DEEP THROAT does LA – 50 Years of Sex, Cinema, Politics & Controversy

Full transcript of DEEP THROAT does LA – 50 Years of Sex, Cinema, Politics & Controversy on The Dr. Susan Block Show:

the Novoville mobile studio mobilizing for deep roach I don't have to mention yet I'm happy to see you looking beautiful as ever

still working? yeah, yeah, that's still working woo! it's like...

is it recording? yes okay, well it seems to go with deep throat the white balls, the black balls, the blue balls

blue balls all colors all colors rainbow balls

who's zoomed in some balls yeah corn-o-cheek

so I kinda thought, okay, glitz I thought they were gonna have an LLT but your sister's gone you show your deep throat side

oh, she knows she knows all myself let's get them right there perfect

yeah beautiful, beautiful what? can we get your name?

Ursula Bumby Ursula Bumby go ahead how are you doing?

is it ever here? like in the Blancas and he got all naked and it was a simulated orgy

in the living theater I think it was the living theater or one of those... we are quite close

we are quite close we are quite close we are quite close it was paradise now

paradise now how are you? I haven't seen you oh god, I think since my book release

like 20 years ago I first met you you were filming sore throat yes, yes

shot at the redgrave's house Susan, look at... yes, the redgrave's house we need the hand

we're seeing a lot of iconic faces Chris, you can't hear Nina Hartley

Herschel, stop it and Miguel Chico Baby behind the scenes

mastering all the wiring it made so much money but nobody knows who got the moon that sounds familiar

oh god, for foods and blog we're needed on set right here well, I'm here at the 50th anniversary

screening of Deep Throat a new restoration 4K print with Dr. Susan Block sex therapist, sexologist

author, talk show host you do it all let me ask you, Dr. Susan when this movie came out

there was a term porn chic porno chic what was porno chic? porno chic is kind of the way

I'm dressed a little glittery and very sexy and peace is important

make love not war, right? because there was war at the time yeah, 1972 and it was a time when

the sexual revolution was on and there were a lot of elements in the sexual revolution the Kinsey report kind of got it going

and then porn kind of gave a visual element to it and of course Deep Throat just blew it

out of the ballpark pun intended, right? and this was people watch this movie for the first adult

erotic x-rated movie on big screens and big theaters are taking in a group experience which you called communal ecstasy

what was that? well, it's something very different communal ecstasy from the way people nowadays

experience porn which is mainly on your phone under the covers maybe with one person

maybe two if you're polyamorous usually by yourself porno chic and the fact that

people could watch Deep Throat on the big screen surrounded by other people created this state

of communal ecstasy I mean it wasn't like everybody was in the rain coat type theater where they're all jacking off

but most people used it like a date movie and so you'd kind of get excited watching it

you'd get a little foreplay going maybe you'd make out a little in the theater and you would just feel this

connection with everybody else because you're watching sex I mean people have communal ecstasy

in a rock concert or a rap concert in a sporting event the Olympics I mean there's lots of ways that people

will experience it but really the ultimate way the Bacchanalian way is to kind of experience something

erotic and what's more erotic than a porno movie on a big screen and to this movie you found help sexually uneducated people

to maybe learn something new at least to have an orgasm and enjoy it well if you took it literally no I mean

okay the whole plot is that the lady has her clitoris in the back of her throat which of course you don't have

it's a male sexual fantasy but it did get couples looking for the clitoris you know is it under the arm

in the tonsils well that's where Linda Lovelace had her clitoris in her tonsils

and that certainly was good for giving deep throat but it also meant that people had conversations and they went you know what

