Inside Deep Throat
You know, I put this post under the category of movies, but I really think it belongs under sexuality (perhaps even politics).
I just watched the documentary tonight. It’s a pretty fascinating look at the controversy that surrounded the film Deep Throat and the transformation of social mores during the early 70s (with a peek at the evolution—devolution?—of pornography in its wake). I had no idea that Deep Throat was shown in mainstream movie theaters or that it was the most profitable film in history (cost $25,000 to make and brought in $600,000,000 over the years). I also wasn’t aware that the Supreme Court made a ruling in 1973 that strengthened obscenity laws in the U.S. It’s hard to believe that there was greater freedom of speech in 1972 (in at least one respect) than there is now.
There’s a lot that I’d like to say about the documentary but I just can’t help imagining what American society would be like had the Supreme Court not made a ruling that classified Deep Throat as obscene. I’m not trying to make a statement for or against here, but think about it this way. Regular middle class couples were going to mainstream movie theaters to watch Deep Throat together! Married couples going out in public to watch a porn film at the local theater in plain view. Plumbers, city council members, accountants, secretaries, etc., all going out for a night on the town to watch a porno as a community activity. How utterly bizarre by today’s standards.
Apparently, the New York Times published an article about “porn chic” related to the phenomenon of Deep Throat being shown at mainstream theaters in NYC. Suddenly there was an explosion of interest—the NYT article had made viewing the movie socially acceptable. Just in case anyone doubted the power of the mainstream media to legitimize certain social activities as norms here is probably the best example I’ve ever come across.
But back to my original train of thought. What I was wondering about was how Americans’ public attitudes about sexuality may have evolved if the Supreme Court had not condemned Deep Throat as obscene. If pornography had not been deemed obscene would the public have continued to go out for a night at the movies to watch porn?
Interestingly enough, technology enabled the public to get around the obscenity laws and view porn in private. Once the VCR became affordable people could rent or buy porn videos and watch them in the privacy of their homes. Throw in the Internet and hotel PPV porn a bit later for more options for private viewing.
But what does this mean? I’m not sure, but I’m struck by the fact that a much higher percentage of Americans are viewing porn now than they ever were in 1972. And the porn is decidedly more graphic and raunchy than it ever was then. But they’re doing it in private rather than in public. That’s what gets me. What the Supreme Court ruling did (in combination with technology) was push sex back out of the public eye. Would we have grown out of the persistent adolescent fantasies that dominate our culture and matured more as a society in our attitudes toward sex and relationships had that not been the case? Would Americans, as a whole, have remained so secretive, deceitful, and ashamed about their sexuality, sexual practices, and sexual identities? Would we have developed an attitude toward sexuality that resembles those in Europe? Would mainstream Hollywood films have incorporated close-up shots of penetration and oral sex into love scenes? I don’t know. I just wonder. I could ask a million questions I suppose and we’d never have definitive answers for any of them.
—loquacious
January 12th, 2006 at 9:08 am
It’s an interesting question to ponder but one I don’t think ever had a chance of actually being played out in this country. There are far too many puritanical types that comprise the foundation of this country. Seeing that sublimated sexual energies invariably get expressed via violent means, perhaps we have that 1972 SCOTUS ruling to thank for the careers of Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson?
January 12th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
“Seeing that sublimated sexual energies invariably get expressed via violent means, perhaps we have that 1972 SCOTUS ruling to thank for the careers of Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson?”
Talk about adding insult to injury. Ouch!
About your other contention, I don’t really know if that would have been the case. It was pretty amazing to watch straight-laced types lining up outside suburban theaters in Anytown U.S.A. as if they were just going to be watching Young Frankenstein or The Graduate. I was about 2 or 3 year years old when this was going on so it’s hard to know what that time was like, how attitudes toward sexuality had changed from post-WWII up until the early 70s. You’ve got the Kinsey Report, the 60s sexual revolution, a growing segment of the public becoming more highly educated, and a lot of other factors involved. It’s hard to know how our country would have evolved if that momentum hadn’t been lost. On the flip side, it was hardly just the SC ruling that played a role in creating a backlash to the sexual revolution. Think of the AIDS scare in the early 80s, for one.
