But back to Kelle. Though things got extremely difficult for her for a while, these days she’s doing really well. She’s moved on to new career opportunities within the adult industry, and she’s planning her wedding to a guy who, in my opinion, is much better suited for her than her ex. Her work and her life are almost entirely behind the scenes now, while her significance in the adult industry community has increased dramatically. She’s become a leader. We don’t talk as much anymore, but she seems really happy.
It’s interesting to think about Kelle and the path her life has taken during the time I’ve known her. When we first met, she seemed to have everything she’d ever dreamed of. As it turns out though, Kelle wanted so much more, and everything that seemed so set in her life was simply a transitional stage in her overall process. Chances are, she’s already going through another. Pretty soon, she’ll again be different than she is today. We all will.
16
The Real Linda Lovelace (née Boreman, née Marchiano)
MANY YEARS AGO, I BELIEVED THE INTRO TO WOMEN’S Studies–type hype about “The Real Linda Lovelace” and Gloria Steinem’s tragic recounting of a life leveled by pornography.1 But since then, when I actually did some research of my own, I have developed a more nuanced understanding of a life leveled by severe physical, sexual, and emotional spousal abuse. Nevertheless, we still hear that story about Linda—that porn was what set her life spiraling out of control. And it simply isn’t true.
Linda Susan Boreman was born in New York on January 10, 1949. In 1969, she was recuperating from a near-fatal car accident when she met Chuck Traynor. They married soon after, and Chuck very quickly became Linda’s “suitcase pimp”—a derisive term for a husband-boyfriend-lover who tries to garner prestige by pimping his lady’s wares and skills. Chuck was also a brutally aggressive man who subjected Linda to years of violent sexual servitude. This included forced prostitution and performance in an array of short independent underground loops, things with titles like Dogarama (aka Dog Fucker) and Piss Orgy. Trust me: These titles are exactly what you think they are.
Now, back in those days, there was no formal business focused on adult content production. What we have today—a global, professional adult entertainment industry—didn’t begin to emerge in the US until the 1980s. The seeds of a formal industry had already been sown by the early seventies, however, and a handful of independent producers were right on the brink, thinking they were about to make it big time with porn. True to form, Chuck was there in the mix, prepping Linda for the payday he just knew was coming.
Enter Deep Throat.
Gerard Damiano’s Deep Throat, released in 1972, was the first-ever adult feature film “talkie.” Plot-wise, it’s absolutely ridiculous—a tragic tale of sexual dissatisfaction. You see, the young woman lead has been doing a whole lot of fucking, but she’s still dissatisfied with sex. She wants to feel dams bursting and bells ringing, but those things just aren’t happening. Eventually, she takes her problem to a local physician, who finds that her clitoris is not where it’s supposed to be. In fact, quite mysteriously, that little bugger is actually located in her throat, so, oh my goodness, it’s no wonder vaginal penetration isn’t doing it for you, honey! The doctor cleverly prescribes deep-throating as much cock as possible (including his) because, you know, that’s how she gets off. So our lead, now brimming with possibility, goes around doing just that. Occasionally she’s dressed as a nurse. At one point, she shaves her pussy.
It all makes perfect sense. (Not really.)
Linda, who had long since perfected the sword-swallowing trick required to play this demanding role, was cast. Truth be told, much of the script was probably written with her specific capabilities in mind. And in an attempt to both elevate and exoticise her plainly beautiful girl-next-door shtick, Chuck and company dubbed her “Linda Lovelace.” Interestingly, in the film’s opening credits, Linda is billed as playing “herself.”
I always thought this was noteworthy, this idea of Linda playing “herself” in Deep Throat. She was already playing a character, one not necessarily of her own design, in embodying Linda Lovelace. But the Linda Lovelace character’s allure relied upon at least two characteristics that actually belonged to the real Linda—her uncommon sexual acrobatic abilities and her girl-next-door looks. Consequently, what we ended up with in Deep Throat was a character who was presented as “real” and was reliant upon actual physical skill, all while being impossibly contrived. This was a sleight-of-hand that conflated fantasy and reality in a way that was relatively uncommon, at least back in those days. I always wondered what impact this had, both on society in the early seventies and on gender and sexualities and beyond.