I don't have a clitoris in the back of my throat I got one right here would you like to check it out and maybe they would

it was sex educational in that sense it got people talking and sharing and exploring in a way that they probably didn't before

do you remember where you saw the movie the first time and what the experience was like yes yes I think I saw it in like 78 and

it was in New Haven I had just graduated Yale and I was on a date and we just saw lines

around the block because you know not every theater showed deep throat but when a theater would a lot of people would go

from all over different counties where they couldn't show it and so you would lines around and we knew it was something sexy

but we didn't know what it was so we go in and it's crowded there's a lot of people and we're sitting there and you know

there's some funny jokes there's a nice Cadillac and then suddenly just super big

like big as a house I mean a tiny house there's genitalia and I was shocked

I mean I had sex I was like 22 I think and I had orgasms at that point

but I'd never seen the genitals you know up close and in the light

and it was shocking and it was very hairy I mean Linda Lovelace was shaved but everybody else like full of hair

especially of course Harry Reeves so I was like shocked this was before I got into bonobos so I thought oh my god

are we like that what is going on am I like that and then I calm down there's jokes it's not just

a porno it's a comedy so that loosens up a tight middle class gal like me

and eventually I relaxed and had fun and then I had great sex later did you learn anything from the movie that my clitoris

is not in my throat and talk lastly Dr. Balak about this movie was the first adult film

to basically bring in mainstream audiences it brought in an audience that generally wouldn't go to an adult movie or a hardcore movie talk about it just mainstream

it hit middle class, upper class Jackie Onassis when talk about how mainstream audiences were coming to see this it wasn't just people in

raincoats I was pretty mainstream I'd never been to a porn movie I was not in the raincoat crowd this was something new

for me and it was also something that friends of mine were going to and my goodness journalists at the Washington Post

were obviously going because they named the informant on Tricky Dick

Deep Throat it was very appropriate for the Watergate scandal and hey you know

Richard Nixon tried to shut down Deep Throat but the odd thing was Deep Throat took down Richard Nixon

so there and this did something for the obscenity laws and freedom of speech too. Yes it was such a struggle for

the people that produced this especially Harry Riems as well and even Warren Beatty and Jack

Nicholson came out to support them as actors and producers and basically filmmakers and to say

we should have freedom of speech and basically they got it are we better off now? Hard to say

that might be a subject we'll talk about in the panel as to whether we are free or now but certainly Deep Throat

was good for free speech I should say it's a controversial film and people pick at it

for many reasons we don't know if people are going to pick it tonight because you know back in the day they would pick it over obscenity

the religious right but then the feminist left started picking it because Linda Lovelace

confessed that she had been abused and that was in the 80s and I think she really was

abused from what I hear and in fact her ex-husband Chuck Traynor admitted it and yet it had

nothing really to do with Deep Throat not with what was going on it wasn't like he abused her to get her to do Deep Throat he abused her

regularly he was her husband and she was a battered woman very unfortunate very terrible but a lot of people

confused her confession her exposure of this abuse with oh porn

abuses women and certainly Catherine McKinnon Andrea Dworkin they just jumped on this and it was during the Reagan

years so of course Reagan jumped on it and they decided that Linda Lovelace who had been the poster girl

for the sexual revolution and porno she became the poster girl for porno's bath

and then she came around later she decided to embrace her erotic life

and she posed for leg show she signed a lot of Deep Throat memorabilia but still there's

this feeling about it that lingers see Deep Throat is not just a movie it is a cultural phenomenon

and it has it's good and it's bad which just tells us that it's real I mean it's a real part of our history

it isn't all good it certainly isn't all bad in fact it's mostly good but there are some bad elements to it

that need to be acknowledged in order for us to enjoy it experience it

I'll enjoy seeing it in the theater some 45 years later for you and have a great panel discussion as well you'll be hosting one tonight

I will I'm moderating and that's why I have my cane just in case anybody gets it in moderate thank you Dr. Susan

