Quotes from Virginie Despentes

Trink löslichen Kaffee. Wehr Dich.

Se mira en un espejo, se encuentra hermosa. Es la primera vez que lo piensa al verse. Ahora es cierto, porque no hay nadie más que ella para juzgarlo. Ya no tiene que preguntarse qué pensará de ella el vecino de enfrente. Ha borrado del mapa a todos los vecinos de enfrente.

Le plus difficile à admettre, c'est la certitude qu'on oubliera.

Il ne dit rien de ce qu'il pense. Il pense que personne n'est solide. Aucun groupe. Que c'est le plus difficile à apprendre. Qu'on est les locataires des situations, jamais les propriétaires.

You still often hear people say, "Prostitutes reduce the number of rapes," as if males couldn't control themselves, as if they had to unload themselves somewhere. They would have us believe this is a natural -- instinctual -- fact and not the created political belief it is.

No habla con nadie. Solo se arrastra bajo los golpes que le propina su novio, por la noche y a escondidas. Para todos los demás, es majestuosa.

Qué se imaginarán los tíos que esconden las chicas para querer siempre verlas por todas partes?

Doing what we should never be done: asking for money for what must remain free. The decision does not belong to each adult woman, but is imposed by collective laws. Prostitutes are the only workers whose alienation moves the upper class -- to the extent that women who have never lacked for anything are absolutely, smugly convinced that prostitution should not be legalized.

Because if the prostitution contract became part of everyday life, the marriage contract would be shown up more clearly for what it is: a market in which for a bargain price the woman agrees to carry out a certain number of chores -- notably sexual -- to ensure a man's comfort.

Gail Pheterson writes in the Prostitution Prism that, "Significantly, those who explicitly provide sex are defined by their activity as 'prostitutes', a stigmatized and/or criminalized status, while those who buy sex are neither defined or branded by engagement in the same activity.

The worry isn't that the women won't survive; quite the contrary. The worry is that they might come and say that [prostitution] isn't such a dreadful job after all. And not only because all work is degrading, difficult, and demanding, but because plenty of men are never as affectionate as when they are with a whore.

What women do with their bodies as long as they're around men with power and money actually seems to me very near to prostitution. I still don't catch the subtle difference between the sort of femininity sold in magazines and that of the whore.

The important thing is to put across the idea that no woman may profit from her sexual services outside marriage. In no case is she adult enough to make a business out of her charms. She necessarily prefers an honest profession. Which is judged honest by the moral authorities. And not degrading. Because for women, sex without love is always degrading.

La peur est là, on ne la voit pas, on ne la sent pas, on peut la sentir sur les routes la nuit. C'est la dame blanche.

The political strategy of victimizing prostitutes also serves this purpose of branding male desire and confining it in its own squalor. He can pay to come if he wants, but he'll have to rub shoulders with filth, shame, and poverty. The prostitution transaction -- "I pay you, you satisfy me" -- is the basis of the heterosexual contract. It is hypocritical to pretend, as we do, that this transaction is foreign to our culture.

Quoi qu'elles entreprennent, on doit pouvoir démontrer qu'elles s'y sont mal prises. Il n'y a pas d'attitude correcte, on a forcément commis une erreur dans nos choix, on est tenues pour responsables d'une faillite qui est en réalité collective, et mixte. Les armes contre notre genre sont spécifiques, mais la méthode s'applique aux hommes. Un bon consommateur est un consommateur insécure.

Ça m'a toujours tapée comme c'était beau, et ce jour particulièrement. Le viol ne trouble aucune tranquillité, c'est déjà contenu dans la ville.

Il y a une forme de force, qui n'est ni masculine, ni féminine, qui impressionne, affole, rassure. Une faculté de dire non, d'imposer ses vues, de ne pas se dérober.

Whatever arouses us, or fails to, comes from dark, uncontrollable places in ourselves, and rarely fits who we would conscious like to be.

Porn is somehow supposed to be real--something we never expect of film, by its very nature a technique of illusion. We expect porn to show us exactly what we dread about it: the truth of our desire.

Who is in fact the victim [of porn]? The actresses, who surrender their dignity the moment we see them giving a blow job? Or the male viewers, weak and unable to overcome their wish to watch sex, or to understand that what they are watching is merely a performance?

Pornography, often denounced as making people uneasy about sex, is in fact a tranquilizer. Which explains why it is attacked with such ferocity. It's crucial that sexuality should frighten people. In pron films you know that characters will "do it," you don't have to worry about the outcome, as you do in real life.

Men] have to be the ones to make the woman come. Female masturbation continues to be contemptible and secondary. The orgasm we are supposed to reach is the one given by the man.

Dizem com frequência que a pornografia aumenta o número de estupros. Hipócrita e absurdo. Como se a agressão sexual fosse uma invenção recente, e como se tivesse sido introduzida em nossos espíritos através dos filmes.