The Red Word

by Sarah Henstra

‘It’s like Sylvia says. Our first mistake, as women, is to ask for a fiction and then to accept it as a truth.’

Dyann gave a theatrical shudder. ‘It’s like a horror movie. Something foreign takes over your body, dictates how you feel every second. Totally dominates you through your hormones. It even tells you what to eat.’

Pleasure is political, Karen. Enjoying something is a political act.

‘Rape’ was a red word, a ravenous word. It was double-edged, the word ‘rape’.

‘Women’s bodies are believed to be less boundaried, less circumscribed within an autonomous and coherent selfhood, than men’s bodies. If you’re governed by a liquid element, then your body is necessarily porous and mutable. It flows from one form to another without resistance. And conversely, women in these stories become agents of boundary violation. They adapt to the boundaries of others and adopt their forms.’

plot resolution is sharply gendered. For the male heroes: kleos aphthiton, imperishable glory via death on the battlefield. For the women, who are apportioned out to the victors: sexual slavery.’