Hi Dom
See your points -
still, I do think that if Andrea Dworkin had studied Sade a little
harder, perhaps she might have avoided erecting her own kinds of fascism
in opposition to masculine despotism. (Cf her recent loony idea of a
proto-Zionist Female State).
What Dworkin will not address at all is the hard question of complicity
of the victim. A hard one, I agree, since it carries a risk of
exonerating the aggressor: and yes, that is utterly wrong. But still a
question which needs addressing, the more because it is so difficult.
Goddammit, _people_ are difficult. In Dworkin, men are guilty by virtue
of their anatomy (sex is by definition invasion and violation of a woman)
which, I guess, makes everything very easy to think about. This is why I
find Audre Lord - who addresses sexisms in the context of racisms and
class - the by far more illuminating commentator. And what's more, she's
a poet, which Dworkin by no means is capable of.
I wish I could think of a better word for the neutral force I mean, but
violence it is. With all the dilemmas that suggests.
>I wonder what love would
>be for a truly autonomous self, or a not-even-illusorily-autonomous self.
I don't believe there is any such thing. But if there were, I don't
think it would be capable of love.
Best
Alison
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