GOODBYE TO ALL THIS
(WITH APOLOGIES—ON MANY LEVELS—TO R. MORGAN)
1983

Goodbye, sisters, I’ve had it.

Goodbye, Pat, cow, cunt, silly bitch, whatever obscenity you are organizing for the right to call other woman this week, fare thee well. Enjoy. Keep writing articles for Bob Guiccione on how to tie women up. Bet the money is fun too.

Goodbye, Ellen, baaad baaad Ellen, naughty girl, cheeky thing, sexy little devil. Goodbye to the Contradictions: good girl, bad girl, good Jew, bad Jew—how do you do it? It was all too deep, too radical, too taboo for conventional, conforming, ladylike, virginal me anyway. Have a good time lacerating Freud and Marx and enjoy the fantasy (use the perfume too, go all the way).

Goodbye, Amber, hot stuff, outlaw, Jesse James but oh so femme fatale, daring to be blond, daring to wear make-up (it takes the breath away, Amber, really it does, so Brave), keep fighting for the right to be femme, honey, take it all the way to the Pentagon, bring the military industrial complex to its knees.

Goodbye, Gayle. As you are already on your knees, just keep shuffling along. Reading Foucault really is kinky—chained or not, it brings a whole new dimension to masochism. Bow and scrape except when standing up for your lover’s right to dress like a Nazi and then hang tough, kike. Being a woman and a Jew means double-your-pleasure (chew the gum too, go all the way).

Goodbye all you swastika-wielding dykettes, all you tough dangerous feminist leatherettes, all you sexy, nonmonogamous (it does take the breath away), pierced, whipped, bitten, fist-fucked and fist-fucking, wild wonderful heretofore unimaginable feminist Girls. Keep the Jews in line and the cows dying. (Oh for the good old days of Lesbian-Feminist-Vegetarians for Jesus.)

Goodbye all you proud, pro-sex, liberated Cosmo intellectuals (Village Voice girls? Mother Jones eroticists?), fighting those oh so repressed (in fact dead) Victorians for the right to get laid, braving the scorn and censure of the nineteenth century, being nearly delinquent, letting boys do more than feel you up (is it true? do you really?). Keep organizing against repression—keep those men pumping away for freedom now (how many fucks does it take to screw in a lightbulb?). And not being married. Gosh.

Goodbye to all you cunts, my sisters, fighting for the right to be humiliated, for the right to walk the streets, for the right to be tied up and proud, for the right to be hurt, for the right to masturbate with rubber duckies, for the right to kiss ass, for the right to call blacks “niggers” and Jews “kikes,” for the right to use the swastika as a sex toy and the plantation as a game, for the right to be called “nigger” and “kike,” for the right to be what this society already says women, Jews, and blacks are. Brave. Smart. Radical. Goodbye to all this. Stay militant. Tie those knots tight. Watch the patriarchy crumble when confronted with your demands. That’s it! You want it to collapse laughing! Goodbye, winners, enjoy the victory. It’s nice to see girls get what they want. It’s astonishing to see girls want what they get. Goodbye comedians. Give the rapists, pornographers, and pimps a good laugh. An army of baaad girls cannot fail.

Goodbye to stupid feminist academics who romanticize prostitution and to stupid feminist magazine editors who romanticize pornography and fetishism and sadomasochism. And especially goodbye to stupid feminist writers who romanticize rituals of degradation and symbols of inferiority. Oh, and incidentally, goodbye to all you feminists who go to bars and concerts but won’t buy books. Goodbye to all this, all them, all you.

Goodbye Women’s movement, hello girls. Goodbye to the great women who have done really brave things but are quiet now. Goodbye to the great women who are not quiet now. Goodbye to the organizers—blessed be. Goodbye to poor Women Against Pornography, which committed the crime of trying to fight the pornography industry, misogyny, the buying and selling of women, the use of women as objects—tried to stop all those good things—I mean all those baaad things—I mean all those erotic things. Goodbye Dorchen—you really are the worst: skinny, pretty, smart, employed, well-dressed, and still wanting what?—freedom? justice? equality? Still identifying with whom? Women? Still what? A feminist? Sister, it’s a girls’ movement now. Goodbye, Kathy the Incorrigible—come on, why shouldn’t women be locked up in brothels and fucked and beaten until they die? Moralist. Goodbye, Robin. You had a dream. Dummy. You were supposed to have a fantasy. Goodbye Adrienne. The poems were supposed to be baaad, not good. Bye bye, Florence. Don’t you know by now that children eat candy so as to be fucked by grown men? Goodbye all you born-again virgins, all you timid fragile creatures, all you conforming, ladylike Victorians with your puritanical aversions to suffering. Goodbye women. Goodbye to all this.

Goodbye to the silly women who went to jail fighting Snuff and goodbye to the fools who fought Playboy and Hustler and all the rest of it. Goodbye to all you Gidget-types breaking laws, risking beatings, organizing against criminal misogynists, picketing, demonstrating, marching, so you can stay chaste for and faithful to the beach-bum-who-is-really-going-to-be-a-doctor of your choice. There are easier ways, but goodbye to you naive rightwing humorless fanatics who won’t use them. Goodbye, Linda, held captive, repeatedly beaten and raped, forced to make Deep Throat, forced to be fucked by a dog. The girls say it’s just fantasy not violence. Goodbye to all them.

Goodbye to the dummies who thought sex could express reciprocity and equality and still be sexy. Goodbye to the dummies who thought this movement could change the world. Goodbye to those precious Madonna-types who shouted “Free Our Sisters Free Ourselves” in the streets and at rallies, at pimps and at police. Free Pat Free Ellen Free Gayle Free Amber Free Me. Goodbye to all this. Free the women. Give the girls what they want.