Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

satisfies her, at last, completely, a romance, he fucks her

throat, he is a cold creep, a sheet o f ice descends over the

screen, he fucks her throat; he’s evil, even for these men who

do these things to women in films; who will do anything; to

anyone; present her to him; put her there; lights, camera,

action; roll her over; stick it there or there or there; yeah, she’s

tied up like a trussed pig; he says darling and sticks it in.

There’s one decision, just one; and I have to make it; are we

humans or not; the girls under glass and I or not. If we are not

then there’s these creatures kept properly under glass because

w ho’d want them loose and the bruises on them or what you

stick in them doesn’t matter and they smile because they are

sincere, this under-glass creature smiles when you hurt it, and

you get to use them; and, logically, you get to use the five

infants too, w hy not, and this girl from Camden too, w hy not;

because w e’re apples with maggots too, w hy not. M aybe this

girl Linda really likes it; except there’s this iron bar in your

throat and nothing pushes past it without a destruction o f

some sort, this or that; or w hy don’t they use machine guns or

trees or they will, they just haven’t yet, h o w ’d they get that

Linda girl to do it? O r if w e’re humans; if we are; the fire’s got

m y name on it; at last, m y name’s spelled out in the fire and it is

beckoning to me; because they are tormenting us, pure and

simple, these men are tormenting us, they just do it, as if we

are so much trash for where they want to stick it and it is

simple in the end and they all get to live no matter what harm

they do or if we hurt or how much, all these guys live, they do;

face it; you can take some actual person and mess her body up

so bad it’s all deformed out o f its real form and you can put

things up her and in her and you can hurt her, shred her, burn

her, tortures that are done like roping her breasts, and it’s

okay, even funny, even if they do it to babies or even if they

beat you or even i f they put things in you or no matter what

they do, it’s over and tom orrow comes and they go on and on

and on and they don’t get stopped, no one stops them; and

people ju st walk by the girls under glass; or just ignore the

infants who grow ed up, the suicidal infants who can’t breathe

but are trying to talk; or the women who got beat; no one

stops them; it’s true, they don’t get stopped; and it’s true,

though not recognized, that you do got to stop them, like stop

the War, or stop slavery; you have to stop them; whatever’s

necessary; because it’s a crisis because they are tormenting us; I

gave m y uncle cancer but it’s too late, too slow, and you don’t

know who they are, the particular ones; and even if there’s

laws by the time they have hurt you you are too dirty for the

law; the law needs clean ones but they dirty you up so the law

w o n ’t take you; there’s no crimes they committed that are

crimes in the general perception because we don’t count as to

crimes, as I have discovered time and time again as I try to

think i f what he did that hurt me so bad was a crime to anyone

or was anything you could tell someone about so they would

care; for you; about you; so you was human. But if he did it to

you, you know him; I know; this Linda knows; the infants

know; the day comes; we know; each one o f them has one o f

us who knows; at least one; maybe dozens; but at least one.

When the Buddhists were burning themselves you couldn’t

convince anyone anything was wrong in Vietnam; they

couldn’t see it; they saw the fire; and you couldn’t forget the

fire; and I’m convinced that the fire made the light to see by; so

later, we saw. N o w there’s nothing w rong either; nothing

nobody can see; each day all these thousands o f people, men

and women, walk past the women under glass, the specimens,

and they don’t see nothing wrong, they don’t see no human o f

any sort or that it’s wrong that our kind are under glass,

painted, bloated cadavers for sex with spread legs, eyes open,

glassy, staring like the dead; smiling; painted lips; purple;

lynched or pissed on; or on our knees; I will die to get her o ff

her knees; sperm covering us like puke; and w e’re embalmed,

a psychotic’s canvas; eventually fucked, in any orifice; someday they’ll do the sockets o f the eyes. It’s the church to our pain; a religion o f hate with many places to pray; a liturgy o f

invasion; they worship here, the men, Hot Girls is Michael-

angelo’s David\ Lesbian Gang Bang is Tintoretto; it’s Venice

and Rom e and Jerusalem and Mecca, too; all the art; everything sacred; with pilgrims; the service, how I injured her and

came; the ancient masses, how I made a perfect penetration;

the ordinary prayers, I felt her up, I stuck it in, she screamed, I

ran; this is the church here, they worship here, a secular sadism

where w e’re made flat and dead and displayed under glass,

fifty cents a feel for a live one in a real cage, behind the movies

are the places where they keep the live ones they caught, you

pay money, you touch it; you pay more money; it touches

you; you pay more money; you can hurt it bad i f you pay

enough; you pay money, you can stick it in, you want to cut it

up, it costs more money; you want it young, you want to stick

it in, you want to cut it up, it costs more money; but see, m y

uncle, a true believer, worshipped at home; so you have to

grasp the true nature o f the system; here is the center; here is

like the transmission center; here is where they broadcast

from; here is where they put the waves in the air; here is where

they make the product, the assembly line with mass

production techniques and quality control, the big time, and

they sell it to make it socially true and socially necessary and

socially real, beyond dispute, it’s for sale, in Amerika, it’s true,

a practical faith for the working man and the entrepreneur,

rich man, poor man. It’s the nerve center, the Pentagon, the

w ar room, where they make the plans; map every move in the

war; put the infantry here and m ove it here; put the boats here

and m ove them here; put the bombs here and move them here;

dildos, whips, knives, chains, punishments, sweat and

strangulation, evisceration; they teach how to teach the

soldiers; they teach how to teach the special units; they teach