Intercourse

This should be required reading in every course on sex education, especially as most such courses explicate the importance of safe sex, but never seem to touch on the mental attitudes that make up most of the sexual experience, leaving the student as easy prey for the implantation of third party ideas that are not much concerned with ethics (ie., internet pornography and almost any movie with traditional heterosexual gender roles).

In short, the author took all the vague ideas that were troubling me on the intersection between the actual practice of sex and the ideals of feminism and completely concretized and explicated them with mercilessly brilliant prose. Even if you don't agree with some of the conclusions she reaches, her writing show more style alone is incredibly unique. While at times, the author's passion carries the argument past what can be supported by the given text, Dworkin's writing identifies her as definitely one of her generation's greatest intellects. show less

Hold Up!!! Did I put a Dworkin book on my list and give it 4 stars?!?!?!This book makes me seethe with rage, both in agreement at times and in overwhelmingly violent disagreement at others. The fact remains, this book is written so well that it deserves to be on every writer's list. Some day, I hope to pen a text with as much clarity and creativity as Intercourse.

read a lot of Dworkin back in the '80s. I even went to see her give a speech. I often haven't agreed with her on many issues, and possibly -- like many -- her complete refusal to compromise or be remotely flexible on anything (hence, the "militant feminist" label) made it harder to be sympathetic, not to mention the questions surrounding some of her personal history claims. But one can't deny she was a powerful, passionate speaker/writer, nor the fact that she made possibly the biggest impact in the greater feminist movement during the 1980s, so while this isn't my favorite text, I do think she's generally worth reading and engaging. I like to be challenged to think...

This was truly eye opening, poetic, emotionally difficult to read, I found my self nodding to no one at a lot of the points being made here, Dworkin put a lot in writing that I've been trying to word to myself for ages. That being said I don't think the book really challenged my viewpoint, just sort of reinforced stuff that I already believe, and also I don't think it would be particularly convincing to someone who disagrees with what she's saying. The format of each chapter talking about some literature wasn't my favorite either, I don't really like reading literary criticism especially in Part 1, but all the later chapters were great. I thought the best chapters were: Repulsion, Posession, and all of parts 2 and 3.

Whether or not you agree with her, Dworkin stands in a respectable line of American iconoclasts and troublemakers, essential for a democratic society.

Dworkin writes with intense passion and surgical precision. Both as a work of feminism and literary criticism Intercourse hits hard.

Most of Dworkin's writings are excellent reading, if you don't think about them too much. She's an excellent prose stylist, and you can tell that she always put a lot of thought into her text, which helps make it quite readable, especially when compared to academic feminist writing (or any academic writing, for that matter).

That said, she often jumped from evidence to conclusion without convincing supporting arguments, perhaps especially in this book. It's still incredibly interesting reading, though.