Parveen Adams has instead opened up how an encounter with a work might prompt reflection of both psychoanalysis and artistic strategies. However, there is one essay where this is not the case, and this concerns the analysis of Catherine Mackinnon's text on pornography in terms of sadism. The possibility of this as a deliberate polemical strategy in political life is dismissed in order to demonstrate the violence inflicted on the reader by the text itself . The comparison of this strategy to those of other pornographic or sadistic writers strikes me as hopelessly inadequate as a means of critiquing the logic of the text and its accurately observed conflation of reality and representation. This is not to say, I support Mackinnon's position but my criticisms of it arise because of the civil legislation which follow from her critique and whether or not these are workable in any state.
Phallus are also thought-provoking readings.
While these two books may represent two divergent trends in feminist publishing , they nevertheless are both significant and desirable books to read. Katy Deepwell ,1996.