Stag Magazine, April, 1971
The 1972 essay "Man -- and Woman" by "Bernard" Sanders has been getting a lot of attention because the media has labelled it a "rape fantasy." Now, a rape fantasy is something that you would, of course, expect from GOP candidates -- with their obsession over "legitimate" rapes and abortions -- but not the septuagenerian populist from Vermont. People are reprinting only the first three paragraphs, which are indeed shocking, and not the rest of the article, which put the first three paragraphs into context.
A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.
A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.
The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church, or maybe to their "revolutionary" political meeting.
The key context comes in the fourth paragraph, which asks, "Have you ever looked at the Stag, Man, Hero, Tough magazines on the shelf of your local bookstore?"
People today are not likely to know of these "men's adventure" magazines, the heirs to the old-time pulps of the '30s and '40s. "Men's adventure" magazines finally died out in the '70s and '80s, and it's doubtful many people today remember them, or even knew they ever existed. These were the epitome of trash in their day, selling the most lurid and sensational articles they could dream up. "I Was Tortured by Nazi She-Wolves" would be a typical article in these magazines, and by the time Bernie Sanders was in college, they had gotten more sexually explicit.
Sanders' article is asking why men's adventure magazines, with their lurid, sexually-explicit headlines and articles, are so appealing to people. What subconscious nerves are they hitting? Why does anyone buy Stag magazine at all?
It is not Sanders' "rape fantasy" being examined in the article. It is society's rape and sexual fantasies -- sublimated through magazines like Stag -- which is the catalyst for the piece.
He should have made that point more forcefully and clearly in the article, but students go to journalism school to learn things like, "how to write a controversial article and yet not be misunderstood." Sanders had not yet learned that in 1972.
Stag Magazine (May, 1971)
Here is the entire piece:
Man -- and Woman by Bernard Sanders (Vermont Freeman, mid-February 1972)
A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.
A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.
The man and woman get dressed up on Sunday — and go to Church, or maybe to their "revolutionary" political meeting.
Have you ever looked at the Stag, Man, Hero, Tough magazines on the shelf of your local bookstore? Do you know why the newspaper with the articles like "Girl 12 raped by 14 men" sell so well? To what in us are they appealing?
Women, for their own preservation, are trying to pull themselves together. And it's necessary for all of humanity that they do so. Slavishness on one hand breeds pigness on the other hand. Pigness on one hand breeds slavishness on the other. Men and women — both are losers. Women adapt themselves to fill the needs of men, and men adapt themselves to fill the needs of women. In the beginning there were strong men who killed the animals and brought home the food — and the dependent women who cooked it. No More! Only the roles remain — waiting to be shaken off. There are no "human" oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity. On one hand "slavishness," on the other hand "pigness." Six of one, half dozen of the other. Who wins?
Many women seem to be walking a tightrope now. Their qualities of love, openness, and gentleness were too deeply enmeshed with qualities of dependency, subservience, and masochism. How do you love — without being dependent? How do you be gentle — without being subservient? How do you maintain a relationship without giving up your identity and without getting strung out? How do you reach out and give your heart to your lover, but maintain the soul which is you?
And Men. Men are in pain too. They are thinking, wondering. What is it they want from a woman? Are they at fault? Are they perpetrating this man-woman situation? Are they oppressors?
The man is bitter.
"You lied to me," he said. (She did).
"You said that you loved me, that you wanted me, that you needed me. Those are your words." (They are).
"But in reality," he said, "If you ever loved me, or wanted me, or needed me (all of which I'm not certain was ever true), you also hated me. You hated me — just as you have hated every man in your entire life, but you didn't have the guts to tell me that. You hated me before you ever saw me, even though I was not your father, or your teacher, or your sex friend when you were 13 years old, or your husband. You hated me not because of who I am, or what I was to you, but because I am a man. You did not deal with me as a person — as me. You lived a lie with me, used me and played games with me — and that's a piggy thing to do."
And she said, "You wanted me not as a woman, or a lover, or a friend, but as a submissive woman, or submissive friend, or submissive lover; and right now where my head is I balk at even the slightest suspicion of that kind of demand."
And he said, "You're full of ___."
And they never again made love together (which they had each liked to do more than anything) or never ever saw each other one more time.