Mercy

by Andrea Dworkin

  can do things to, they have funny humps on their chests, did

  you ever see them swirl, the woman stands there like a dead

  puppet, painted, and the balloon things spin. In m y heart I

  think these awful painted things are women; like I am still in

  m y heart; o f human kind; but the men make them like they’re

  two-legged jackasses, astonishing freaks with iron poles up

  the middle o f them and someone smeared them with paint,

  some psychotic in the loony bin doing art class, and they got

  glass eyes with someone’s fingerprints smeared on them; and

  they’re all swollen up and hurt, as if they been pushed and

  fucked, hit, or stood somewhere in a ring, a circus ring or a

  boxing ring, and men just threw things at them, balls and bats

  and stones, anything hard that would cause pain and leave

  marks, or break bones; they’re swollen up in some places, the

  bellies o f starving children but moved up to the breasts and

  down to the buttocks, all hunger, water, air, distended; and

  then there’s the thin parts, all starved, the bones show, the ribs

  sometimes, iridescent skeletons, or the face is caved in under

  the paint, the skin collapses because there is no food, only pills,

  syringes, Demerol, cocaine, Percodan, heroin, morphine,

  there’s hollow cheeks sunk in hollow faces and the w aist’s

  hollow, shrinking down, tiny bones, chicken bones, dried up

  wish bones; and they’re behind glass, displayed, exhibits,

  sex-w om en you do it to, they’re all twisted and turned,

  deformed, pulled and pushed in all the w rong directions, with

  the front facing the back and the back facing the front so you

  can see all her sex parts at once, her breasts and her ass and her

  vagina, the lips o f her vagina, purple somehow; purple. The

  neck’s elongated so you know they can take it there too.

  T h ey’re like mules; they carry a pile o f men on top o f them.

  T h ey’re like these used-up race horses, you give them lots o f

  shots to make them run and if you look at the hide there’s

  bound to be whip marks. There’s not one human gesture; not

  one. There’s not one woman in the world likes to be hung or

  shit on or have her breasts tied up so the rope cuts in and the

  flesh bulges out, the rope’s tearing into her, it sinks, burning,

  into the fleshy parts, under the rope it’s all cut up and burned

  deep, and the tissue’s dying, being broke apart, thinned out

  and ripped by pressure and pain. If I saw pictures like that o f a

  black man I would cry out for his freedom; I can’t see how it’s

  confusing i f you ain’t K . K . K. in which case it still ain’t

  confusing; I’d know it was a lie on him; I’d stand on that street

  corner forever screaming until m y fucking throat bled to death

  from it; he’s not chattel, nor a slave, nor some crawling thing

  you put under glass, nor subhuman, nor alien; I would spit on

  them that put him there; and them that masturbated to it I

  would pillory with stones until I was dragged away and locked

  up or they was dead. I f they was lynching him I would feel the

  pain; a human; they are destroying someone. And if they put a

  knife in him, which I can see them doing, it ain’t beyond them

  by no means, they w ouldn’t show him coming from it; and if

  they urinated on him he w ouldn’t be smiling. I seen black men

  debased in this city, I seen them covered in blood and filth, in

  urine and shit, and I never saw one say cheese for a camera or

  smiling like it was fun; I didn’t see no one taking sex pictures

  either; I m yself do not go through garbage or live on cement to

  have an orgasm; be your pet; or live on a leash; I ain’t painted

  red or purple; I seen myself; how I was after; on the bed; hurt; I

  seen it in m y brain; and I wasn’t no prize in human rights or no

  exemplar o f human dignity I would say; as much as I tried in

  m y life, I did not succeed. But wasn’t nobody put me under

  glass and polished me all up as if I was a specimen o f some

  fucked thing, some swollen, painted sex mule. This Linda

  girl, with the throat, who tormented her? In the end, it’s

  always simple. I paid the dollars to go; to the film; to see it; if it

  was true; what they did to her throat; I figured the boy who

  did it to me must o f got it from there; because, frankly, I know

  the world A to Z ; and no one banged a w om an’s throat before

  these current dark days. I smelled bad and I was past being a

  whore and they didn’t want me to go in but I had the money

  and I’m hard to move, because I’m more intransigent now; on

  cement; hungry almost all the time; hates men; an old woman

  nearly, hates men; and if you don’t have a soft spot for them,

  you don’t have no soft spot. I wanted to see Linda; if she was a

  creature or a person; I think they are all persons but you can’t

  prove it, it’s a matter o f faith; I have this faith, but there’s no

  proof. In the film she’s this nice girl who can’t have an orgasm

  so they line up hundreds o f men to fuck her, all around the

  block, and they just keep fucking her every which w ay to

  Sunday to try to get her to have one and she’s bored which, on

  the intellectual plane, would be true; but I fucked that many

  men, it’s a w eek’s worth, not one afternoon as they show, and

  no one gets an orgasm from such a line o f slime acting as men,

  because it will tear you and bruise you inside as well as out and

  you will hurt very bad, but she just smiles and acts disappointed; and there’s all this blah blah, talk with a supposed girlfriend, a hard-edged whore, by which I mean she been

