Andrea Dworkin's Heartbreak was moving, inspiring, shocking, and honest. Since the entire book cannot be outlined in a blog post, several more passages will be posted at a later time.
[From the chapter Anita.*]
"She and Abbie had not been together for a while . It was clear that she was poor. She said that she didn't know what to do, that a friend of Abbie's had offered her work as a prostitute ("escort," high end of the line) and was putting a lot of pressure on her. Abbie's latest caper had left her destitute. This guy was a friend of Abbie's, so he had to be okay, right? She had thought of doing organizing -- poor, single mothers like herself had no political power in the system; but really, what was wrong with prostituting? She could earn a lot of money and she was lonely. Honey, I thought, you don't begin to know what lonely is.
I told her about my own experiences in the trade, especially about the disassociation that was essential to doing the deed. You had to separate your mind from your body. Your consciousness had to be hovering somewhere near the ceiling behind you or on the far side of the room watching your body. No one got through it without having that happen. I also told her that she'd begin to hate men; at first manipulating them would seem like power, but eventually and inevitably the day would come when one perceived them as coarse and brutal, smelly, dirty bullies. She had said that she liked sex and that she had had sex with the guy who was now trying to pimp her. I told her that sex with Abbie's friend was a set up to make her more pliant and that in prostituting one lost the ability to feel, so if one liked sex it was the last thing, not the first thing, that one should do." 1
*Anita Hoffman, married to activist Abbie Hoffman
1. p. 162 in Heartbreak by Andrea Dworkin, Published by Perseus Books Group
Copywrite 2002 Andrea Dworkin
So sad. So important. Thank you for sharing.
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