Authors: Linda Lovelace
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Linda Lovelace, #Retail, #Nonfiction
Out of Bondage (15 page)
twenty-three
Before the tour, the world knew nothing about the book. The first public mention of it was a standard description in Lyle Stuart’s catalogue. The first media mention came in the New York
Post
: “Linda (
Deep Throat
) Lovelace, perhaps the most famous (and uniquely talented) porn star ever, clearly reveled in the glory of it all when her first film came out in the early ’70s. Now she has emerged from recent obscurity to tell a different story. Not totally emerged, of course; actually, she says she has gone into hiding to escape years of unspeakable sexual tortures—and the celebrities who made her undergo them. Naturally, said celebs will be named in the little book titled
Ordeal
Ms. Lovelace happens to be putting on paper with the help of a writer.”
Post
: “Linda (
Deep Throat
) Lovelace, perhaps the most famous (and uniquely talented) porn star ever, clearly reveled in the glory of it all when her first film came out in the early ’70s. Now she has emerged from recent obscurity to tell a different story. Not totally emerged, of course; actually, she says she has gone into hiding to escape years of unspeakable sexual tortures—and the celebrities who made her undergo them. Naturally, said celebs will be named in the little book titled
Ordeal
Ms. Lovelace happens to be putting on paper with the help of a writer.”
“Most uniquely talented
.” What does that tell us about the mindset of the man—for man it had to be—who wrote that? I soon learned there are many ways of calling a person a liar without ever actually using the word “liar.”
.” What does that tell us about the mindset of the man—for man it had to be—who wrote that? I soon learned there are many ways of calling a person a liar without ever actually using the word “liar.”
The first mentions of the book were all loaded with innuendo, with sarcasm, with the same attitudes that confronted the old Linda Lovelace. There were times when you didn’t exactly have to be an expert at reading between the lines. The London
Daily Mail
asked, “But why has Ms. Lovelace waited so long to unburden her soul? Why is she now talking with such remarkable earnestness? The answer is simple: Ms. Lovelace has a book to sell.”
Daily Mail
asked, “But why has Ms. Lovelace waited so long to unburden her soul? Why is she now talking with such remarkable earnestness? The answer is simple: Ms. Lovelace has a book to sell.”
As these first reactions arrived, I became increasingly depressed. One day I called my co-author: “I
knew
it wouldn’t work! It was stupid to think we could change the mind of the world! The whole book is a waste of time!”
knew
it wouldn’t work! It was stupid to think we could change the mind of the world! The whole book is a waste of time!”
“It’s too early to tell,” he said. “Those people making the comments haven’t had a chance to read the book yet. All they’re doing is shooting from the hip.”
“Yeah, but why do I always have to be the target?”
“Patience,” he said. “It’s going to take time but it’s going to happen.”
Larry had a different attitude: “They’ll never believe it,” he said. “It’s hopeless to try and convince them.”
Things didn’t get much better when the magazines came out.
Playboy
, ran an old picture of me (naked, naturally) with the words, “And Linda Lovelace hops onto the bandwagon with
Ordeal
, in which she claims she was forced into
Deep Throat.
”
Playboy
, ran an old picture of me (naked, naturally) with the words, “And Linda Lovelace hops onto the bandwagon with
Ordeal
, in which she claims she was forced into
Deep Throat.
”
Al Goldstein also ran an announcement, complete with nude photos, in
Screw
, his publication for perverts. Goldstein, too, had been an active participant in my most degraded moments. Those
Screw
subscribers able to read would have seen this story:
Screw
, his publication for perverts. Goldstein, too, had been an active participant in my most degraded moments. Those
Screw
subscribers able to read would have seen this story:
“It sounds to us like nothing more than another cheap attempt to cash in on the thriving memoir market. As we remember it, Linda didn’t look one bit dissatisfied in that loop she did with a dog . . . We don’t doubt Linda got fucked over. She was part of an era in which most X-rated performers were routinely exploited. But what a shoddy way to attempt a comeback!”
