Michael Moorcock and Andrea Dworkin

I ran across this article in which Moorcock interviews Dworkin, and Dworkin clarifies (and partially disavows) the 'intercourse equals rape' assertion that's been tied to her:

Michael Moorcock: After "Right-Wing Women" and "Ice and Fire" you wrote "Intercourse". Another book which helped me clarify confusions about my own sexual relationships. You argue that attitudes to conventional sexual intercourse enshrine and perpetuate sexual inequality. Several reviewers accused you of saying that all intercourse was rape. I haven't found a hint of that anywhere in the book. Is that what you are saying?

Andrea Dworkin: No, I wasn't saying that and I didn't say that, then or ever. There is a long section in Right-Wing Women on intercourse in marriage. My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a reading of our laws, that marriage mandated intercourse--it was compulsory, part of the marriage contract. Under the circumstances, I said, it was impossible to view sexual intercourse in marriage as the free act of a free woman. I said that when we look at sexual liberation and the law, we need to look not only at which sexual acts are forbidden, but which are compelled.

The whole issue of intercourse as this culture's penultimate expression of male dominance became more and more interesting to me. In Intercourse I decided to approach the subject as a social practice, material reality. This may be my history, but I think the social explanation of the "all sex is rape" slander is different and probably simple. Most men and a good number of women experience sexual pleasure in inequality. Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I don't think they need it. I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.

It's important to say, too, that the pornographers, especially Playboy, have published the "all sex is rape" slander repeatedly over the years, and it's been taken up by others like Time who, when challenged, cannot cite a source in my work.

While I'm still on the Playboy and pro-porn side of this fence, this puts a different spin on what I'd been led to believe.

This interview happened in 1995. At the very least, Andrea needs a new publicist. As long as 'intercourse equals rape' is associated with her, her credibility among otherwise like minded pro-feminists is completely undermined.

I Love the Internet: Pirates of Silicon Valley; Michael Moorcock; Stumble

Last week I found The Pirates of Silicon Valley on Youtube. It's there in 10 minute chunks, so you can watch as you want.

If this is new to you, Pirates is a made for cable (TNT, I think) biography telling the origin of Bill Gates/Microsoft and Steve Jobs/Apple. There is surely dramatic license taken, and both Bill and Steve are portrayed as broken people, I found it both informative and entertaining. Apparently Xerox is responsible for the modern look of computing. Their corporate office didn't know the power of what their west coast team had developed, and allowed Apple to steal it away. Then Gates and his crew snuck in and stole it from Apple. That's how MacIntosh and Windows were born.

Just today I found two articles by Michael Moorcock which describe his opinions on Tolkien, Heinlein and many other science fiction writers of his day.

The first is "Starship Troopers," the second I've lost in the Ether of the internet, but it has something to do with Tolkien and Winnie the Pooh. Michael Moorcock is something of an anarchist, so he takes issue with the authoritarian themes in these popular writers; he also takes issue with the quality of the actual writing. While I haven't been persuaded to toss out my Tolkien, he makes some valid points worth considering.

I've also been using the Stumble add-on to my Firefox browser entirely too much. The damned thing is as addictive as hell. It turns out you can set your profile to 'adult' if you want to see the naughty stuff....