I'm so excited thank you testicles last row of testing

it's all the same route hello Los Angeles hello Hollywood

hello porno cheek sexual revolutionaries and welcome

to the lively royal I am Dr. Susan Block your love doctor

and I am just so pleased to welcome you

to the 50th anniversary the golden anniversary

of the iconic ironic

erotic comic glorious and notorious

controversial and very profitable for all you capitalists out there

Phil what is the name of the film oh deep

deep throat brothers and sisters let's hear it really an amazing

cinematic phenomenon that happened 50 years ago quite quite something and we're going to talk about it

after the movie we're going to have a screening and I'm sure you're going to all stay until after the

screening because Nina Hartley is going to be on the panel you don't miss that

and Herschel Savage there's going to be on the panel

to talk about this amazing movie that is more than a movie it really

was a cultural experience and I experienced it I don't know how many of you experienced it

way back when or lately but it's just got an impact you know

deep throat I mean porno chic and it went way beyond the movie theater although

it was in big movie theaters just like this that's the amazing thing never before

and not really since has something like that occurred in America or anywhere and

so we're here to talk about it not really celebrated although yeah it's kind of celebrated but certainly commemorated

it's like life got its ups and downs and ins and outs it brought down a president right

deep throat was the name for the Watergate Informant and Tricky Dick thought he was going to

close down deep throat but deep throat closed down Tricky Dick amazing really just an extraordinary

film experience and created by this man this Oter director who really

created it and directed it and it was his baby it wasn't even his favorite baby we'll talk

more about that but it certainly was an extraordinary baby and that man is Gerard Damiano

rest in peace the late legendary Gerard Damiano and I am honored

and delighted to introduce his son and daughter who really

were born into porn but they seem so awesome I don't know to me and they are just such

a good son and daughter really any of you who are parents out there you should hope to have

a son and daughter like Gerard Damiano Jr and Christa Damiano

and it's just a beautiful thing what they're doing to celebrate well excuse me not celebrate

commemorate, honor experience it is a mixed bag like most of life

like real life somebody oh Herschel was talking about how the best acting is real and yeah it's

imperfect this is this movie it's a part of so many of our lives and they're here to commemorate it

in a way that I'm sure their dad would appreciate and so let's hear it for Gerard Damiano Jr

and Christa Damiano Thanks Dr. Susan thanks so much for that wonderful introduction

we want to thank everyone for coming we're really excited to be here and our dad always dreamed about making movies in Hollywood

so we want to honor him to bring his movie here to you all I have a question who has already seen

Deep Throat? alright we've got let's see this is the most I think ever we've had 10

in our audiences that have already seen it we know everyone has heard of it and know something about it but not everyone has seen it

so thank you for coming we're really excited to be here thank you and I'd just like to add to what my sister Christa

said in that Deep Throat was revolutionary it touched a lot of people in a lot of different ways

and there are a lot of people in the world that have very strong feelings about this film that have never even seen it so that's why we always ask the audience

how many people have because everybody's heard of Deep Throat but nowadays most people haven't seen it and one of the most

revolutionary things about Deep Throat is that it got people women and couples into the movie theater

to see adult content on the big screen and 50 years ago that was something very very new to have a communal

theatrical experience and watch adult films as adults and today it's hard for younger generations

to imagine because porn is consumed on a smartphone under the covers or whatever but what it was like to go out

to the theater to see porn together like this so we want to thank everybody for sharing in that experience because now 50 years later

it's as novel as it was in 1972 so we're very glad to be back in the theater not just after COVID

but after 50 years so thank you all for coming enjoy the show, stick around and talk to us after it's over

thank you you have to learn to relax the muscles you have to regulate your breathing to the movement of your head

sounds so easy well it is try it you'll like it

well, what have I got to lose come, you try it you have been immersed in the Deep Throat

experience on the big screen and now we're going to talk about it the experience

as well as the history and the culture and just different controversies

and impressions and we have some incredible people here I've introduced the Damianos

