Mercy

to the experiences o f women, with a special emphasis on rape

and prostitution. I have no plans to write about the Holocaust

soon, although, I admit, I am increasingly irritated by the

simple-minded formulations o f Elie Wiesel and his ilk. Kvetch,

kvetch. After I get tenure, I will perhaps write an article on the

refusal o f Holocaust survivors to affirm the value o f the

Holocaust itself in their own creative lives. Currently I want

those who are dogmatic about rape and other bad things to keep

their moralisms posing as politics o ff my back and out o f my

bed. I don’t want them in my environment, my little pond. I

w on’t have m y students reading them, respectfully no less, or

m y colleagues inviting them here to speak, to read, to reproduce

simplicities, though not many want to. I like tying up my lover

and she likes it too. I will not be made to feel guilty as if I am

doing something violative. I was that good girl, that obedient

child. Feminism said let go. Y ou can do what a man does. I like

tying her wrists to the bed, I like gagging her, I like dripping hot

w ax on her breasts. It is not the same as when a man does it. She

and I are equals, the same. There is no moral atrocity or political

big deal. I like fantasizing. I like being a top and I like bringing

her to orgasm although I rarely have one myself. I like the sex

magazines, the very ones, o f course, that the Jacobins want to

censor, except for the fact that these magazines keep printing

pictures o f the Jacobins as if they are, in fact, Hieronymous

Bosch pin-ups. One does get angrier with them. One does want

to hurt them , if only to obliterate them from consciousness,

submerge them finally in the deeper recesses o f a more muted

discourse in which they are neither subjects nor objects. One

would exile them to the margins, beyond seeing or sound, but

strangely they are sexualized in the common culture as if they are

the potent women. Everyone pays attention to them and I and

others like me are ignored, except o f course when the publishers

o f the sex magazines ask one or the other o f us to write essays

denouncing them. But then, o f course, one must think about

them. When I’m having sex I find that more and more I have one

o f them under me in my fantasy, I hear her voice, accusing, I

muffle the sound o f her voice with my fist, I push it into my

lover’s mouth, slowly, purposefully, easy now. M y lover thinks

m y intensity is for her. I can’t stand the voice saying I’m wrong. I

really would wipe it out if I could. It makes for angry, passionate

sex, a kind o f playful fury. The Jacobin despises me. I have more

in common with the so-called rapist, the man who makes love

by orchestrating pain, the subtle so-called rapist, the knowing

so-called rapist, the educated so-called rapist, the one who

seduces, at least a little, and uses force because it’s sexy; it is sexy;

I like doing it and the men I know know I like doing it, to a

woman; they are pro-gay. I’m an ally and I will get tenure. I’m