SOURCE: A review of Intercourse, in Sex Roles, Vol. 19, Nos. 3-4, 1988, pp. 255-8.

In the following review, Tiefer offers qualified endorsement of Intercourse. "Dworkin's book," Tiefer concludes, "deserves appreciation and study for its challenging depiction of various aspects of heterosexual relations despite her overstatement of their importance."

As feminist historians are beginning to show, theories about sexual acts and values have played a central role in every feminist movement. Feminist sex reformers in the 19th and early 20th century argued intensely over women's and men's sexual "natures," and how best to construct sex to further women's interests. The recent wave of feminism beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s found radical feminists such as Dana Densmore and Ann Koedt writing essays on sexual acts and attitudes that blew people's minds! Lacking awareness of earlier feminist positions, we naive readers excitedly read their claims, including that sexual intercourse...