I might introduce them again but they're great people and they have brought this

event film to you and it's their father's great work he was the director Gerard Damiano

also called Jerry Damiano and he invented the term Deep Throat, he named the movie

and a lot of people said that was not a good name but hey whether you love the movie

or you hate it or you've never even seen it you know that name, Deep Throat

and I have Nina Hartley here Nina needs no introduction and yet

I just love her so much I got to introduce her a little bit she is brilliant beautiful and

bodacious she is a sex revolutionary she is a sex educator and a sexual Olympian

I think she herself said that what motes are is to music that's what she is to sex

and I would have to agree really knows how to play her instrument and for our pleasure

and education our understanding Nina met Gerard Damiano

when he was kind of towards the end of his career I think and she was in the beginning of hers

and she came into porn because I guess she was a swinger she was someone that wanted

to have more sexual adventures among other things and then we have Herschel Herschel

and Herschel I guess if Nina is the motes are of sex maybe he's the Beethoven and coming from

a different background more of the theater background Nina came

more from wanting to explore the sexual end and ends up being a great actress and many other things

and Herschel comes from studying with Uta Hagen and Stella Adler and discovers that he's

quite the coxman and was of course the star most notably I guess most famously of Debbie does Dallas

which is almost as famous as Deep Throat it's pretty famous a lot of people know about Debbie does Dallas

it's really iconic and it's time too and so we're very happy to have Herschel here also Herschel

by the way played Gerard Damiano in a play Dave Bertolino's

The Deep Throat Sex Scandal which was at the Zephyr Theater and I broadcast my show there and so we talked there

and I've talked to both of these amazing legendary luminaries many times they are

both sexual Olympians and we're very grateful for them being here also just

always have interesting points of view so welcome and so let's just give our reactions first of all Nina

I heard you'd never seen the movie before no I have never seen the movie by you it helped me bust the cherry

so you were a virgin to Deep Throat but the movie not the actual oh there that's the first time I've seen the movie

can you hear me I wrote in the San Francisco Bay Area and the movie came out when I was

15 years old and driving through the Tenderloin District for 10 years we don't see them

we don't build Deep Throat and behind the green door so I did eventually work for the Mitchell Brothers and famous Mitchell Brothers

and decided we could move into that but I eventually had to work with Domiano in 1989 this was my very best movie

young girl in tight jeans and deep trouble and wonder in the ass it was such a delight

working with him and I sense a humor about the material and so tonight the humor was very delightful to see

I'm shocked to see all these name-brand placements that we couldn't no longer do I didn't go to colon yet

I'm just shocked like wow fun 3D things and casual by a Jason Smith in the 3D film that was told to God

but I might start in no way what a guy would be eating the pussy of a woman getting fucked in the ass and then get cooking

and that is not the thing now it's a couple sort of we'll talk to now so that humor was good

the emphasis on tunnelingus was very nice because that is not so in heterosexual movies

now tunnelingus is sort of just to go off the way side so that was nice to see

and and the music that was really I think it was my music

and it was really scored for the movie and that was cool and again so close to some really famous songs

it seemed to me so he really got away with a lot so that was really cool I want to jump in for a second there

because a lot of people actually ask about the music because the music is such an intemoral part of the film

and our father was a big fan of music and there's a number of people here in the movie business I know

and so you know that musical score is a huge part of the budget to license music to use music to get original music

it's very very expensive but our father always took great care to use library music cuts and so forth and in this film he finally

had a little bit of a budget not a huge budget but enough of a budget where he could afford to first license some

some compositions so there are songs that you've heard before they weren't ripped off actually they were re-recorded

where it's cheaper to license the composition and then do your own performance than it is to to you know

you can't pay the Rolling Stones for satisfaction but you could get the song on the cheap and sing it yourself like that so there's a number of songs

in this they were popular radio songs with maybe the lyrics changed around a little bit just for the film but recorded specifically for this

there's a number of original songs that you know our father wrote I mean he wasn't a musician but he wrote the lyrics, he hummed the tune

they notated it and recorded it in the studio and then the rest is carefully chosen library music cuts that all together make

the soundtrack a deep throat and I really thought I'd be having a lovely sex educator here Keisha but I find it fascinating

that first I'm also the shaved vulva many years before it's time the prevalence

of uncircumcised penises well before it's time that was really nice a really nice dig and over

besides Harry Rings I had the opportunity to work with but so you know about Chakras and but having her root chakra in her throat chakra

is just a fascinating mystical take on the whole thing so that was just something I

wait a minute so I know that Keisha knows a lot about chakras yes it's funny that

it's such a comedy and a woman with the clitoris in the back of her throat but it does get you thinking about where the clitoris is

and the different chakras and by the way aren't you both Buddhist too Herschel and Nina I am Buddhist by osmosis

