What Porn Watchers Watch

DePaul’s Carolyn Bronstein reviews the forthcoming biopic of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace at the Atlantic . It’s not easy reading:

“Linda died at 53 after a Denver automobile accident, but her account of sexual slavery on the set of Deep Throat is preserved in her 1980 autobiography, Ordeal . If Epstein and Friedman stay true to her story, which has always had its doubters, Lovelace will recreate a series of brutal rapes. She spoke about this at a press conference to publicize the book, flanked by anti-pornography activists Andrea Dworkin and Susan Brownmiller. Clutching a small white teddy bear with a satin ribbon around its neck, Linda described Deep Throat as a documentary of abuse engineered by her violent husband, Chuck Traynor. Stills from the film reveal massive purple bruises up and down her thighs. In 1986, Linda testified in front of Attorney General Edwin Meese’s Commission on Pornography. ‘Virtually every time someone watches that movie, they’re watching me being raped.’”