I digress.
Deep Throat’s popularity skyrocketed, and it’s been estimated that ticket sales rivaled those of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, which was released the same year. Linda quickly became the face of “porno chic,” the cultural phenomenon of porn being acceptable and cool. Films like Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Deep Throat were discussed publicly by celebrities and taken seriously by film critics. Everyone wanted a piece of Linda, and, for a very brief moment, she was it.
But Linda’s life wasn’t just fun and games and cocksucking. Chuck was still around. And all during the filming of Deep Throat, for years before, and for almost a year after, Linda was being severely abused by him. It didn’t stop when the crew was in the next room, nor did it abate as she became the face of the new pornographic age. In fact, given what experts tell us about patterns of abuse, I imagine Chuck’s aggressions became even more intense as Linda became more and more famous.
Eventually, though, Linda had enough. She managed to escape Chuck in 1973 and went into hiding for several months. When she emerged, it was with the hopes of cultivating a mainstream film career, but she was offered very little work, none of it very artistic or substantial, and all requiring some degree of simulated sex or nudity. Linda refused most of these roles.
Broke, stigmatized, and now struggling with legal troubles too, Linda eventually married her childhood friend Larry Marchiano. They attempted to set up a quiet life together. (This, incidentally, is roughly where the 2013 biopic Lovelace cuts off.) But times were tough. In what I imagine was an attempt to dig herself out of a financial hole and achieve some measure of catharsis, Linda published an account of her life as Linda Lovelace, Ordeal, in 1980.2 The book got quite a bit of attention, resulting in a promotional appearance on The Phil Donahue Show (a big deal back in those days). This event facilitated Linda’s connection with Gloria Steinem and an emerging legion of anti-porn activists.
Many gender-related social changes were taking shape at that time, and while Linda was working to rebuild her life during the mid-to-late-seventies, many feminist activists and scholars were critiquing what they found to be sexist and violent imagery in US culture and media. This included the imagery found in adult content. These critiques came in many forms, including work by the activist/protest collective Women Against Pornography (WAP), which was formed in New York in 1979. Linda, now Linda Marchiano, became a prominent spokesperson for the organization through one of WAP’s most strident supporters, Gloria Steinem.
When anti-porn activists and scholars developed a city ordinance demanding all “pornographic material” (which was never clearly defined) be outlawed from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1983, members of Women Against Pornography, including Linda, testified on its behalf. Much of her testimony during the Minneapolis Proceedings would reappear in 1985’s Meese Commission report.
You see, fifteen years earlier, in 1970, the Presidential Commission on Pornography’s findings had stated that there was no discernible link between sexually explicit material and criminal and/ or violent behavior. In other words, experts could find no links between porn and violence. But in 1985, President Ronald Reagan felt it necessary to give then–Attorney General Edwin Meese one year and half a million dollars to determine the “real” effects of porn in the US
. (Because the Presidential Commission on Pornography’s findings weren’t real enough, I guess.) That circus would come to be known as the Meese Commission.
Many notable people were involved, but the clear star witness in the Meese Commission process was the now-repentant former starlet of the new pornographic age, Linda Lovelace. She had become a vehement anti-porn activist, which was not surprising, in my opinion. Her brains were probably so scrambled from the abuse she endured at the hands of Chuck Traynor that she needed some kind of outlet, some place to channel her energy and emotions. And her graphic and tragic account of a life supposedly leveled by pornography provided anti-porn activists a flesh-and-bone example of how destructive adult content and its production supposedly were. Perfect! Well, not exactly.
But why not? Linda had obviously been involved in porn production, and she certainly had a story to tell.