I was surprised to find that one nugget of truth (“ . . . X-rated performers were routinely exploited”) gleaming through the muck. This is what I’ve been saying all along, of course, and generally to angry denials by those who have done—and continue to do—most of the exploiting. I’m pleased to note that this most authoritative of pornographic sources agrees with me.
I was terribly depressed. It took weeks for me to rationalize it. What did I want, praise from
Screw
? However, all these early reactions showed me what we were up against. And I’ll admit to real doubt, to wondering whether anyone would ever believe me.
Screw
? However, all these early reactions showed me what we were up against. And I’ll admit to real doubt, to wondering whether anyone would ever believe me.
The first reviews didn’t give me much cause for hope. Some of the reviewers tended to ignore the book and decided to review me as a human being. Someone named Larry Wilson wrote, “I was always at a loss to understand the appeal of either Lovelace or
Deep Throat.
She was rather unattractive, not even the usual soft-focus airbrush photography of
Playboy
could make her appealing.”
Deep Throat.
She was rather unattractive, not even the usual soft-focus airbrush photography of
Playboy
could make her appealing.”
There was an incredibly disturbing unsigned review in the Boston
Globe
: “Educational as this collaboration may be, it hardly inspires you to reach for your handkerchief. As has been said recently about a different subject altogether, what we need nowadays is a better class of victim.”
Globe
: “Educational as this collaboration may be, it hardly inspires you to reach for your handkerchief. As has been said recently about a different subject altogether, what we need nowadays is a better class of victim.”
Just when I was beginning to think that what I needed was a better class of reviewer, we began to get some friendlier notices. Interestingly enough, all the friendly notices came from women.
To see the male-female split on reactions to my book, one only has to contrast the favorable reviews written by women with the review printed in
Playboy
. That magazine attacked my book a second time without ever bothering to mention that
Playboy
publisher Hugh Hefner was a central figure: “What’s interesting is
Ordeal
is just as lurid and graphic as any of her films. In fact, for a reformed woman, she seems to dwell inordinately on the seamier side of her life, making sure to mention all the famous people she claims to have had affairs with . . .”
Playboy
. That magazine attacked my book a second time without ever bothering to mention that
Playboy
publisher Hugh Hefner was a central figure: “What’s interesting is
Ordeal
is just as lurid and graphic as any of her films. In fact, for a reformed woman, she seems to dwell inordinately on the seamier side of her life, making sure to mention all the famous people she claims to have had affairs with . . .”
I never expected the press to automatically believe something just because it was written down on a piece of paper. But I had no idea there would be such automatic disbelief among men.
Reporters would express great sympathy, would tell me they believed me all the way, and then would put things in the article saying just the opposite. Later they’d explain that their stories had been heavily edited. But I had to wonder whether they were afraid of looking gullible in front of their bosses.
It was a familiar pattern. The reporter would come in and say, “I believe your book and I’m glad you lived to tell the tale,” or words to that effect. Then the article would be filled with “she claimed” and “she insisted” and “on the other hand.”
I noticed a big difference between the way the press treated me this time and during the days I was Linda Lovelace, supersexstar. Back then the reporter would come in almost glowing, supercharged with interest, not knowing what to expect. (Of course, back then neither the reporter nor I knew what Chuck Traynor was going to order me to do for the journalist’s entertainment.)
This time the interviews were somber and the reporters tended to be subdued. My general impression: Reporters had been more interested in meeting Linda Lovelace, super-freak, than they were in meeting Linda Marchiano, suburbanite housewife and mother.
Naturally, I’m human enough to like those reporters who came over to my side. When I first met Marian Christy of the Boston
Globe
I thought she was going to do a hatchet job. But she listened closely. And she didn’t just listen with her ears, she listened with her heart. Lynn Darling of the Washington
Post
did a fair and balanced report. Karen Payne of
People
magazine was sympathetic.
