Q: It seems strange that anyone so aggressive in her writing
should be so reclusive, so hostile to a public life.
A: I'm shy, that's all. And cold and aloof.
Q: A lot of men in this town think you're a killer.
A: I'm too shy to kill. I think they should be more afraid of
each other, less afraid of me.
Q: Why don't you give interviews?
A: Because they're so false. Someone asks a question—very
posed and formal, or very fumbling and sincere. Then someone
tries to respond in kind. Cult of fame and personality and all
that. It's all wrong.
Q: So why this? Why now?
A: I couldn't sleep. Very edgy. Nervous nightmares about New
York. Going home. Cesspool and paradise. You see, I've lived
many places. I keep leaving them. I keep returning to New York
but I can't stay put. But that's what I want most. To stay
still. So I'm restless and irritated.
Q: People are surprised when they meet you. That you're nice.
A: I think that's strange. Why shouldn't I be nice?
Q: It's not a quality that one associates with radical
feminists.
A: Well, see, right there, that's distortion. Radical
feminists are always nice. Provoked to the point of madness,
but remaining, at heart, nice.
Q: I could name you a lot of feminists who aren't nice. You
yourself have probably had fights with just about everyone I
could name. Isn't this a terrible hypocrisy on your part—and
silly too—to say that radical feminists are nice?
A: At a distance or very close, nice is true. At any midpoint,
it seems false. Also, you see, we love each other. It's a very
impersonal love in many cases. But it is a fierce love. You
have to love women who are brave enough to do things so big in
a world where women are supposed to be so small.
Q: Isn't this just another kind of myth building?
A: No, I think it's a very neutral description. Women who
fight fierce battles, as all radical feminists do, encounter
so much hostility and conflict in the regular transactions of
work and daily life that they become very complex, even if
they started out simple. One must learn to protect oneself.
This means, inevitably, that one exaggerates some parts of
one's personality, some qualities. Or they become exaggerated
in the process of trying to survive and to continue to work.
So when one sees that in another woman, one loves her for
it—even if one does not like the particular defenses she has
worked out for herself. That doesn't mean that one wants to be
intimate with her. Just that one loves her for daring to be so
ambitious. For daring to continue to associate herself with
women as a feminist, no matter what the cost, no matter what
walls she has to build to keep on doing what's important to
her.
Q: What alienates you most from other women?
A: Failures of courage or integrity. Those ever-present human
failures. I'm in the midst of the mess, just like everyone
else. I expect too much from women. I get bitterly
disappointed when women are flawed in stupid ways. As I myself
am. And then I resent women who are bitterly disappointed in
me because I'm flawed. It's the old double standard, newly
cast. I expect nothing from men—or, more accurately, I rarely
expect much—but I expect everything from women I admire. Women
expect everything from me. Then when we find that we are just
ourselves, no matter what our aspirations or accomplishments,
we grieve, we cry, we mourn, we fight, and especially, we
blame, we resent. Our wrong expectations lead to these
difficulties. For me, wrong expectations make me sometimes
alienated, sometimes isolated.
Q: People think you are very hostile to men.
A: I am.
Q: Doesn't that worry you?
A: From what you said, it worries them.
Q: I mean, any Freudian would have a field day with your
work. Penis envy, penis hatred, penis obsession, some might
say.
A: Men are the source of that, in their literature, culture,
behavior. I could never have invented it. Who was more penis
obsessed than Freud? Except maybe Reich. But then, what a
competition that would be. Choose the most penis obsessed man
in history. What is so remarkable is that men in general,
really with so few exceptions, are so penis obsessed. I mean,
if anyone should be sure of self-worth in a penis-oriented
society, it should be the one who has the penis. But one per
individual doesn't seem to be enough. I wonder how many
penises per man would calm them down. Listen, we could start a
whole new surgical field here.
Q: The Women's Movement seems to be more conciliatory towards
men than you are, especially these days. There is a definite
note of reconciliation, or at least not hurling accusations.
What do you think of that?
A: I think that women have to pretend to like men to survive.
Feminists rebelled, and stopped pretending. Now I worry that
feminists are capitulating.
Q: Isn't there something quite pathological in always looking
at sex in male terms? Say you describe male attitudes towards
sex accurately. Don't you accept their terms when you analyze
everything using their terms?
A: Their terms are reality because they control reality. So
what terms should we use to understand reality? All we can do
is face it or try to hide from it.
Q: Are there men you admire?
A: Yes.
Q: Who?
A: I'd rather not say.
Q: There are a lot of rumors about your lesbianism. No one
quite seems to know what you do with whom.
A: Good.
Q: Can you explain why you are so opposed to pornography?
A: I find it strange that it requires an explanation. The men
have made quite an industry of pictures, moving and still,
that depict the torture of women. I am a woman. I don't like
to see the virtual worship of sadism against women because I
am a woman, and it's me. It has happened to me. It's going to
happen to me. I have to fight an industry that encourages men
to act out their aggression on women—their "fantasies," as
those aspirations are so euphemistically named. And I hate it
that everywhere I turn, people seem to accept without question
this false notion of freedom. Freedom to do what to whom?
Freedom to torture me? That's not freedom for me. I hate the
romanticization of brutality towards women wherever I find it,
not just in pornography, but in artsy fartsy movies, in artsy
fartsy books, by sexologists and philosophes. It doesn't
matter where it is. l simply refuse to pretend that it doesn't
have anything to do with me. And that leads to a terrible
recognition: if pornography is part of male freedom, then that
freedom is not reconcilable with my freedom. If his freedom is
to torture, then in those terms my freedom must be to be
tortured. That's insane.
Q: A lot of women say they like it.
A: Women have two choices: lie or die. Feminists are trying to
open the options up a bit.
Q: Can I ask you about your personal life?
A: No.
Q: If the personal is political, as feminists say, why aren't
you more willing to talk about your personal life?
A: Because a personal life can only be had in privacy. Once
strangers intrude into it, it isn't personal anymore. It takes
on the quality of a public drama. People follow it as if they
were watching a play. You are the product, they are the
consumers. Every single friendship and event takes on a
quality of display. You have to think about the consequences
not just of your acts vis-a-vis other individuals but in terms
of media, millions of strange observers. I find it very ugly.
I think that the press far exceeds its authentic right to know
in pursuing the private lives of individuals, especially
people like myself, who are neither public employees nor
performers. And if one has to be always aware of public
consequences of private acts, it's very hard to be either
spontaneous or honest with other people.
Q: If you could sleep with anyone in history, who would it
be?
A: That's easy. George Sand.
Q: She was pretty involved with men.
A: I would have saved her from all that.
Q: Is there any man, I mean, there must be at least one.
A: Well, ok, yes. Ugh. Rimbaud. Disaster. In the old
tradition, Glorious Disaster.
Q: That seems to give some credence to the rumor that you are
particularly involved with gay men.
A: It should give credence to the rumor that I am particularly
involved with dead artists.
Q: Returning to New York, do you have any special hopes or
dreams ?
A: Yeah. I wish that Bella were King.
