In Dworkin's view, any material involving sexual intercourse
>>would by definition be degrading to women. "Intercourse remains
>>a means or the means of psychologically making a woman
>>inferior, communicating to her cell by cell her inferior status,"
>>she writes in her book _Intercourse_. "Physically the woman in
>>intercourse is a space inhabited, a literal territory occupied
>>literally: occupied even if there has been no resistance; even
>>if the occupied person said, 'Yes please, yes hurry, yes more.'"
>>Intercourse, she declares, "is the pure, sterile, formal expression
>>of mens contempt for women." The fact that a woman might enjoy sex
>>makes it even more degrading. Dworkin contends that material depicting
>>women as enjoying sex is worse than the Nazis' treatment of the
>>Jews:"The Jews didn't do it to themselves and they didn't orgasm....
>>No one, not even Goebbels, said that the Jews liked it.
>
>Well, if she believes in God who created human beings, male and female, then I
>believe she would say that God is sexist, and the architect of female
>suffering.  I guess she would have to say that God is a man!

I wonder if she would find that amusing? :^)  Actually, sex is essentially
sexist, and (IMHO) must always be. 
 
>I find these spoutings of hers insensitive, offensive, sexist and bigoted, and 
>they offend me, as a human being, a Jew, and a man.
>
>I truly wonder whether she can conceive of a loving relationship with a member
>of the opposite sex.  I won't tell her what kind of relationships to have or
>not to have, but I think she is only declaring her own bias by asserting that
>sexual intercourse is and is only a degredation of females by males.
>
>How interesting that she brings up Jews in her "argument".  She must not know
>that in modern Judaism, sex is one expression of the ultimate human
>relationship that is almost divine:  marriage.  It is *not* at all sinful!
>That relationship is two-sided and, contrary to Dworkin's view of the world,
>Jewish men are required to provide sex *for* their wives.  Furthermore,
>married couples are supposed to enjoy the pleasures of sex on the Sabbath as
>a way of enhancing the beauty and perfection of the Sabbath, and it presumably
>also makes the sex more of a Divine experience.
>
>I'm not saying that this is what everyone in America practices, and I am not
>saying that this is what every Jew practices.  But it seems to me that
>Dworkin takes a completely negative approach to sex, without analyzing any
>cultural patterns other than what she sees in her own backyard!  Then she
>applies it to the whole world, to all males and females, and to the biology
>which created her!  What bothers me is that people actually listen to her,
>because she is feminist!  She is not pro-female only, she is vehemently and
>blindingly anti-male!  Academia should never accept this trash as valid!
>
>I am saying all this only in context of the above post...I assume that it
>truly reflects Dworkin's views :-(

I was aware of none of this. Thanks for sharing this with me. Of course, I
am referring to the information on Jewish views/traditions.

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>* * * * * * == Meir I. Green == Amateur Packet Radio N2JPG@W2XO.PA.USA.NOAM
> * * * * *  = mig@columbia.edu= Amateur Packet Radio N2JPG@K2KJC.NY.USA.NOAM
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Rich

payner@netcom.com


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