Globe
I thought she was going to do a hatchet job. But she listened closely. And she didn’t just listen with her ears, she listened with her heart. Lynn Darling of the Washington
Post
did a fair and balanced report. Karen Payne of
People
magazine was sympathetic.
Typical of the men covering the story was Chip Visci of the Detroit
Free Press
: “Lie detector tests notwithstanding, believing her story at all, much less immediately, is not easy. Many who have seen
Deep Throat
or another, even sleazier film in which her co-star was a dog, will argue that Linda Lovelace liked what she was doing, and liked it a lot.”
Free Press
: “Lie detector tests notwithstanding, believing her story at all, much less immediately, is not easy. Many who have seen
Deep Throat
or another, even sleazier film in which her co-star was a dog, will argue that Linda Lovelace liked what she was doing, and liked it a lot.”
Liked it a lot
—can you believe that? Can you imagine what kind of person could feel that any woman would actually
like
having sex with a dog? Deep in his story, Visci revealed what was bothering him the most. Not really that my story was unbelievable; it’s that it just wasn’t sexy enough.
—can you believe that? Can you imagine what kind of person could feel that any woman would actually
like
having sex with a dog? Deep in his story, Visci revealed what was bothering him the most. Not really that my story was unbelievable; it’s that it just wasn’t sexy enough.
“Ultimately, Mrs. Marchiano’s story is believable,” he writes, “especially when you consider that many battered wives refuse to leave their husbands. Believable but not very readable. The language is crude and profane, the sexual descriptions not at all erotic. The book has a hard-edged matter-of-fact-tone.”
The book, then, just wasn’t erotic enough. Would some people read the diary of an Auschwitz survivor and wonder why it wasn’t sexier, more amusing?
Visci’s attitude upset me; I was even more disturbed by the writers who did, in fact, find the book erotic. Especially when the reporter came from my home-town newspaper,
Newsday
. This feature writer found a book that was “. . . steamy, brutal, sexually graphic . . . a sex-drenched record . . . So there it is, the Linda Lovelace story at $10 a throw. It is, to put it one way, titillating.”
Newsday
. This feature writer found a book that was “. . . steamy, brutal, sexually graphic . . . a sex-drenched record . . . So there it is, the Linda Lovelace story at $10 a throw. It is, to put it one way, titillating.”
Titillating? When I looked that up in my dictionary, I found “to excite a tingling sensation” or “to excite agreeably.” All in all I’d say that
Ordeal
was about as titillating as Hiroshima. But maybe you had to be there.
Ordeal
was about as titillating as Hiroshima. But maybe you had to be there.
Women, on the other hand, tended to take me seriously. A Canadian writer, Judith Finlayson, seemed to side with me: “As I understand it, Lovelace was successful as a porn queen because she had the fresh scrubbed good looks of the girl next door, and enough dramatic ability to convince the camera that she loves being degraded. What does that say about the mainstream men who flocked in droves to see the film?”
Another writer, Joy Fielding, asked a logical question: Why had the protests from all the men named in my book been so mild as to be inaudible? “Perhaps it is because they felt that ultimately no one would believe this gruesome memoir, that she would be dismissed as a woman only out to make a buck, out to out-confess Britt and Joan and all the others who slept with Warren and Ryan, that she would be laughed at as a woman clutching at the straws of fame that had long since deserted her . . . People may open this book with a snicker; they will not be laughing when they close it.”
There was no way to mistake the phenomenon: Women tended to believe me and most men thought I was lying.
Why this split? What was at the root of it?
Maybe women didn’t find my story all that far-fetched. Surely I was an extreme case—maybe even
the
extreme case—but many women have experienced at least some moments of terror at the hands of a man. From time to time women do encounter sadists and other creeps. Perhaps they never went through the suffering I did but they knew it was at least possible. Surely there were some who felt: There, but for the grace of God, go I. My story was gruesome, but women knew it was possible.
the
extreme case—but many women have experienced at least some moments of terror at the hands of a man. From time to time women do encounter sadists and other creeps. Perhaps they never went through the suffering I did but they knew it was at least possible. Surely there were some who felt: There, but for the grace of God, go I. My story was gruesome, but women knew it was possible.
