thirty-one
One of the first questions I was asked at my Swedish press conference was whether I blamed
all
men for what had happened to me.
“Not at all,” I said. “It seems to me that we have many males in our society and very few men. Let me explain that. It seems to me that so many males are insecure—they can’t treat a woman as an equal but must dominate them. A real man knows better. A real man can say: ‘I’m a man and this is a woman and we are equals; therefore, we can share all things equally.’ ”
Within a day or so of our arrival in Sweden ten thousand copies of the book had been sold and the publishers went back to press for a fifth printing. That story was repeated in Norway. As I left both countries, I got the same report-there just weren’t enough books to meet the demand.
When I received news like that about my past books, the fake books actually written by someone else, I’d feel embarrassed. This time I could feel good. And that good feeling was reinforced by meeting the people. At one stop I met four older women with numbers tattooed on their wrists; they were former concentration camp victims and they wanted to shake my hand.
“We beat the devil,” they said as they were showing me their wrists, “and you did too.”
The book cost the equivalent of $20 there and yet many people bought copies. It seems to me that different values exist in Norway and Sweden. Books are prized. And family life seemed to mean so much more. Go out on a Saturday or a Sunday and you’ll see the mother, the father and all the children walking together.
The publishers saw what Larry was wearing and promptly bought him a full-length, down overcoat. After seeing my moccasins, they bought me beautiful boots and a warm hand-made sweater.
The only problem in Scandinavia for me was the food they served in the middle of winter. The dried reindeer meat reminded me of beef jerky, except that it was ten times as tough. In fact, the high spot of the trip came the night we discovered a place called Michelangelo’s Pizza Parlor.
But what does the food matter when the people are so nice? In fact, during our two-week trip, there was only one jolting experience. It could have been unpleasant—but we didn’t allow it to become that.
I was in a Norwegian bookstore and there were lines of people holding books to be signed. Someone was counting, and as I reached number 182, I became aware of a person off to one side snapping my picture.
He seemed to be catching me at all the wrong moments, with my head down or my eyes shut and finally I decided to try and make it easier for him. I turned directly to him and gave him the kind of smile I was feeling that day, a smile as warm as the Norwegian people had been.
When the store manager thanked me for posing, I asked him where I might see these pictures eventually. He blushed a little, hemmed and hawed, and then said that the photographer was shooting the pictures for a leading pornographic magazine.
“I’m terribly sorry about that,” he said.
“Oh, no problem,” I said.
“No problem?”
“No problem at all,” I said. “It’s just that I won’t sign another book until he gives me that roll of film.”
“Oh, but surely . . .”
“No, I’m serious,” I said. “I’m not moving a muscle until that roll of film is given to me. I definitely don’t want my picture to ever appear in another porno magazine.”
There was a long line of people—at least a hundred potential customers—listening to this. When the proprietor saw that I was adamant, he tried to persuade the photographer to give me the film. The photographer explained through an interpreter that he didn’t like the magazine any more than I did, but this was his job. At this point, Larry intervened. I could see that he wasn’t angry, not really. But you would have had to know him very well to realize it was a put-on.
“How do you say ‘cops’?” Larry asked in a loud voice and he was told. “Fine, tell him then we’re going to call the cops and get the film back that way.”
The photographer seemed unafraid; he explained that the police would do nothing; that Norway was a free country and people could take photographs whenever they wanted.
“All right, fine,” Larry said, “then someone tell me how you say ‘ambulance.’ ”
“Ambulance?” our interpreter asked. “Why would you want to say ambulance?”
“Because after we call for the cops, I want someone to call for the ambulance,” Larry explained. “Because this dude is going to need an ambulance before he gets out of here.”
Evidently the photographer understood a little English. Without waiting for the translation, he did a rapid vanishing act. Larry later assured me that he would not have struck him. Certainly not in a foreign country. And probably not at all. Larry was changing, too, mellowing out a bit, maybe maturing.
During one book-signing party, a man asked me to autograph the book to a specific young woman: “And would you please to write a special note. A personal note. She was going to come here today herself but she got scared. She has only been away from her pimp for two days—she saw you on the video and she decided to run away—but she is still too frightened to come out. I think she needs some of your strength.”
My
strength? That was such a new notion to me. But it was true. Every day now, as I saw how the world was responding to me, I felt stronger and stronger. This is the way I signed her book: “I hope this story gives you some of the strength it gave me. Let part of my strength go with you now.”
This was not to be an isolated incident. Everywhere I go now I hear from girls or women who have suffered some of what I suffered. And, oh, my heart goes out to them. I guess that’s when I find myself praying hardest of all. I can remember when there wasn’t room for anyone else in my prayers; now my prayers are crowded.
Before we left Norway, there was a woman named Anita who wanted to meet with me. Anita was a prostitute who was trying to leave the business.
“What can I say to her?” I asked Larry. “What can I possibly say? How do I handle this? What can I give to this girl? How could I help her?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “When you meet her, you’ll
feel
what to say.”
At first I didn’t have to say a word. I just listened as an extremely attractive young woman named Anita told me her story. She had a small child, born out of wedlock, and she wanted to give her little boy what he needed, so she went out into the streets and worked as a prostitute. At the moment she was working as a cashier in a grocery store.
“Whenever my little boy needs something,” she said, “I think about going back and being a prostitute. It’s the only way I could ever get him something extra.”
I asked her what choice the boy would make if
he
were able to choose for her. And I found myself talking to her about self-respect and strength, and how they have to go together—you can’t have one without the other. I remembered what Victor Yannacone had told me and I knew how it had worked for me.
“Right now you’ve got your self-respect,” I said. “It’s one of the most important things in life. When you feel yourself weakening, look at yourself in the mirror. Look into your eyes and hold your head up high and smile and say to yourself, ‘I’m a lady. . . .’ ”
Later I was sent a newspaper story about how one young woman gave up the life of the streets. Her name was Anita. In that interview she mentioned our meeting and she repeated that quote.
