First Time Ever I Saw Deep Throat

Helen Gurley Brown
Editor, Cosmo; author, Sex and the Single Girl

I'm not sure whether it was chic to see Deep Throat.  I barely do anything because it's chic.  It was educational, of course, for my work as a magazine editor; also, my husband is in the movie business, and he ought to see everything.  So I went because I was interested and because it was educational and it was the right thing to do.

I don't remember finding anything educational about it. It's not that I knew everything, but I think I knew quite a lot in the '70s.  I can't remember how old I was then - I must've been 50.  So I didn't learn a great deal that I didn't know before, I just found it interestingly presented. I thought it was very well done, that was one reaction; and second, I didn't think it was so naughty, or so low down, or so unmentionable, I just thought it was a well-done movie.  I enjoyed it.

John Waters
Filmmaker, Pink Flamingos

Deep Throat wasn't a joke.  People didn't go to Deep Throat for parody.  They went because they had never seen this before. It was a badge of the new freedom.  "Have you seen this movie?  Have you been through the experience of paying to see a woman give a blowjob in a porno theater in your community?" That was very, very new. No one had ever seen that.  And once they saw it, they went home and tried it, and it perked up some marriages maybe.  And then they knew what porn was.  Some went back, some didn't.  And the rest led to everybody having it in their homes.  The title, the title, the title, and the act.  The humor made it OK for women to sit through it.  The humor made you feel less guilty.  There were a couple of good jokes in it.  So you could say it was funny, too, rather than, you know.

Write and tell us about your first time.