In
Intercourse, Dworkin extended her earlier analysis of
pornography to a discussion of heterosexual intercourse itself. In works such as
Woman Hating (1974) and
Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981), Dworkin had argued that pornography (this includes
erotic literature) in
patriarchal societies consistently
eroticized women's sexual subordination to men, and often overt acts of exploitation or violence. In
Intercourse, she went on to argue that that sort of sexual subordination was central to men and women's experiences of sexual intercourse in a male supremacist society, and reinforced throughout mainstream culture, including not only pornography but also in classic works of male-centric literature.
Extensively discussing works such as
The Kreutzer Sonata (1889),
Madame Bovary (1856), and
Dracula (1897), and citing from religious texts, legal commentary, and pornography, Dworkin argued that the depictions of intercourse in mainstream art and culture consistently emphasized heterosexual intercourse as the only or the most genuine form of "real" sex; that they portrayed intercourse in violent or invasive terms; that they portrayed the violence or invasiveness as central to its eroticism; and that they often united it with male contempt for, revulsion towards, or even murder of the "carnal" woman. She argued that this kind of depiction enforced a
male-centric and coercive view of sexuality, and that, when the cultural attitudes combine with the material conditions of women's lives in a sexist society, the experience of heterosexual intercourse itself becomes a central part of men's subordination of women, experienced as a form of "occupation"
[2] that is nevertheless expected to be pleasurable for women and to define their very status as women.: 122–124
In the 1998 book,
Without Apology: Andrea Dworkin's Art and Politics, in chapter 6, titled "Intercourse: An Institution of Male Power", author Cindy Jenefsky states, "As in her analysis of pornography's sexual subordination, the key to understanding Dworkin's analysis of sexual intercourse rests on recognizing how she integrates the individual act of sexual intercourse within its larger social context. She produces a
materialist analysis that examines sexual intercourse as an
institutionalized practice."
[3]
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