Andrea Dworkin Critical Essay | Critical Review by Maureen Mullarkey

SOURCE: "Hard Cop, Soft Cop," in The Nation, May 30, 1987, pp. 720, 722-4, 726.

In the following excerpt, Mullarkey offers unfavorable assessment of Intercourse, which she describes as "a hate-mongering tantrum."

Is pornography a sex aid, like a dildo, hence undeserving of protection as speech? Is it a potent political message that should be denied protection before it leads to a Haymarket riot of rapists and pedophiles? By what criteria is an image determined "degrading"? Is the pet of the month a nastier purveyor of "bad attitudes" than Calvin Klein advertisements, rock videos, Harlequin romances or the New York Post? Is Screw an unusually dangerous product, like gunpowder, which places special liabilities on its maker? What effect will more laws have on the reasons isolated men masturbate in stalls at Mr. Peepers? Will they try it with chickens after they see Leda and the Swan? If Nazis can speak...
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