I think you're Buddhist by osmosis Buddhist by osmosis versus Buddhist by practice and do we have another microphone oh you're sitting with it

right why don't you say something what had you seen who should I interrupt your turn

so had you seen the throat before I didn't ask you know I've only seen excerpts so this is actually the first time I asked

you're also a virgin to the whole film the director is caught by the way so what do you think

well for me so I had a relationship with Jerry Damiano because I was one of the young

performers in New York at the time I started in 76 this is 1973 and I had

just moved to California in 79 and I got a call from Jerry to come

to New York and shoot a science fiction film called The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue and it was a wonderful experience

it really was and we shot the exteriors at the um what was the name

the world the world the former site of the World's Fair in 1964 it was just so beautifully

done and I you know one thing that I take from their father

is how much he really cared he really wanted something special and

for me I believe he found that in at least the film I did I did a number of films I can't remember all the titles

Satisfiers of Alpha Blue really stood out but um I'm just really happy

that the both of you like brought this back for the 50th anniversary I think it's like you know it was a monumental breakthrough

in terms of censorship and sexual freedom um isn't it amazing that we're all still so

repressed are we as repressed more repressed less repressed what do you think I'm not really sexually repressed

I may be more sexually inadequate my sister and I can give you our opinions but we're also

here to kind of share our father's perspective because we are all very close we grew up together with him we always knew what he did

even when we were small children even on the set of Deep Throat my sister was 6 and I was 7 years old we knew he was a filmmaker

we were never really allowed to see his films we knew they were for grownups but we knew what he did it's not some people think he was a hairdresser by day

and snuck out at night to make adult films but that's not true we always knew what he did and we were very very proud of that

and so we can offer some of his perspective because again we were very close we lived together you know at the end of his life

we all shared a house together and so forth now my father would be shocked and amazed to know what's going on

in America today he thought we were beyond this by 1974 he put out a press release saying porn is dead

he felt that once people gave up their inhibitions and their hangups and stopped prosecuting porn and persecuting

the people who made adult films that it would just kind of go away and die a quiet death that it would merge with Hollywood

and you would see big stars when they would kiss and the camera would pan to the fireplace

and zoom in well we would get to the place where the camera wouldn't pan away and would stay with the couple and maybe you'd see a little more but it wouldn't be

a separate genre it wouldn't be adult film and legitimate film it would just be film film with sex in it

so the idea that we're burning and banning books again that more books have been slated to be banned this year

than in the past 40 years since 1972 is unbelievable and our father would never have guessed this he thought that

by 1977 everybody would grow up and it would be okay and not a big deal to see a naked breast and so forth and people wouldn't

be prosecuted for this so I think he would be very surprised to see where we are today I think a lot of us are surprised

I think a lot of us thought that we were headed in a positive sex positive direction and there has been

an incredible backlash and in a way it was at a certain height in the 70s and

it's funny this film is such a locus a center of historic activity

in terms of what it's about as well as what happened around it there were the trials of course and they went on and on

trying to define obscenity there in Tennessee of films that were being shown in New Haven

and Florida and of course Warren Beatty who was in Splendor in the Grass by the way so he has a few different connections

to Deep Throat and Damiano he's also played the hairdresser in Shampoo so it's not so bad to be a hairdresser

and yeah and Jack Nicholson came out to defend Deep Throat and say that this is a film and people are

doing different things whether they're having actual sex or simulating it they're acting they're

creating a film and so they need to have freedom of speech and ultimately they were right but my goodness

the government was pushing and pushing and then finally Reagan comes into office

and it just seemed like everything turned around and at the same time as that's all going on on the outside the star

