Inside Linda Lovelace: Star of "Deep Throat" Paperback – Jun 1974

About 30 or 35 years ago I was going to buy this book. I picked it up and then put it back on the shelf back then. It was after I read Ordeal that I got curious about this book. It is very obvious to me that Chuck Traynor wrote this book and those were more his thoughts. I figured this out just by reading a couple of sentences in the book. I enjoyed the book. It was interesting to read; however, I did not find this book sexually stimulating. I didn't like the energy that I was feeling as I read this book. It was an interesting book though. I read it very quickly.

This was not written by Linda Lovelace, but by Chuck Traynor. He makes it sound like it was Linda, but if you've read Ordeal, you'll understand that the real Linda did not believe anything which was in this book, nor did she consent to the pictures which are part of it. Not recommended at all.

This book is a product of the swingin' '70s, the decade when the sexual revolution won a victory which stands firm to this day, and Linda Lovelace was a legendary figure in the ideological battles of the late 20th century. Though she probably didn't actually write a single word herself, she did believe the raunchy outrageousness propounded herein, and it was liberating for a nation bound by puritanism. If interested, read Ordeal, which Lovelace "wrote" (with Gloria Steinem) in the '80s, claiming she was but a helpless victim "forced" into porn. The truth is she was an opportunist who went whichever way the wind seemed to be blowing, and after her heavy drinking and weight gain made her unemployable in porn she decided to cash in on the feminist anti-exploitation crusade. When even feminists eventually accepted porn as a form of personal freedom, her only supporters were in the Religious Right. But there wasn't any money to be made with the Fundementalists, as she didn't have the innocent, tarnished angel look that might hook them: she was a haggard, boozed-up woman from the poor side of town, making her way on her own after fame had deserted her. As porn became an accepted part of the American economy in the 90's, she got back into the field as a promoter and pitchwoman for X-rated products. She had to make a living after all, and she was still a celebrity, however faded. Then she died suddenly in a car wreck, and that was the end of her weird trip through America's sex, sin and censorship struggle. If you are excited by perverted sleaze, Ordeal is the more satisfying book (both as a moralistic primal scream and as sadistic voyeurism). Inside Linda Lovelace is too matter of fact, like a Playboy interview with a member of the '60s counter-culture who is trying to shock the straights. Deep Throat, her notorious smut flick, for a while attained the status of endearing testament to an age of comparative innocence (though it is now forgotten to all but a few nostalgic intellectuals). While modern porn stars make six- and seven-figure incomes, Linda ended up with nothing. She was basically a good person, not smart but certainly fascinating, and I feel sorry that she suffered just so that we could all buy legal porn on the Internet.