am talking of the common life which is the
real life and not of the little separate lives
which we live as individuals —and have
five hundred a year each of us and rooms
of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what
we think; if we escape a little from the
common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each
other but in relation to reality. . . if we
face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is
no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and
that our relation is to the world of reality
. . . then the opportunity will come and the
dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister
will put on the body which she has so often
laid down. Drawing her life from the lives
of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she
will be born. As for her coming without
that preparation, without that effort on
our part, without that determination that
when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we
cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come
if we worked for her, and that so to work,
even in poverty and obscurity, is worthwhile.
Virginia Woolf,
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T
Ricki Abrams and I began writing this book together in
Amsterdam, Holland, in December 1971. We worked
long and hard and through a lot o f living and then, for
many reasons, our paths separated. Ricki went to Australia, then to India. I returned to Amerika. So the book, in its early pieces and fragments, became mine as
the responsibility for finishing it became mine. I thank
Ricki here for the work we did together, and the time
we had together, and this book which came from that
time and grew beyond it.
Andrea Dworkin
C O N T E N T S
Introduction
17
Part One: THE FAIRY TALES
29
Chapter 1 Onceuponatime: The Roles
34
Chapter 2 Onceuponatime: The Moral of the