of this film the lovely Linda Lovelace who was made a star by this film really

she had a unique talent a special talent let's say not so unique but definitely special and yet she wasn't your

typical idea of an actress but she became a huge star and at first basks in it and enjoys it

and loves being a big star but then decides that she needs to confess

what happened to her which was according to her books and her interviews that she was beaten very badly

that she was abused by her husband and she never said she was abused on the set

of Deep Throat or that anybody on the crew or the cast did anything to her but because she was

the star of Deep Throat and so associated with it and Chuck her husband had been her manager as well and gotten

her into this or been part of the entry into this movie it was guilt by association

I guess you could say and there was a tremendous backlash and it was used by I guess you could call

anti-sex feminists like Katherine McKinnon who became her lawyer and Andrea Dworkin and Ronald Reagan

too who wasn't her lawyer but he certainly used her example as why porn is so bad

so so bad I mean with all the terrible things war and disease and violence and abuse out there and

they pick on porn and she was the poster girl for anti-porn now she came around later and said I'm coming to peace with

what happened and never did say that Deep Throat was at fault and she got into Leg Show magazine and

was signing her Deep Throat memorabilia very happily when she was tragically killed in a car accident so we don't know

unfortunately what would have come of Linda Lovelace I like to think she would have come around

to a more educated view of her sexual liberation but who knows and so

different people use her to express their own views and I just want to hear what our panel has to say about this

I mean we're all pretty sex positive here but an awful lot of people have picketed this movie and denied

screening for this movie because of Linda Lovelace's story and even though the Damianos have many times

set the record straight and other people have set the record straight, Rialto report by the way has some great coverage of this

as they do have a lot of things and yet people use it for their own political ends so what do you

guys think of this so erotophobia it's a large topic but

the Judeo-Christian tradition it builds on Greek tradition which fears the body and calls it and thinks that it's less

than holy less than spiritual physiologically speaking the state of ecstasy is

impossible to tell does it come from sexual pleasure, does it come from fasting, does it come from dovetting while you pray, does it come from sleep deprivation we don't know

so the human body's wired to reach ecstatic altered state of consciousness and pleasure is the most

universal accessible free no batteries needed way so how do you control people of course you control access to their bodies

and since you live in the body how do you do that indoctrination and in some cases of course extreme corporal physical means to

alienate us from our bodies thereby requiring us to seek outside for support validation and all the things

sex is chaotic sex is scary sex goes across boundaries desire doesn't listen to rules and what your shooter should

not do or what the church says so of course we have to keep it under wraps we cannot let people be educated about their bodies because then they'll realize it's a bunch

of bull hockey and they might actually you know get up and leave the church which would be bad for the status quo

and controlling women's bodies is the function of the patriarchy and since in our culture women are sex and men want

it from us it's at the very sick power dynamic so in our culture women are amputated from their sex desire

men are amputated from the hearts and their tenderness and then they say go play go play with each other so I'm not surprised at all that we have

booked bannings I'm not surprised at all that the push against queerness and LGBT is so strong

and pushback because it is a deep deep terror of the body a deep deep horror of messiness

and wetness and desire and want and all the things that are going to send you to hell you can't let it be out there in the world so they do want to control it

the cat out of the bag internet took care of that for better and for worse and here's Herschel

beautifully said thank you so I just you know the deep throat birthed

the modern pornographic industry so I kinda came in in the beginning and coming from a family

whose cousins uncles close relatives all were

professional lawyers doctors I decided to myself what could I do to really make my parents proud

anyway the point is I don't know if I fulfilled that what my parents always wanted from me

was to be happy that's what a parent wants from their children and the lesson I hope

that our industry learned the people like all of us here who have performed is to appreciate

our lives and the people we've worked with it wasn't just about cash and carry I mean I developed

some beautiful relationships because I really love women and it's really hard to maintain a positive self-image

when the mirror that's staring back at you in society is like Dr. Block said banning books

excuse me it's outrageous but as fast as we move forward we're being

pulled back so people really can't be free so I hope that those of us that

chose to be porn performers enabled other people to feel good about

themselves and to share loving feelings in a physical way I hope that's my legacy at the worst

yes and we appreciate it we really do because whether you call yourself a sex educator or not

sex education is so censored and so sparse that what you do is important

sex education for everyone just to see the body I remember when I first saw deep throat and I was just graduated from college

and I was in New Haven and it was a big theater with lines around the block

and I just didn't know what I was going to but I thought this is the popular movie this is the date movie and I went with my date and oh my

