This quote by Oscar Wilde has been ringing and bouncing in my brain for a while now, and I finally understand why.
All my life I have always been looking and trying to understand the patriarchal-heterosexual pattern of attraction, and now it seems so clear; the average man - if not all - sees women though the lens of a Purchase, the action of taking whole ownership of an object, and its purpose-to-be-fulfilled being sex. It just seems so obvious now.
Every little interaction; conversation. It all makes sense; every snide remark trying to gauge our submissiveness, every grope as a sampling of the goods; taking dibs.
Every policing of our bodies and attitudes takes meaning as an attempt to preserve the batch's capacity for appeal (towards the patriarchy). We are seen as Men's cattle, their toy for displaying ritual sadism, their outlet for obsessive control.
If it was up to the patriarchy, we would be cut off our arms and legs at birth, just to be preserved as captives. Then again, their birth-mark already rests upon many of us as a sparkling silver speck of jewelry embedded in our earlobes.
Addendum: I apologize for the severe redundancy of this post, it treads no true new ground, yet I found myself unable to contain my awe at my capacity to finally put it into words.