In any situation, reliance on one example is perilous at best. And reliance on this one example in this particular situation was particularly perilous for at least two reasons. First, by her own account, Linda was in no way abused or coerced by porn producers. That was the work solely of Chuck Traynor. Second, Linda’s accounts speak to her experiences alone. Even if she had been abused or coerced by early pornographers (which she, in her own words, had not been), one person’s story cannot be used to characterize everyone’s experiences and/or the qualities found in an entire segment of society.
You might think that activists and scholars would be aware of the dangers associated with this sort of overgeneralizing. You might also think that activists and scholars would refrain from exploiting a survivor’s experiences. But apparently, at least in this case, you’d be wrong.
The use of Linda’s life story by anti-porn activists as an exemplar during the Meese Commission was inappropriate, overbroad, manipulative, and exploitative. It’s sad to consider the degree to which these crusaders—feminists and activists and scholars and conservatives alike—attempted to capitalize on the celebrity and tragedy of “Linda Lovelace,” all to further their respective causes.
And don’t be fooled! This kind of use and abuse happens to this day. Anti-porn activists repeatedly exploit, and in some cases fabricate, former porn performers’ and/or survivors’ experiences, all to achieve their own ends.
Then the 1980s came to a close, and Linda disappeared from the public eye altogether.
Linda Boreman died in the Denver Health Medical Center on April 22, 2002, from injuries she suffered in a car accident on April 3 of that same year. By all accounts, her life was so sad.
But then again, who am I to judge? Linda had two kids and twenty-two years of marriage with Larry before they divorced in 1996; she got to go to the Oscars, which is something most people never get to do; and, for better or worse, she did have an amazing physical ability that many have tried to emulate. Though I certainly feel it necessary to call attention to the gender and sexuality inequality issues that may somehow compel a person to swallow an entire penis, the fact remains that the lady had skills.
So I don’t really know about Linda. I wonder about many of her choices. How much of her life was a product of insurmountable manipulations that undoubtedly impacted every single “choice” she made? How did these manipulations shape her legacy? And how much of her story is actually hers?
There’s a lot of sadness associated with Linda—sadness and anger and loss. Regardless of all that, though, I think the most important thing to remember is that Linda lived. She lived, she helped shape our culture, and she was a survivor.
17
Sexuality Through the Ages
THE FIRST TIME I SAW BONNIE ROTTEN WAS THE SAME time most people first saw her—featured in her very own star showcase in 2012, Digital Sin’s Meet Bonnie Rotten.1 That was her catapult.
Bonnie did a handful of scenes in 2012, but 2013 was her year. She blew up the porn world in tough-girl features and super-hard hardcore. She was sweet and vivacious and easy to work with. She had cute little freckles, a rockin’ new rack, and was already mostly covered in tattoos (unusual on such a popular performer, even today). In January 2014, Bonnie was named AVN’s Female Performer of the Year, which is essentially the highest honor anyone in the adult industry can get.
But when I first “met” Bonnie, by proxy of watching Meet Bonnie, I felt like an asshole—an ageist asshole. Her film was beautifully done by some of the best in the business. Her scenes were diverse and hot, though a little coltish at times. (The job was still new to her, so I gave her a break.) But in spite of Bonnie’s solid sex performances and the film’s technical and aesthetic merits, I still didn’t like it. I didn’t like it because, when Bonnie spoke to the camera, she seemed like a kid. It was creepy. Way creepy. I was actually so troubled by Meet Bonnie that I didn’t feel I could write the film a fair review. How do you discuss something that’s good but that simultaneously makes you feel uncomfortable in a bad way?
Let me tell you a not-so-secret secret: “Young girl” porn really freaks me out. And I’m not talking about the campus coeds (wink, wink) content or the stuff where an obviously adult woman is costumed in knee socks and a pleated skirt. What I’m talking about is the “barely legal,” “really tight teenage” stuff. Call me kooky, but something about a braceface young lady flashing her ID to prove her eighteenth birthday was yesterday rattles me to my core. I say this knowing several things.
