Deep Throat (1972)

Cultural scandal/phenomenon Deep Throat has a place in my life I believe to be unlike that of most other fans. For one thing, I'm 23. The movie is 20 years older than I am, and a lot of people my age are under the false impression that things from our parents' generation are stupid or lame or ugly. Don't worry, I've taken a deep breath and composed myself.... For another thing, porn is probably more easily accessed than decent healthcare nowadays (sad statement) and it has gone to muuuuuuch darker, creepier and distinctly less erotic lengths, which have become the norm for most viewers, i.e. the sexual content, explicit though it is, is way too soft for modern audiences.

But of course, I am a devout appreciator of vintage articles and the contexts within which they were created. My awesome Pop grew up in London in the 1960s, and was one of the original hippie generation, and so we have spent many, many hours over the years talking about those wonderful times, and the things people got up to. He, naturally, was the person from whom I first heard of the movie Deep Throat, and its iconic star Linda Lovelace.

Last week I bagged an original 1974 paperback printing of Inside Linda Lovelace on eBay for £6.50 and read it within a day. You see, odd as it may seem to some, pervy as it may seem to some others (simpletons), in the years since I first heard of the movie, I have read many books and articles, seen many movies, documentaries and interviews, and my interest in the whole Deep Throat - Linda Lovelace thing is significant. Perhaps this wouldn't be quite so the case were it not for Lovelace's crazy, tumultuous existence in and out of the public eye.

She was born Linda Boreman in 1949, and as a young adult met bar owner/photographer/professional creep Chuck 'JR' Traynor, this slimy geezer with the least sexy moustache I ever fucking saw. He taught her meditative techniques, being the self-professed love guru he was, that enabled her to open her throat like a sword-swallower and accommodate a phallus. Not long after the whole Deep Throat craze (which did go on for several years), Linda disappeared and popped up some years later as a distinctly frumpy and domesticated version of her former self, newly married, born again and raging against the porno machine. At the time when the hardcore feminism movement that my mother was once such an avid participant of was at its peak (if you can call it such), Linda was picked up by an odious activist named Gloria Steinem and rode the anti-porn wagon harder than she did Harry Reems. Once that craze had also fizzled, Linda struggled to maintain odd jobs as a divorced retired porn sensation, and several more years later, was doing the convention circuits signing photos, and promoting herself as the star of Deep Throat. She even did a couple of very tame 'glamour' photoshoots for magazines.

There are two sides to the Lovelace record: Side A focused all its energy on creating a stir, and being a general figurehead for the sexually liberated crowd; Side B was probably the first high-profile case of playing the Victim Card. As part and parcel of her mid-'80s feminism kick, the former story of liberation and good vibes became one of apparent torture, rape and control. Linda claimed that Chuck forced her at gunpoint to make all of her movies, threatened the lives of her family etc.etc. Coming to any sort of decision on what really happened has taken a lot of research, and anybody interested in corroborating this should seek out the same materials I did (Lovelace's several books are a twisting tale). But here is the way I see it:

Chuck Traynor was a slimy, over-sexed bastard who got a kick out of being some form of self-professed love guru, and Linda was an overprotected suburban girl from a devoutly Catholic family whose upbringing produced a simultaneous need for rebellion and control from a third party. In honesty, her early porno chic incarnation seemed something of an airheaded one. An old TV interview catches some uptight journalist asking her if her liberal ideas wouldn't cause imminent anarchy. She replies that she doesn't know what anarchy means. Cute, huh? Then, in a move that is sooooooo typical of modern girls, she found people condescended and shamed her for her sexual antics, and decided to totally relieve herself of said shame by blaming it on somebody else.

Almost everybody involved with Linda has denied her allegations of abuse, and their reasoning rings true. New York girls in 1972 didn't take much convincing to do something outrageous and against the grain - there was certainly no need to force anybody at gunpoint to perform in a porn movie. There'd have been a line all the way down the street of free-spirited hippy chicks who figured $1250 dollars for a few days of wild sex was exactly what they were looking for. Moreover, Chuck's later marriage to the era's other porn queen, Marilyn Chambers, painted a very different picture. Marilyn was a very strong-headed woman, who negotiated herself good deals, presented herself well in public, and was free of inhibitions. Not to mention, she never turned against the industry. Her marriage to Chuck has never been talked of on anything but good terms, and they allegedly left the divorce court hand in hand.