  used so much already there’s not too much left o f her and it

  shows, how they’ve drained her away; and they talk about

  how Linda can’t come; and the girlfriend puts a cigarette in her

  own vagina and I wanted to reach into the film and take it out;

  a burning cigarette in her vagina; but it was another joke; it

  was all jokes; the men around the block; the vagina huffing and

  puffing on the cigarette so smoke comes out; and the girl

  Linda’s got big bruises all over her legs, real big bruises, high

  and wide, master bruises, have to be from feet and fists, it ain’t

  in the story, no one hit her in the legs in the story but someone

  sure beat the hell out o f her all over her fucking legs; I see the

  bruises; I feel the pain; I’ve taken such a beating; perhaps,

  Linda, we could be friends, you and me, although I’m

  unsavory now, perhaps you ain’t no creature at all, just a girl,

  another girl, but they caught you and they put you under

  glass, in the zoo, yo u ’re a girl they turned the camera on but

  they had to beat you to pieces to do it; maybe yo u ’re just some

  girl; and then there’s this doctor with a big cock w h o ’s pleased

  with him self generally speaking and he finds out she’s got a

  clitoris in her throat, the big joke, and that’s w hy she can’t

  come from all these other sex acts so he fucks her in the throat

  to cure her, he fucks her hard in the throat but slow so you can

  see it,
the whole distance in and out, the whole big thing, to

  the bottom o f her throat; and she don’t seem ripped apart,

  she’s smiling, she’s happy, shit, she’s conscious, she’s alive;

  think o f it like an iron bar, a place in your throat where there’s

  an iron bar, and if someone goes past it it don’t give, you

  choke, you vom it, you can’t breathe, and if he goes past it with

  a big penis he stretches muscles that can’t be stretched and he

  pushes your throat out to where it can’t be pushed out, as if the

  outsides tore open so there was holes so it could expand so the

  penis could go through, yo u ’d rather have a surgeon drill holes

  in the sides o f your throat than have him push it down, the

  pain will push you down to hell, near death, to coma, to the

  screamless scream, an agony, no voice, a ripped muscle,

  shreds swim m ing in blood in your throat, thin ribbons o f

  muscle soaking up blood. But Linda smiles, and the camera

  doesn’t let up, and the penis is big, it comes out so we can see

  how big it is in case we forgot and it goes down, her throat

  stretches like a snake eating an alligator or some boa constrictor with a small animal in it and the penis pushes hard to the bottom, it’s in her neck by now bumping around her

  shoulders; again and again; and I’m crying m yself near to

  death; the men are rubbing and moaning and ejaculating and

  someone’s offering me money and I’m sitting there crying

  near to death for the girl; because I don’t know where the

  blood is; but I know there’s blood; somewhere Linda’s shed

  blood and there’s pieces o f her floating around in it; Linda.

  They do all the things to her; glass in her vagina; from the

  front; from behind; all the things; and it’s all big jokes and big

  moaning, the phony moans, ooh and aah and more and

  harder, stupid, false moans; and you think these men are crazy

  to think this is a woman moaning in sex; and then there’s this

  guy with the w orld’s biggest penis and he fucks her throat and

  she’s in love with him because he’s got this giant penis so he

  satisfies her, at last, completely, a romance, he fucks her

  throat, he is a cold creep, a sheet o f ice descends over the

  screen, he fucks her throat; he’s evil, even for these men who

  do these things to women in films; who will do anything; to

  anyone; present her to him; put her there; lights, camera,

  action; roll her over; stick it there or there or there; yeah, she’s

  tied up like a trussed pig; he says darling and sticks it in.

  There’s one decision, just one; and I have to make it; are we

  humans or not; the girls under glass and I or not. If we are not

  then there’s these creatures kept properly under glass because

  w ho’d want them loose and the bruises on them or what you

  stick in them doesn’t matter and they smile because they are

  sincere, this under-glass creature smiles when you hurt it, and

  you get to use them; and, logically, you get to use the five

  infants too, w hy not, and this girl from Camden too, w hy not;

  because w e’re apples with maggots too, w hy not. M aybe this

  girl Linda really likes it; except there’s this iron bar in your

  throat and nothing pushes past it without a destruction o f

  some sort, this or that; or w hy don’t they use machine guns or

  trees or they will, they just haven’t yet, h o w ’d they get that

  Linda girl to do it? O r if w e’re humans; if we are; the fire’s got

  m y name on it; at last, m y name’s spelled out in the fire and it is

  beckoning to me; because they are tormenting us, pure and

  simple, these men are tormenting us, they just do it, as if we

  are so much trash for where they want to stick it and it is

  simple in the end and they all get to live no matter what harm

  they do or if we hurt or how much, all these guys live, they do;

