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[12 Nov 2006|09:50pm] |
Two things happened on Friday. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dis_senter and I were walking down the street when some guy stepped in front of us and said, “show us your cunts,” beneath his breath. Not an altogether unusual occurrence. We kept walking. Along the way there was this poster. I had seen this poster before and it had shocked me. But the difference then was that it had only been in one shop window. This time it was plastered up and down Enmore Road, the road where our organic fruit and vege co-op shop is on.
The poster is of a naked girl, on her knees. Her hands are tied in front of her. She is wearing only fish net stockings and a gag. Her bottom is the main feature of the picture, she is twisted, turning back to look at the camera. She looks terrified. Her mouth is stretched around the gag, a huge red ball with black fastenings which are tied around her head. It looks painful.
And all I can think of when I look at that picture is: that is me. That woman with the gag and her terrified expression represent me. That is why men can come up to me and say, show me your cunt. Because everything in this world tells him that I am that woman in the picture, the millions of pictures of women, of me, as a thing, just a thing to be used. A cunt.
And Dworkin is right. I really, really don’t want to believe that men think this of women. But they do. All men. Gay men, straight men, men on the left and men on the right. What worries me even more is the fact that women must think this of themselves. As not one of the posters had been torn from the walls.
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