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From: jha@lfcs.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Andrea Dworkin's new book?
Message-ID: <615.9010181859@subnode.lfcs.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 18 Oct 90 18:59:57 GMT
References: <9010110554.AA11679@hudson.cs.columbia.edu>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Edinburgh University Computer Science
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Approved: ambar@ora.com
In-Reply-To: <1357@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>

Since I started this, I guess I'd better clear it up.
The book is _Mercy_, published within the last few weeks, and
the review I read of it was by a Janet Barron, in the British
magazine _New Statesman/Society_.  A friend here in Edinburgh
responded to my original soc.feminism message; I sent her
quotes from the review which stated that Dworkin had done an
about-face and was supporting prostitution, pornography, and
S/M sex.  My friend's response was:

>Oh, love it! The reviewer has got mixed up about which bits
>are sarcastic and which bits are meant to be taken straight!
>"Mercy" includes an intro and an epilogue which are supposedly
>written by "not Andrea". They are a very unfair (and quite funny)
>satire of women who disagree with Andrea Dworkin's views,
>supposedly written by just such a woman. The bits the reviewer
>quotes come from these, not from the body of the book.

>Guess who didn't bother to read the whole book, and will soon
>be feeling very, very embarrassed?

     So it looks like a reviewer's mistake that I inadvertently
inflicted on the net.  Sorry.  This does strike me as a typical
Andrea Dworkin thing to do.

     Incidentally, I don't particularly agree with everything
Dworkin says about these topics, but I think she's definitely an
important thinker.

--Jamie.
  jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk
"Where in New York shall I bury my twenties?"