Andrea Dworkin: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant

Heartbreak

prostitute. ” Her tricks were professional men. She worked in

good hotels until she found herself streetwalking. “I ended up

back in prostitution. I worked out on Fourth Street, which is

the strip, and St. Carlos in San Jose. There were [many] times

that I would get raped or beat up. ” Daddy pimped.

One night she was trying to bring home her quota of

money when a drug-friend of her father’s came by. “He raped

me, he beat me up, he held a gun [in] his hand [to my head].

And I swear to this day I can stil hear that gun clicking. ”

She then worries that she is taking up too much of my time.

I’m important; she’s not. My time matters; hers doesn’t. My

life matters; hers does not. From her point of view, from the

reality of her experience, I embody wealth. I speak and some

people listen. I write and one way or another the books get

published from the United States and Great Britain to Japan

and Korea. There is a splendidness to my seeming importance,

especial y because once parts of my life were a lot like parts of

hers. How many of her are there? On my own I’ve counted

quite a few.

These women are proud of me, and I don’t want to let them

down. I feel as if I’ve done nothing because I know that I

haven’t done enough. I haven’t changed or destabilized the

meaning of “white, ” nor could anyone alone. But writers

write alone even in the context of a political movement. I’ve

always seen my work as a purposeful series of provocations,

especially Pornography: Mlen Pos es ing Women, Ice and Fire ,

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Intercourse , and Mercy. In other books I’ve devoted myself to

the testimony of women who had no other voice. These

books include Let ers from a War Zone , currently being published in Croatia in its lonely trip around the world; the introduction to the second edition of Pornography: Men Pos es ingWomen , which can also be found in Life and Death: Writings

on the Continuing War Against Women , a collection of essays;

and In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings ,

edited with Catharine A. MacKinnon and published by Harvard

University Press. I still don’t get to be white, because the

people who care about what I say have no social importance.

I’m saying that white gets to say, “Yes, it happened” or "No,

it didn’t. ” I’m saying that there are always either too many or

too few. I’m saying that I don’t count sheep at night; I see in

my mind instead the women I’ve met, I see their faces and I

can recollect their voices, and I wish I knew what to do, and

when people ask me why I'm such a hard-ass on pornography

it’s because pornography is the bible of sexual abuse; it is

chapter and verse; pornography is the law on what you do to

a woman when you want to have mean fun on her body and

she’s no one at al . No one does actually count her. She’s at the

bot om of the barrel. We’re al stil trying to tel the white guys

that too many - not too few - women get raped. Rape is the

screaming, burning, hideous top level of the rot en barrel,

acid-burned damage, what you see if you look at the surface

of violence against women. Rape plays a role in every form of

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sexual exploitation and abuse. Rape happens everywhere and

it happens al the time and to females of al ages. Rape is

inescapable for women. The act, the attempt, the threat - the

three dynamics of a rape culture - touch 100 percent of us.

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How did I become who I am? I have a heart easily hurt. I

believed that cruelty was most often caused by ignorance.

I thought that if everybody knew, everything would be different. I was a silly child who believed in the revolution. I was torn to pieces by segregation and Vietnam. Apartheid broke

my heart. Apartheid in Saudi Arabia still breaks my heart.

I don’t understand why every story about rising oil prices does

not come with an addendum about the domestic imprisonment of women in the Gulf states. I can’t be bought or intimidated because I’m already cut down the middle. I walk

with women whispering in my ears. Every time I cry there’s a

name at ached to each tear.

My ideology is simple and left: I believe in redistributing

the wealth; everyone should have food and health care, shelter

and safety; it’s not right to hurt and deprive people so that

they become prostitutes and thieves.

What I’ve learned is that women suffer from terrible shame

and the shame comes from having been complicit in abuse

because one wants to live. Middle-class women rarely understand how complicit they are unless they’ve experienced torture,

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usually in the home; prostituting women know that every

breath is bought by turning oneself inside out so that the

blood covers the skin; the skin is ripped; one watches the

world like a hunted animal on al fours in the darkest part of

every night.

There is nothing redemptive about pain.

Love requires an inner fragility that few women can afford.

Women want to be loved, not to love, because to be loved

requires nothing. Suppose that her love brought him into

existence and without it he is nothing.

Men are shits and take pride in it.

Only the toughest among women wil make the necessary

next moves, the revolutionary moves, and among prostituted

women one finds the toughest if not always the best. If prostituted women worked together to end male supremacy, it would end.

Surviving degradation is an ongoing process that gives you

rights, honor, and knowledge because you earn them; but it