One thing I do remember, though, was how much more open Iowa was in the 70s than it is now. It was noticeable even to me as an elementary school child in the late 70s in comparison to what followed in the 80s. I didn’t realize that the 70s were the anomaly at the time—it was all I knew at that point in my life! Sex went back underground and adults didn’t discuss it in polite company. Sexually provocative images were all over the TV, in music, in movies, in magazines, etc., but it just wasn’t openly discussed in a mature way by adults in the 80s from what I witnessed. Not in the way I witnessed it in the 70s (at a younger age—and thankfully I did; it actually created a more healthy foundation to understand my own sexual feelings through puberty and adolescence).
It’s rather sad that America is still so uncomfortable about sexuality. Maybe we’ll grow up as a society some day. I doubt it, though.
January 12th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Loq – how did you find the late 70’s ‘much more open’ than you do now? Just curious in what sense you, as an elementary-age child, could pick up on societal openness to sexual matters like that. I was pretty oblivious to that kind of thing until I started going through puberty myself, round about the junior high era.
The ‘Deep Throat’ showing happened due to a happy confluence of cultural shifts – having occured at the end of the 60’s sexual revolution and right in the midst of the free-love 70’s/disco era. Regardless, the Russian mafia still got their cut.
American culture has aborbed the 60’s and 70’s at this juncture. In some ways it has become much more prudish and conservative and in other ways much more expansive and diverse. Rather than a mono-culture. this country has very much become an amalgam of subcultures. The porn industry is a multi-billion dollar industry at this juncture, too – so it’s not like porn has been pushed to the peripheries of the culture – in some respects, it’s rather central.
I agree with you that this country, as a whole, continues treating sexual/identity matters in completely perverse ways. I can only imagine the hysteria surrounding gay marriage will one day strike the majority as absurd as segregation does today. One thing we have to remember is this country is still relatevely young when looked at from a historical perspective. Europe has had more time to shake itself free of what is mostly religious-based prudishness and, let’s be honest about it now…bigotry.
January 13th, 2006 at 2:06 am
Okay, there’s a lot of stuff to address there, tri—nice comments.
Hmmm, how were the 70s more open than they are now? How do I even explain this. It’s going to sound weird no matter how I say it. One thing I’ve always thought adults have been off about it is how aware children really are. I have some very specific memories from the 70s—not just in terms of events, but also in terms of the vibe. Part of that may have been due to the fact that I moved—literally—from Iowa to Arizona in 1980. Talk about a convenient cut-off date. So you could say that I’m unaware of how things changed in Iowa in the 80s, but we ventured back a time or two as a family for extended visits. Things had really changed.
Okay, I have to be more specific I suppose. My family and the people they knew (friends and relatives and other members of the communities in NE Iowa that my family knew) were just far more open and, honestly, affectionate in the 70s. There was a casual maturity that was distinctly noticeable to me as a child, especially after moving to Arizona (which was really a backwater place in terms of emotional and intellectual maturity in comparison with Iowa—no shock now that it was also infinitely more conservative and fucked up compared to Iowa). But when we ventured back I really noticed how much the people I had known as a child had changed. They weren’t as joyful and free, not as comfortable with life. They seemed defeated. I’ve read a bit and heard anecdotal stories of how bad things were in Iowa in the 80s, but nothing I’ve read really tells the story in the same way that the sunken faces of Iowans in the 80s and early 90s did. I’m not saying that they had become lifeless zombies. But the community gatherings had really disappeared amongst a lot of these people. They seemed like strangers not just to me, but to each other. There was a sadness about them. The vitality that had been so ever-present seemed to have just disappeared from their lives. And they were more petty and vindictive. Angry, resentful, disgruntled.
Not that life was perfect in the 70s or anything, but I really—REALLY—noticed the difference every time I went back. My parents commented on it as well and still do. I can remember after the first trip back to Iowa after moving to Arizona (a couple years later) how my folks said to one another that it didn’t really feel as if there was a home to go back to even if they had wanted. That was the feeling I had gotten as well. It was as if someone had stolen the souls of all of our friends and relatives (well, maybe not all—but a hell of a lot of them). It just makes me wonder what the hell really happened in Iowa during the 80s. Whatever it was must have been absolutely hellish. Yet, it must have also been very subtle and almost indetectable because whenever I bring it up with Iowans who lived there in the 70s and 80s they seem to mention only how the economy faltered. On the flip side, they are Iowans and therefore somewhat stoic and guarded with their emotions—but that’s the point! They weren’t so much in the 70s, not compared to how they were in the 80s and 90s when I was back.