First, young people have sexualities and experience sexual desire; thus, eighteen-year-olds have sexualities and experience sexual desire. Who am I to judge how they express it, and who am I to judge those who desire it? Second, legal age really is an arbitrary assignment based on culture and era. Consequently, in another part of the world or two hundred years ago, those aforementioned tight teenagers may’ve been well into cougarhood. Third, this type of content provides an outlet for people who have certain predilections and issues generally frowned upon by society. Think about it: Isn’t it better for those on the hunt for youth to indulge in a professional production featuring a legal adult than to go out looking for teenagers on their own? (I think you know what I’m getting at here.) And finally, there are all sorts of media that focus on youth—music and modeling and savvy young genius upstarts. We as a culture love it if it’s fresh. Why should our sexy time predilections be any different?
I recently wrote something regarding age-centered content as it occurs in porn production and consumption for the academic journal Porn Studies:
The illusion of youth has been a significant theme in adult content since the 1970s, and it continues to be extremely popular today. Young girl—or “teen”—content is a genre of porn that focuses on young-looking women performers. Youth is conveyed via costuming and by the actual age of the performers themselves—women who typically work in this genre are of-age teens (eighteen and nineteen years of age) or are in their early twenties.2
But when I wrote this passage I forgot to emphasize that, though women who typically work in this genre are of-age teens or are in their early twenties, they are occasionally older than their early twenties and never are they younger than eighteen. At least, not in professional adult content production they aren’t. You see, if there’s something that creeps me out even more than the legal representation of teenagers in porn, it’s graphic media depictions of child sexual abuse—what’s commonly referred to as “child pornography” or “CP.” I put these phrases in quotes, and I generally refuse to even write or say them, for one primary reason: They don’t exist.
Now, let me restate that last part in another way. Graphic media depictions of child sexual abuse both exist and are highly illegal in the United States. Pornography, on the other hand, is a legal enterprise, made for and featuring consenting adults. Professionally produced adult content made in the US does not feature models or performers who are under the age of eighteen. The phrases “CP” and “child pornography” thus connect the sexual abuse of minors (illegal) with porn production in the US (legal) in an extremely inappropriate and pr
oblematic way.
How do I know this? Well, not one rigorous academic study or criminal case has identified a connection between professional pornographers and graphic media depictions of child sexual abuse. Further, porn is currently being made in the US, at this very moment. Don’t you think adult content producers would be locked away for life instead of paying taxes and filing film permits if they were abusing minors?
Regardless, the exploitation and abuse of minors is nasty, and our obsession with youth is pervasive. And in porn, this obsession doesn’t only come through a heterosexual gaze eyeballing young women. “Twink” (slang for a youthful looking man) content, for example, emphasizes young-looking men performers working with other young men, satisfying a big demand in the gay market. Age-centered themes are also prevalent in lesbian content, with commonplace emphases on both young women performers and the sub-genre of older-younger women couplings. And even now, at this very moment, porn producers are scouring the earth for sexy young studs to satisfy the increasingly demanding heterosexual woman consumer—because that soccer mom down your block loves looking at some hot washboard twenty-year-old abs. And so does her daughter.
Another interesting thing about age in porn is how compressed it is. Twenty-six-year-olds are MILFs, and any woman over thirty is a cougar. And I guess if we’re filtering our sexual gaze through the eyes of youth, which is something we love to do in all aspects of social life, then this perspective doesn’t seem all that off base. But it does skew the “look”—the perspective shaping our collective gaze—that we have of grown women, especially in porn. Women are inevitably corralled into some version of motherhood, or they’re cast as sexed-up vixens preoccupied with draining all the lifeblood they can from any available source. Our tendency to put women into one of two problematic boxes is almost as off-putting to me as those tight teens I was talking about before.
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