What about the male attitude?
I began to feel maybe it was connected to the phenomenal success of
Deep Throat
. After all, why was this one movie so successful? Some hit movies play in the same theater for ten weeks;
Deep Throat
played in some theaters for ten
years
! The box office receipts from one theater alone, the one in San Francisco, have come to more than $6.5 million. The total take? Experts have estimated the gross at more than $300 million, which would make it more profitable than
Star Wars
.
Deep Throat
. After all, why was this one movie so successful? Some hit movies play in the same theater for ten weeks;
Deep Throat
played in some theaters for ten
years
! The box office receipts from one theater alone, the one in San Francisco, have come to more than $6.5 million. The total take? Experts have estimated the gross at more than $300 million, which would make it more profitable than
Star Wars
.
Some explain this success by saying
Deep Throat
was the first porn movie with a sense of humor. If there was any humor there, it never quite reached locker-room level. The photography was nothing special. None of the actors have gone on to win Academy Awards or even to become better known for their work in other films.
Deep Throat
was the first porn movie with a sense of humor. If there was any humor there, it never quite reached locker-room level. The photography was nothing special. None of the actors have gone on to win Academy Awards or even to become better known for their work in other films.
Others give me full credit for the film’s success. Thanks, but no thanks. They say it was because I was not the usual bleached blonde with pumped-up breasts but a young fresh-looking girl who always managed a pretty smile no matter what revolting things were done to her.
I happen to think the reason for the movie’s success was the story line. I don’t know whether writer-director Gerard Damiano understood the power of the male fantasy he chose, or whether it was just one of those unhappy accidents. What was that story line?
A woman with a clitoris in her throat!
That’s the whole story of
Deep Throat.
A woman with a clitoris in her throat. A woman who receives immense, bell-ringing gratification only through the act of oral sex.
Deep Throat.
A woman with a clitoris in her throat. A woman who receives immense, bell-ringing gratification only through the act of oral sex.
Damiano composed the entire story line, not to mention the title tune, during a single drive from Brooklyn to Manhattan. But did he ever suspect that his shoddy little $22,000 movie would strike such a responsive chord? Could he have guessed that this notion of a woman getting pleasure only through oral sex would prove so exciting to so many men? Who would have guessed that this one sordid freak show would lead to million-dollar offers, book contracts, stage shows and the name Linda Lovelace becoming as well known as any name in the land?
And all this because I was a figment of the male imagination, a creature from some perverse male fantasy. The basic oral sex fantasy—sex without effort, sex without involvement, sex without hassle, sex without any effort on the man’s part.
I think that’s why men came by the million to see
Deep Throat
, to see Linda Lovelace smiling her idiot smile no matter what was being forced down her gullet. Men must’ve looked at that and thought: well, it
looks
like she’s having a great time so she must
be
having a great time. They wanted to believe the fantasy so badly that no one seemed to notice the huge black-and-blue marks on my body.
Deep Throat
, to see Linda Lovelace smiling her idiot smile no matter what was being forced down her gullet. Men must’ve looked at that and thought: well, it
looks
like she’s having a great time so she must
be
having a great time. They wanted to believe the fantasy so badly that no one seemed to notice the huge black-and-blue marks on my body.
Sure, oral sex can be part of making love. But I believe men who want it to be the whole thing, the
only
thing, are warped. And no wonder so many women came away from that movie feeling upset. Men who get a charge from that movie are buying the notion that women are meant to be used. They don’t see women as equal partners in sex or anything else.
only
thing, are warped. And no wonder so many women came away from that movie feeling upset. Men who get a charge from that movie are buying the notion that women are meant to be used. They don’t see women as equal partners in sex or anything else.
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