So the “sexual” openness was partially reflected in a sort of general openness. People were physically and emotionally affectionate and compassionate. There was a palpable lack of “judgmentalness” (my “truthiness” word of the day) and a definite enthusiasm for acceptance. People were very openly compassionate and loving. They helped each other. They loved each other. They treated each other with dignity and respect. It wasn’t just toward children, either. I witnessed the same sort of spirit and behavior between adults. I really can’t overstate how much it still feels as if I lived on a totally different planet during the 70s. My parents, their family, their friends, and (to a degree) the community as a whole Just lived in a way that I still have not seen anywhere else in the United States since that time. Maybe this wasn’t widespread throughout the country at all and I was just incredibly lucky to have experienced it (and incredibly cursed for knowing that a much, much better type of community life used to exist).
Changing directions here abit, you’re right that the mafia got their cut. Only it was the New York mafia. I didn’t realize this before the movie either, but there was no real porn industry to speak of before the mid-70s. It was just mob-produced sex films shown in scummy run-down theaters in seedy areas. Small change in the scheme of things with whores and swingers performing on camera for wanna-be filmmakers who made porn to make a few bucks and to get laid. Explains why the pre-video porn films developed a reputation for being much more naturalistic in comparison to 80s porn videos.
So you’re right about the porn industry becoming central. It’s become a bigger business that it ever was—by far. It’s just that it had this brief little moment in the early 70s when it was on the verge of becoming truly mainstream. I’m not saying that that would have been a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just that it was a truly unique moment in history in terms of sex coming fully out of the closet—graphically out of the closet and into mainstream movie theaters with positive press in papers like the NY Times. Before and since then it has been considered merely smut. That’s what fascinates me. Again, not saying it’s good or bad, but it’s absolutely fascinating to me that for a brief moment in American history what has always been a very shameful and private activity of individuals or small groups (viewing porn) had become a public, community event that was socially acceptable. Even now, as widespread as porn is, you don’t go down to the local AMC to check out Forrest Hump with your wife and your mother-in-law. Yet, that sort of thing was happening with Deep Throat. Porn, for just a moment, was walking down the middle of the street in broad daylight with all of the other social norms instead of skulking in a back alley or hiding out with a 14-year-old boy jerking off in the bathroom worried that someone might walk in on them.
I want to mention one other thing from the movie that is unrelated to what we’ve been talking about. I never realized this, but 70s feminists seemed to have had as much of an impact on the public perception of porn (and, in some ways, sexuality) as the SC ruling and the religious right. I guess the thing that gets me is that in the long run this may have been counterproductive to the cause of women. While the feminists had a very legitimate point about pornography exploiting women it also had the effect of keeping more honest and open dialogue about the nature of sexuality from the public forum. The vilification of porn seemed to have the same sort of effect that, say, the Catholic Church’s condemnation of porn (and masturbation) had on people. The point being that while the criticism was directed at the actual porn industry it had the effect of shaming people who were turned on by watching sex. I have to believe that the people who had stood in line to watch Deep Throat were probably less willing to put themselves out there in public knowing they’d get it from the religious right and radical, intellectual left.
What I’m getting at is that in some ways these agendas with good intentions had a negative side effect—they’ve encouraged secrecy and dishonesty. To what extent, I can’t say. But there’s no doubt that when certain things are excessively vilified people are more inclined to avoid being associated with them at all. We all become propagandists and PR flacks in order to preserve social status. Obviously this is not a phenomenon that was caused by or was limited to the feminist movement in the 70s in their response to porn. I’m not trying to say that at all. It’s just something that dawned on me while watching the movie and I began to think about how in so many ways people are encouraged to hide themselves from public view. Nothing new there, I know. But it was striking to me to see how one particular type of “peer pressure” changed the course of how our culture developed in a way that I hadn’t been aware of before.