God naked pussy cock and so much hair I mean yes Linda Lovelace was

shaved but nobody else and Harry Reems made up for everybody else so it was shocking thank God for Brazilian wax

thank God but yeah I calmed down and relaxed and it was a good date movie

it was foreplay for great sex later and also more than that there was something about being in the theater

that created this sense of what I call communal ecstasy it's just this feeling like oh we're all

sitting here watching sex yeah it's right in front of us and it's kind of reminiscent perhaps

of earlier times when we would all do it in groups when there would be orgies or sex in the caves

and there's something in us that craves that, that craves that group experience

and maybe it's not so healthy to just do it with everybody but it's okay to watch it and it's really inspiring

I think but I do want to hear from maybe the Damianos about

maybe a little more about the controversies because I know our porn legends of course they don't see it as controversies but

a lot of people out there are just like deep throat no, no and in fact we had a theater cancel on us

because of this controversy and it was theater owner that really respected the film

and wanted to show the film but some people were triggered and they'd heard about Linda Lovelace and only pieces

of it and it's just one of those things that can turn people off, can turn on

that erotophobia that Nina's talking about so let's address that for a moment because the best way to

turn off the erotophobia is to recognize it, to see it and address it. Okay well yes it has

been a little bit of a rollercoaster for us because everyone is so excited about this but then people are afraid they're afraid of what other

people will think or you know to be canceled everyone is canceling everyone and I think there are some people out there that are just

too woke that everything um you know everything triggers them

and I think that's why we're here to talk about you know the women today are so objectified but then you know they're

out there flaunting themselves and short shorts and half naked bodies on the street but then if you approach them then

you know it's bad so I think there's a mixed message out there so that's why we're here to talk about it

answer questions and give people the real story. Yeah so I just would like to speak on that about the controversy

and also offer some of my dad's perspective and also give a little insight as to the true story of what happened on the set of Deep Throat and during that

because Linda Lovelace's story is a very complicated one and she suffered greatly at the hands of her husband

and that's a very important point because people are very sensitive today you know we're in a post-Metoo world

and the metoo movement is thousands of years overdue I mean it's about time that there's a awareness

of you know abuse of women is epidemic you know in a physical real way but also the abuse of women through the patriarchy you know

systematically so this is something we're all becoming aware of and that's that's a good thing you know it's about awareness but

right now we're living in a world where there's been such a reaction to this that people are more afraid

of sex than ever before people are afraid to talk about it and we live in a cancel culture and a cancel culture is dangerous because

if there's something that bothers you or triggers you or by just pretending it doesn't exist or not talking about it is not helpful

and it's not healing instead that's what makes people even more afraid because then they can't work through this they can't have a deeper

understanding it's either black or white and Linda's story was not black and white at all it was 50 shades of gray so yes she was

definitely abused by her husband there's no question but the reason that there's been such you know fear

of this film deep throat is not about the sex now 50 years ago when it came out the very important issue of the day was obscenity

and deep throat was busted because it was obscene across the line and then what was on trial as Dr.

