SOURCE: A review of Intercourse, in Ethics, Vol. 99, No. 3, April, 1989, pp. 670-1.

In the following review, Harrold summarizes Dworkin's view of sexual inequality in Intercourse.

All right, strap on those crampons, and into the Abyss! How does intercourse relate to the status of women?

Intercourse is examined through a series of concepts—repulsion, skinlessness, stigma, communion and possession, and the opposing/complementary roles of virginity and occupation/collaboration. Dworkin uses a multiple approach to her subject and her subjection. She analyzes social practice and individual lives, and the use of language; she employs psychoanalytical concepts, legal interpretation, and literary criticism. The interpretation of literary texts is excellent—marked by generosity and effective, never strained, exegesis. The examination of legal definition and construction of gender and sexual practices (both legal and illegal) is especially fine.

Dworkin notes the constant challenge to the liberal notion of the individual that women...