'Deep' Thoughts

We've pulled some quotes from Peter Keough's lengthy article, "Oral History," in the Portland Phoenix.  Subtitled "From Deep Throat to gag rule," it examines the sexual politics of porn while reviewing Inside Deep Throat. 

ON THE FEMINIST DEBATE OVER DEEP THROAT Did some feminists then betray a force for their own liberation by turning against Deep Throat? Berkeley professor and film scholar Linda Williams (author of Hard Core and the upcoming Watching Sex) suggests in a brief interview in Inside that some well-intended feminists might have overlooked the film's revolutionary potential. After all, here was a woman seeking her own sexual satisfaction in her own way; it was a first not just for porn, but for film in general. 

ON ANOTHER POINT OVERLOOKED BY MANY FEMINISTS Deep Throat's identification of the clitoris as the center of woman's sexuality defied the then-dominant patriarchal belief in the vaginal orgasm. 

ON LINDA LOVELACE "As for Lovelace, she was a victim of a patriarchal culture in which women are sex objects and don't have a lot of career choices, especially uneducated women. If you read Ordeal, which I know she probably didn't really write, it's pretty clear that she was in a bad relationship, she didn't have any self-respect or self-esteem, and she was doing a lot of sex acts for money, even before she was doing them before a camera. And I believe that she did something with a dog, although I haven't seen that film. I think that Deep Throat was probably one of the few bright moments in a rather grim life. The idea of her being coerced on the set of that film seems to me rather outlandish."  - Linda Williams