January 13th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I guess I don’t see porn culture as quite the closeted phenomenon as it appears you do. I’ll give you a quick example I noticed at work today. Portland has a local community oriented paper called The Willamette Week. Great paper, btw – one of its writers recently won a Pulitzer Prize. Now, I work at the main office of a rather large company – with tendrils throughout the country. Overall, I’d decribe its culture as ‘conservative’. Men are generally not allowed to have long hair, there’s a dress code, piercings are frowned upon, tattoos must be covered etc. By the company lunchroom, there’s a bin where you can get a free copy of this paper. In the back of this paper there are ads for phone sex, escorts, etc—- with scantily clad dames and dudes peddling their wares. You can see a few of the ads for yourself here and here.
Now some might consider some of these ads little more than a thinly disguised front for full-blown prostitution – which is illegal in Oregon. But for whatever reason, the paper has been accepted in this particular corporate environment. These papers can freely be found strung around the lunchroom, break rooms, offices. This is one minor example how adult entertainment has become enmeshed in the fabric of our culture.
I agree with you that there are differences between porn culture ala Deep Throat in the 1970’s and what we have today. But I’d disagree that porn has become less central to the culture. It’s simply morphed and adapted to the current cultural climate and from what I’ve read….business is flourishing.
Here’s a quick article just found as an example of what I’m talking about.
Source: CBS News
January 17th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Okay, maybe I’m just not making my point very well. How can I say this? I was fascinated by the fact that porn was, for a moment, a sort of date movie. Couples were going out together to the local theater as if they were going to see “When Harry Met Sally.” Porn is obviously widespread now, much more so than it was then. I was simply wondering what it meant for society for women to be as unabashedly eager to see porn with their boyfriends and husbands out in public. The commentary I’m trying to make (poorly, I guess) isn’t about the popularity of porn or even the mainstreaming of porn; it’s more about how “respectable” middle class couples changed their social habits after mainstream theaters and newspapers declared that viewing graphic depictions of sex in public was an acceptable social event. It’s fascinating to me that all it took to legitimize porn as an event that both men and women could proudly view in public without any shame was for mainstream movie theaters to show it and for newspapers to recommend it.
Then feminists started protesting Deep Throat (representing a shift from late 60s feminist views of sexuality), the SC ruled that it was obscene, the movie theaters stopped showing it, and the newspapers stopped recommending it. So porn movies went back to the back alley theaters in the seedier parts of cities (until VCRs became available. Video caused the explosion of porn as a ridiculously profitable venture. The Internet furthered the accessibility and thus the profitability of porn, too). And while I definitely agree that porn is widespread, but it’s only mainstream in an informal sense. The legitimizing voices that go a long way toward determining what is and isn’t socially respectable still proclaim that porn is nasty, exploitative (which it often is), disturbing, etc.
I understand what you’re trying to say about the paper with the prostitution ads being considered acceptable at your office. But I seriously doubt that any women or men in your office would organize an official or even unofficial co-ed group outing to watch Rambone at a local theater (or even in a private home). Yet, it seemed for a bit in the early 70s that porn had almost achieved that level of social acceptance. Again, I’m not commenting on whether or not that was good or bad. I’m still just kind of struck by it. I’ve seen how much more socially acceptable porn and prostitution are in the Netherlands compared to the U.S. and it’s just amazing to me that America was on the verge of becoming as permissive as Holland is.
January 18th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Loq – I get what you’re saying. You’ve done a good job expressing your thoughts on what a unique moment the movie ‘Deep Throat’ was for American culture. I guess it was just a confluence of events that resulted in a one-shot deal. There were always porn movies before – but not porn movies with added entertainment value, a semblance of a storyline, and a group of filmmakers who considered themselves embarking on a new art form. If such a movie was ever to become a date-movie – it would have had to have been in the free-love 70’s. Porn as entertainment, beyond simple masturbatory material, was still relatively new at that time. Prior to watching the documentary I hadn’t realize the phrase ‘Deep Throat’ hadn’t been used in American culture – so the film winds up playing a role in one of the central moments of Americna political history as well.