  face it; you can take some actual person and mess her body up

  so bad it’s all deformed out o f its real form and you can put

  things up her and in her and you can hurt her, shred her, burn

  her, tortures that are done like roping her breasts, and it’s

  okay, even funny, even if they do it to babies or even if they

  beat you or even i f they put things in you or no matter what

  they do, it’s over and tom orrow comes and they go on and on

  and on and they don’t get stopped, no one stops them; and

  people ju st walk by the girls under glass; or just ignore the

  infants who grow ed up, the suicidal infants who can’t breathe

  but are trying to talk; or the women who got beat; no one

  stops them; it’s true, they don’t get stopped; and it’s true,

  though not recognized, that you do got to stop them, like stop

  the War, or stop slavery; you have to stop them; whatever’s

  necessary; because it’s a crisis because they are tormenting us; I

  gave m y uncle cancer but it’s too late, too slow, and you don’t

  know who they are, the particular ones; and even if there’s

  laws by the time they have hurt you you are too dirty for the

  law; the law needs clean ones but they dirty you up so the law

  w o n ’t take you; there’s no crimes they committed that are

  crimes in the general perception because we don’t count as to

  crimes, as I have discovered time and time again as I try to

  think i f what he did that hurt me so bad was a crime to anyone

  or was anything you could tell someone about so they would

  care; for you; about you; so you was human. But if he did it to

  you, you know him; I know; this Linda knows; the infants

  know; the day comes; we know; each one o f them has one o f

  us who knows; at least one; maybe dozens; but at least one.

  When the Buddhists were burning themselves you couldn’t

  convince anyone anything was wrong in Vietnam; they

  couldn’t see it; they saw the fire; and you couldn’t forget the

  fire; and I’m convinced that the fire made the light to see by; so

  later, we saw. N o w there’s nothing w rong either; nothing

  nobody can see; each day all these thousands o f people, men

  and women, walk past the women under glass, the specimens,

  and they don’t see nothing wrong, they don’t see no human o f

  any sort or that it’s wrong that our kind are under glass,

  painted, bloated cadavers for sex with spread legs, eyes open,

  glassy, staring like the dead; smiling; painted lips; purple;

  lynched or pissed on; or on our knees; I will die to get her o ff

  her knees; sperm covering us like puke; and w e’re embalmed,

  a psychotic’s canvas; eventually fucked, in any orifice; someday they’ll do the sockets o f the eyes. It’s the church to our pain; a religion o f hate with many places to pray; a liturgy o f

  invasion; they worship here, the men, Hot Girls is Michael-

  angelo’s David Lesbian Gang Bang is Tintoretto; it’s Venice

  and Rom e and Jerusalem and Mecca, too; all the art; everything sacred; with pilgrims; the service, how I injured her and

  came; the ancient masses, how I made a perfect penetration;

  the ordinary prayers, I felt her up, I stuck it in, she screamed, I

  ran; this is the church here, they worship here, a secular sadism


  where w e’re made flat and dead and displayed under glass,

  fifty cents a feel for a live one in a real cage, behind the movies

  are the places where they keep the live ones they caught, you

  pay money, you touch it; you pay more money; it touches

  you; you pay more money; you can hurt it bad i f you pay

  enough; you pay money, you can stick it in, you want to cut it

  up, it costs more money; you want it young, you want to stick

  it in, you want to cut it up, it costs more money; but see, m y

  uncle, a true believer, worshipped at home; so you have to

  grasp the true nature o f the system; here is the center; here is

  like the transmission center; here is where they broadcast

  from; here is where they put the waves in the air; here is where

  they make the product, the assembly line with mass

  production techniques and quality control, the big time, and

  they sell it to make it socially true and socially necessary and

  socially real, beyond dispute, it’s for sale, in Amerika, it’s true,

  a practical faith for the working man and the entrepreneur,

  rich man, poor man. It’s the nerve center, the Pentagon, the

  w ar room, where they make the plans; map every move in the

  war; put the infantry here and m ove it here; put the boats here

  and m ove them here; put the bombs here and move them here;

  dildos, whips, knives, chains, punishments, sweat and

  strangulation, evisceration; they teach how to teach the

  soldiers; they teach how to teach the special units; they teach

  how to teach; they develop propaganda and training films,

  patriotic films, here’s the target, take her out. Here’s where

  they make the plans to make the weapons; and here’s where

  they commission the weapons; and here’s where they deploy

  the weapons; it’s the church, holy, and the military, profane,

  backbone and bedrock, there’s dogma and rules, prayers and

  marching chants, sacred rites and bayonets, there’s everything

  you stick up them, from iron crosses to grenades; you pull the

  pin; stay inside them as long as you have the nerve; pull out;

  run; it makes a man out o f a boy. There’s a human being;