King Kong Theory

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"King Kong Theory is essential reading!"—Dorothy Allison"King Kong Theory brings to mind Solanas's SCUM Manifesto, Muscio's CUNT, and Plath's The Bell Jar—feminist eloquence without restraint. You will love it."—Susie Bright"Finally someone has done it! The feminist movement needs King Kong Theory now more than ever. A must-read for every sex worker, tranny, punk, queer, john, academic, pornographer—and for all those people who dislike them too."—Annie SprinkleWith humor, rage, and confessional detail, Virginie Despentes—in her own words, "more King Kong than Kate Moss"—delivers a highly charged account of women's lives today. She explodes common attitudes about sex and gender, and shows how modern beauty myths are ripe for rebelling against. Using her own experiences of rape, prostitution, and working in the porn industry as a jumping-off point, she creates a new space for all those who can't or won't obey the rules.Virginie Despentes is the writer and co-director of Baise-Moi, the controversial rape-revenge novel that became the basis for a film by the same name. Born in Paris, she now lives in Barcelona.From Publishers WeeklyIn the newest from Despentes, author of the controversial 1991 novel Baise-Moi (and co-director of the controversial movie adaptation), the feminist provocateur examines key questions of sexuality, male and female roles, and her own awakening to action. Having been raped at 17, and served as unwilling confidante to many women since Baise-Moi's publication, Despentes struggles mightily with a society that taught her, as a woman, not to fight back against a man attempting to rape her "when that same society has taught me that this is a crime from which I will never recover." She also, thankfully, finds some measure of relief; three years after being attacked, she discovered feminist writer Camille Paglia, whose words first inflamed and then emancipated her. Elsewhere in this short book, Despentes discusses sex, pornography, and prostitution. That she spent several years as a prostitute isn't notable, Despentes says; what's notable is that she's willing to speak about it. While Despentes wades boldly into some murky waters ("who is the victim in porn?"), she ultimately settles on a single, low note: "femininity is the same as boot-licking-the act of servility." Coming nearly 20 years after Baise-Moi, Despentes's manifesto feels flat and a bit in thrall to her earlier work. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the AuthorVirginie Despentes, born in 1969, is a French writer and filmmaker. She is best known for co-directing the 2002 Baise-moi, the controversial rape/revenge film depicting a graphic mix of violence and real sex and based on her novel of the same name. She has written eight books of fiction or memoir.