Karen Finley

Kathy Ackeresque, reading Shock Treatment by Karen Finley has proven effective in combatting intense cases of Major Misogyny, Homophobic Personality Disorder, and Greedy Asshole Syndrome (GAS).

Do not read Shock Treatment if you're easily repulsed by in-your-face provocation, or can't stand ultra-edgy, spoken word performance monologues and poetry set down on paper—vignettes of disturbingly dysfunctional relationships, and as violent at times as the most violent of video games (only, show more unfortunately, the vignettes are mostly real, unlike the silly video games)—or have non-subversive, politically conservative sensibilities, and are readily off-put having your beliefs satirically steamrolled by an artist who's the spitting image of the antithesis of Ann Coulter.

Ask your doctor before reading Shock Treatment if your heart is healthy enough for wild text:

"I drive down to Wall Street and break into the Exchange. I go up to all the traders and cut off all of their balls. They don't bleed, only dollar signs come out of them. They don't miss their balls 'cause they're too busy fucking me with everything else they got."

Or:

"The gun up his ass gives her such a sense of power, and for a few fleeting moments the tables are turned as she forgets the time when she was forced to perform fellatio at gunpoint in front of her own children..."

Shock Treatment should only be taken in prescribed small doses. Ten paragraphs at a time, max.

Do not drink alcohol in excess while reading Shock Treatment, because booze might numb its shocking effect.

Do not read Shock Treatment if you are pregnant, or think you might be pregnant, as reading it could induce premature labor.

Common side effects from reading Shock Treatment include, but are not limited to: uncontrollable cringing, severe chuckling, and shitting your pants.

Should such pesky side effects persist while reading Shock Treatment, please contact your librarian and read Jan Karon immediately. show less

Shock Treatment includes Karen Finley’s most provocative and acclaimed performance monologues, essays, and poems, with “The Constant State of Desire,” “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” “It's Only Art,” and “The Black Sheep.” Excoriating misogyny, homophobia, abusive families, greed, and state coercion of bodies and minds, Finley holds out hope for a world informed not by hate and fear, but by truth and unconditional love.

Shocking. So shocking that if Finley was male, then there'd be femnists demanding that she'd be locked up for life in solitary. Do not read unless you can handle depravity. It's only the second impulse, that the shock is deliberate, that make's Shock Treatment tolerable in the 1st amendment sort of way. That Finley is making a point that this disgusting pornography is not uncommon in the lives of women, gays, and other "lesser" people. It's Finley and her ilk that strengthen the arguments of show more McKinnon and Dworkin while McKinnon and Dworkin deny Finley. show less

Based on her widely praised performance piece Unicorn Gratitude Mystery ("Wickedly funny," as described by The New York Times), Karen Finley’s Grabbing Pussy explores the Shakespearean dynamics that surface when libidos and loyalties clash in the public and private personas of Donald Trump, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner, and now Harvey Weinstein.

Standing in the tradition of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, Finley’s words jolt the reader into new insights about the ways show more the darkly private can drive the public realm in dizzying twists and turns. The aggression of intimacy, the disparity of gender, and the vital importance of hair are all encompassed in Finley’s exhilarating canter. show less