Two of my favorite authors are Haruki Murakami and Salman Rushdie- and I am certain they hate women. Actually, it seems to me that most male writers hate women. Let me be more nuanced, they love what women do and represent. They love making women metaphors and mysteries to solve. But, goddamn they hate us after that.
Recently, I have been reading a book called The Sluts by Dennis Cooper. It is a modern epistolary novel in the form of blog posts reviewing a male sex worker. It is violent, vile, and degrading, but it is self-aware. The book makes you hate the violence and sadness. It reminds you that it exists. It says sex is tender and murderous (really.. in this book it is).
Then I think of women in books that are not about violence and sex. I think of women in books about the male journey, about the passing of time and memory, and books about love. And I see it crystal clear…the only options for them are being infantilized or being crushed under the journeys of those they surround.
Desdemona in Othello dies as Othello learns about envy, Juliet dies as Romeo learns of patience, Ophelia dies as Hamlet learns of hubris, and Portia dies as Brutus learns of guilt. And I fucking love Shakespeare but dude sure loved killing the girls.
But now to what I write about, and what I study, and basically what I at this point have an academic pass on- sex. Brutalism and physical intimacy are deeply interlinked in what I read and what I see, and in its core there is nothing wrong with that. Where the problem lies is that my women in literature and media have nothing to do with the decision of brutalism. As May Kashara is sexualized in my literal favorite novel A Windup bird chronicle, I wonder why this 16-year-old is destroyed in the wake of the lost man. As Veronica is cast aside as a man understands the blurring of memories in The Sense of an Ending- you think of her as a pen on a stand that will be thrown away soon enough- present only for a sexual encounter that begins a journey. Do not even get me started on film- the mecca of brutality.
Physical intimacy and sex in media is a triumph for the straight male but the usually an awful experience for women. Think of every film you’ve seen or book you have read- how many of those involve a woman’s sexual degradation as a device for either her salvation or that of the world around her. Now think of the men- celebrated for achieving the goal or in some way, learning from a vacant space in the shape of a woman. And how many times is it explicit that there is this power difference, or how many times is it even implicit?
So dear male writers, if you cannot give a woman a positive sexual experience in your book… just address it? I’d like to read without spending each minute going… do you fucking hate women?
postcolonialmigrant 