That’s one of the big lessons I’ve learned from my experience. The most important thing you’ve got on earth is yourself and you’ve got to love yourself before you can love your husband or your son or your daughter or anyone else. I’m sure that’s not too original—but to me, it was.
thirty-two
For the first time in my life I was feeling my own power. I wasn’t waiting for other people to tell me what to do or how to behave. By the time we were through with
Ordeal—
through writing it and through talking about it-we had made quite a few discoveries about ourselves. Now I was following my own instincts, doing what I thought best. And perhaps that was the greatest reward to come from the book.
Strangely enough, once I was able to act independently, able to stand on my own feet and speak my own mind, I was no longer alone. Just as I began to feel that I could go it alone, that I didn’t have to rely entirely on the help of others, that was the moment I began to get real help-meaningful help—from others. New friends were seeking me out.
In the past my support came from people who got paid for that support. If I had a problem, I called the lawyer or the plumber, the accountant or the electrician, and then, when the problem was solved, a bill arrived. Support cost me so much that, even with a great deal of money flowing in, I never rose above the poverty level. I drove a Bentley and wore expensive gowns, but I was poor. Some of the men in my life walked away with whatever was not nailed down. And me—poor little me—I did absolutely nothing to stop them.
Now, a different kind of friend. Who? Take Gloria Steinem as an example. When Gloria is in your corner, things get done. Should I find myself in legal difficulties and badly in need of advice, Gloria would travel several hours out to my little home and would bring with her a friend who just happened to be a lawyer. I have the feeling that if the pipes started leaking, she would have shown up with another friend who just happened to be a plumber.
Many of my new friends were associated with a group called Women Against Pornography. I had never even heard of this organization before and, if they had heard of me, it was only as an arch enemy, the biggest porn star of them all. “Look at Linda Lovelace” they were routinely told, “she
enjoys
what she’s doing.”
The minute I heard the name, Women Against Pornography, I wanted to join. Surely I qualified; what other woman had a better reason to be against pornography? The news stories about the organization described their headquarters as a small storefront office in a shabby section of Ninth Avenue, conveniently near Times Square. “Conveniently” because the group offered regularly scheduled tours through the pimp-and-prostitute centers, the porn shops and peep shows.
I neither needed nor wanted a guided tour of Times Square. But the more I read about the group, the more it interested me. I wondered what chance these women had against the princes of pornography, but I knew this was a fight I couldn’t sit out.
Women Against Pornography—the idea made a great deal of sense. Pornography
is
a feminist issue. It’s something men create for the pleasure of other men; the only role women have in it is as tool or victim. Porn exploits inequality and perhaps—who knows for sure?—it may lead to violence against women. The only people I ever knew to be directly hurt by pornography were women.
I know freedom of speech is one of our most important rights. I liked the idea that Women Against Pornography were not asking for restraint of speech; what they were trying to do was to educate people to the dangers of pornography. Instead of censorship, these women were calling for private action, such as the boycott of certain films.
I had only one question: Would they let someone who was once named Linda Lovelace join their group? The answer came from one of the group’s two full-time organizers, Dolores Alexander: Yes. A strong yes. To say they welcomed me with open arms is to understate the case. One of the nicest days I have had throughout this experience was the day Women Against Pornography called for a nationwide boycott of
Deep Throat
.
Why is that movie still being shown? People do know the facts now. The horror story behind its making has been told in the major magazines, newspapers and on television talk shows. Although people know what happened to me, nothing has changed. The proof that I was beaten black and blue is right there on the screen. And yet, men still go to see it. The same holds true for the 8-millimeter movies which, if anything, were even more disgusting.
Finally, a breakthrough. At Yale University.
Deep Throat
was being screened by the Yale Law School Film Society as a combination fund-raiser and between-exams break. This seemed ironic to me. Yale is supposedly one of the best schools in the country. And Yale Law School is where so many of our future leaders and politicians are educated. I could understand some low-life fraternity at Podunk U. doing something like this—but the Yale Law School?
But at Yale, something different happened. Suddenly leaflets started appearing around campus, leaflets asking people not to support the Yale Law School Film Society’s showing of
Deep Throat
, leaflets answering many of the arguments people voice whenever I demand that that film not be shown.
The freedom-of-information argument:
“Would you patronize a film society which showed movies made by white South Africans depicting the systematic exploitation and degradation of blacks—as entertainment? Would you go to a Nazi Night, a Klan Night, a White Supremacy Night?”
The what-harm-does-it-do argument:
“You will be helping to finance an industry which in its mildest form perpetuates ideas of women as objects to be raped and humiliated and exploited, as well as being responsible for the production of ‘chicken’ porn (involving children five years old and younger) and ‘snuff films (in which the actual murder and dismemberment of women is filmed). You will be showing financial support for Chuck Traynor, who prides himself on having ‘created’ Linda Lovelace.”
To me it was surprising—and moving—that a group of strangers would become involved in what I had always seen as my private fight. But the biggest surprise came when the Yale Law School Film Society cancelled the showing of the film. This was the first of several schools where the film was scheduled to be shown and then cancelled—because people cared enough to protest.
The next attempted
Deep Throat
boycott was on a larger scale. This was the attempted nationwide boycott, Women Against Pornography’s way of welcoming a new member to the group.
I could see one advantage to having a Linda Lovelace join your group—it led to considerable press coverage. As New York
New
columnist Beverly Stephens saw it: “While Women Against Pornography has gotten some media attention, it took a name like Linda Lovelace to fill their office with reporters. . . . If an unknown porn victim or prostitute had told the same story, who would listen or care?”