I do hope this considerable dilution of the story is raising all the appropriate red flags for you. There were so many things about Linda's allegations that didn't add up, and this time she just played mouthpiece for a militant feminist rather than a slimy perv. Linda insisted that every time somebody watched Deep Throat, they were witnessing rape. But the idea of all of these perfectly respectable adults - co-stars, crew, etc. - being in on a gang-conspiracy to force one particular woman into porn is quite ludicrous. Harry Reems, Linda's co-star (who, incidentally, spanked the spunk out of Traynor on the Sexy Moustache-Off) was an absolute class act from beginning to end, who actually served prison time when some narrow-minded jury somewhere decided to press obscenity charges. He even paid for Linda to have life-saving surgery later on. People who worked with him over the years described him as an absolute love with a heart of gold. The list of inconsistencies goes on, and sadly, almost taints our ability to enjoy what is actually a funky, silly little sex movie that earned its place in history. Almost...

Ambitions for middle-age summed up in one photo

Linda Lovelace, as herself, is a hippie chick living in Miami with a middle-aged divorcee, Dolly, who enjoys the swingers' life, but feels that sex is missing something. "I wanna hear bells ringing! Dams bursting! Rockets exploding!" she laments. Dolly, who I can only hope to be as cool as in my late forties, provides the perfect solution: a massive sex party! Woohoo!

When even this doesn't untangle Linda's tingle, she turns to hokey Doctor Young (the gorgeous Mr Reems), who discovers that her clitoris is in her throat. Well if that isn't your textbook male fantasy! He teaches Linda to give Deep Throat, and suddenly the girl's practically deafened by all the rockets and bells and bursting dams, and decides to dedicate her life to enjoying herself. Of course, this also means men enjoying themselves, and so Doctor Young enlists her as a 'nurse' to make home calls and enjoy various sexual escapades with various people. The goofy, slapstick action is nurtured by a wildly brilliant, and sadly unclaimed, soundtrack of grimy, funky guitar and amusing synth. The finale number, entitled Deep Throat To You All, is a wonderfully folky and surreal theme. In my mind, which remains static in downtown LA of 1976 or thereabouts, I have this cool fantasy that the soundtrack is the secret work of David Hess, whose music for Last House was nothing short of brilliant. It seems totally him. Alas, the shady Mafia background of the movie seems to have caused the musicians to seek anonymity, but the album is available, and it's brilliant.

As a piece of early '70s nostalgia, Deep Throat is a gem. How does it stack up as a porno? I guess it is entirely dependent on one's personal tastes. Myself, I have seen quite a bit of modern porn, and several factors are a turn off: firstly, lack of plot, style, or discernible creative talent involved; secondly, the freaky shit people do - I find a woman sucking a guy's juices out of another woman's anal cavity to be nothing short of nauseating; thirdly, the 'actors' are harsh, brassy, Botoxed to the gills and generally unrelatable. Porno chic has the appeal of being ordinary people enjoying each other, people you don't feel upstaged by, having sex you can identify with. Kinks are all well and good, but the bar for 'regular' porn has been skyrocketed to distinctly unerotic levels nowadays.

My viewing partner this time round was surprised at how satisfying Deep Throat was pornographically. Plenty of close up shots, plenty of momentum, and some fun variety. It's only about an hour long, but it's hard to get bored of; it's as fun as it is erotic. And for those modern fascists who insist they cannot get turned on by a woman with pubic hair, fear not! Even though 99.9%-vastly-recurring of women would have chewed your ear off for your apparent paedophilic tendencies at the time, Linda (for whatever reason) was a pioneer of several new practices, the first being the removal of her pubic hair.

The '70s are known for their pubic hair, although it wasn't really until the 2000s that women started appearing full 'Hollywood' (totally bare, that is) in film. And while every other woman in Deep Throat is hippie to the core when it comes to pubes, Linda is shown shaving hers off. In an interview, a woman journalist once grilled her about her grooming, saying she didn't know anyone else that did it. It's odd, and pretty depressing, that a mere twenty five years later, this wasn't merely the norm, but expected. Get ready for another personal preference: I love hairy guys. Beards, head hair, chest hair, pubic hair, bring it on. It looks manly, feels gorgeous, I go crazy for it. Thankfully, my boyfriend indulges me. However, the majority of guys my age shave, wax or even laser everything off, and if there is one thing that looks supremely gay, it's a guy with no pubic hair. It gives me the oiled-up Chippendale vibe, the apparent 'ideal' sexy look that comes off as staged, and utterly emasculated. Deep Throat has got some nice shaggy guys on board, with Harry at the helm, and pornstaches galore!

I could probably write more books than Linda did about her, and this movie, and about vintage porn in general. But I think I've pretty much summed up Deep Throat. It's wacky, cheesy, funny, naughty, ground-breaking, Conservative-offending brilliance, and it's an entirely viable mastabatory aid to boot.