it take some positive step in the direction we want to
go: we demand that it incorporate our radical attitudes,
the knowledge that acid and other parts of our lifestyle
have given us. And, most importantly, we refuse to
permit it to reinforce the dual-role sexist patterns and
consciousness of this culture, the very patterns and consciousness which oppress us as women, which enslave us as human beings.
Suck is a typical counter-culture sex paper. Any
analysis of it reveals that the sexism is all-pervasive,
expressed primarily as sadomasochism, absolutely the
same as, and not counter to, the parent cultural values.
Suck claims to be an ally. It is crucial to demonstrate that
it is not.
The first issue of Suck appeared in Amsterdam,
Holland, in 1969. It continues to be printed in Amsterdam because Dutch police do not confiscate pornography or imprison pornographers. It was started by two Amerikan expatriates. Suck is entirely about sex,
that is, its pages contain pornographic fiction, technical
sexual advice (how to suck cock or cunt, for instance),
letters from readers which reveal personal sexual histories (mostly celebrational), and photographs o f cunt, cock, fucking, sucking, and group orgying. The newspaper appears irregularly —when there is enough
Woman as Victim: Suck
79
money and material for publication. Suck is confiscated
in England and France with some vigor.
Suck has made positive contributions. Sucking is
approached in a new way. Sucking cock, sucking cunt,
how to, how good. Sperm tastes good, so does cunt. In
particular, the emphasis on sucking cunt serves to
demystify cunt in a spectacular way —cunt is not dirty,
not terrifying, not smelly and foul; it is a source o f
pleasure, a beautiful part o f female physiology, to be
seen, touched, tasted.
T he taboo against sucking goes very deep. Most of
the actual laws against cocksucking and cuntsucking
relate to prohibitions against any sexual activity that
does not lead to, or is not performed for the purpose
o f effecting, impregnation. Sucking as an act leading
to orgasm places the nature o f sexual contact clearly —
sex is the coming together o f people for pleasure. T he
value is in the coming together. Marriage does not
sanctify that coming together, procreation is not its
goal. Suck treats sucking as an act o f the same magnitude as fucking. That attitude, pictures o f women sucking cock, men sucking cunt, and all the vice versas,
discussions o f the techniques o f sucking, all break down
barriers to the realization o f a full sexuality.
Cunnilingus and fellatio (sucking by any other name
. . . ) are still crimes. The antifellatio laws, in conjunction with sodomy laws, are sometimes used against male homosexuals (lesbians are not taken seriously enough
to be prosecuted). Given the selective enforcement o f
the laws, the shame that attaches to the forbidden acts,
and the fact that acts o f oral lovemaking represented
Woman Hating
in words or in pictures are generally deemed obscene,
sucking must be seen in and of itself as an act of political
significance (which is certainly wonderful news for depressed revolutionaries). In this instance Suck takes a relevant, respectable stand.
(Important digression. As late as October 1961,
Lenny Bruce was arrested because in one o f his routines
he used the verb “to come" and talked about cock-
sucking. He was arrested for the crime of obscenity.
Bruce described the bust:
I was arrested for obscenity in San Francisco for using
a ten letter word which is sort of chic. I’m not going to
repeat the word tonite. It starts with a “c. ” They said
it was vernacular for a favorite homosexual practice —
which is weird, cause I don't relate that word to homosexuals. It relates to any contemporary woman I know or would know or would love or would marry. 1
Bruce was busted in San Francisco (obscenity), Philadelphia (possession), Los Angeles (possession), Hollywood (obscenity), Chicago (obscenity), and not permitted to enter England or Australia. As late as 1964
Bruce was busted for obscenity in New York City, in
1965 he was declared a legally bankrupt pauper, and
on August 3, 1966, he died in Los Angeles. )
Suck also makes a contribution in printing pictures
of cunt, though here the praise must be severely qualified. Photos o f cunt are rare. All the rest we have seen —
siliconed tits, leering smiles, Playboy's version of pubic
hair. But having seen a remarkable movie by Anne
Severson and Shelby Kennedy2 in which a fixed camera
catalogues the cunts of many different women, all ages,
Woman as Victim: Suck
81
races, with all sorts o f sexual experience, one gets a
comprehension o f the superficiality o f the Suck cunt
photos. Imagine a catalogue o f still photos o f people’s
faces —the colors, textures, indentations, the unique
character o f each. It is the same with cunts, and it would
be fine if Suck would show us that. It does not.
Germaine Greer once wrote for Suck — she was an
editor—and her articles, the token women’s articles,
were sometimes strong; her voice was always authentic.
Her attempt was to bring women into closer touch with
unaltered female sexuality and place that sexuality
clearly, unapologetically, within the realm o f humanity:
women, not as objects, but as human beings, truly a
revolutionary concept.
But Greer has another side which allies itself with
the worst o f male chauvinism and it is that side which, I
believe, made her articles acceptable to Suck's editors
and Suck acceptable to her. In an interview in the Am erikan Screw, reprinted in Suck under the tide “Germaine:
‘I am a W hore, ’ ” she stated:
Ideally, you’ve got to the stage where you really could
ball everyone —the fat, the blind, the foolish, the impotent, the dishonest.
We have to rescue people who are already dead.
We have to make love to people who are dead, and
that’s not easy. 3
Here is the ever popular notion that women, extending our role as sex object, can humanize an atrophied world. T he notion is based on a false premise. Just as
the pill was supposed to liberate women by liberating
us sexually, i. e., we could fuck as freely as men, fucking