Suzy mentioned is obscenity what is obscenity and who gets to decide and deep throat brought out that discussion and that was the most important issue

at the time now today you know misogyny violence against women is the important issue and we're happy that at least

that sparks the discussion but the people that have protested us the most the people that have the strongest feelings have not seen the

film they don't know what it's about they don't know the complexity of Linda's story they know a couple of clips on YouTube that they googled

and then or somebody told them that they googled and they've made up their mind and we should cancel deep throat because it's that woman was raped

okay now that in and of itself is not true the fact that Linda was abused and in her own personal life had been you know

raped and prostituted and all kinds of stuff I wouldn't even you know pretend to know all the intricacies of that but that was between

her and her husband and she definitely suffered greatly but when she got on the set of deep throat she was treated like a star and it could

be said that her relationship with her husband changed then and there and he became very jealous and he did beat her up during

the filming of deep throat but it was not because she did not want to do the film and that's a very important point because the anti-porn feminist

and they've convinced everybody else that that's what happened she didn't want to have sex and everyone conspired to make her

and to force her and put a gun to her head so that she'd have to have sex and they filmed it now that is not what happened on the set of deep throat

quite the opposite in that she and her own sexual technique is what inspired this film

people have said ask my father how did you ever find somebody that could do that he said you never could find somebody

that could do that and I saw what she could do and I wrote the script for her made up the story for her

that sex is what she brought to it she was very nervous before making the film and not because she didn't want to have sex on camera

she was excited about that what she was scared of was she never had acting experience she didn't study with Stella Adler

and Uda Hagen she studied with my dad for three weeks he gave her a kind of boot camp taught her

not only about acting but about acting for film which is very different you know stage acting is different when you're

acting in a film there's certain techniques there's things that you learn how to hit your mark how to find your light

not look at the camera stay in character and like that so he worked with her for weeks so that she felt comfortable

she was very shy in real life and very timid so just to get her to project and kind of come out of her shell and so this idea that she was kind of

you know locked up in a cage and dragged to the set of deep throat and then let out and then you know a gunpoint force back in

this idea that people have is untrue what really happened on the set of deep throat was that once she got to Miami

she was treated like a movie star now before that her husband was very domineering and as far as anyone knew

there that was their kink that was their thing they were swingers this was the sexual revolution they had a dominant submissive relationship

he would snap his fingers she would be there nobody questioned that that's just who they were and how they presented themselves

on the set of deep throat they kept to themselves they didn't really mix my sister and I were there

and we were very friendly with a lot of the cast and crew these were people that we grew up with that we knew Harry Reems was our uncle Herbie and he was fun to play with

Linda and Chuck they didn't play with kids so much they kind of stayed off to themselves and so very early on in the production

Chuck kept getting pushed off to the side he was used to being in front she would follow behind him but now everybody was treating her like a star

and telling him that he was in the way and also she had a little bit of crush on Harry Reems he was a good looking guy

he was charming he was funny and like that Chuck wasn't any of those things so the night before

the big scene they got into a spat lovers or a quarrel they were married

so behind closed and locked doors at the hotel where everyone was saying he beat her up but again the misconception was

that he beat her because she didn't want to do the film but the next morning she came to my father and said

I'm not going to be able to do the scene Chuck is so jealous he doesn't want me to do it and so my father thought

and he said alright we'll figure something out we'll take care of Chuck so he went to Chuck and he said look we're having an issue

we're running out of film we need somebody to go across town and pick up some more film stock Chuck was a PA on the shoot

even though his credit is production manager but Harry Reems was actually the production manager people don't realize that he was hired on this film to work behind the scenes

but when the person who was the actor didn't come through he gladly jumped in he was always ready to go

Harry Reems but my father said thank God because who else could have played that role the way he did you know he's so perfect in it

but that was completely by chance and so Chuck got in my father's

Cadillac to drive across town to buy some more film Linda relaxed and then they did the scene now this is a story again

which is not on YouTube it wasn't seized for political purposes by anti-porn feminists

or by republicans and so forth this is just what actually happened and for a while after the film came out Linda was riding high

on this wave of not just the celebrity but when my father wrote

the part for her it wasn't just about her technique it was about her spirit it was about who she

who she projected herself to be and that was this woman who was totally sexually free

who was open she loved to talk and interviews after the film about how if everyone would just let go of their inhibitions and it would be okay

there would be no more war etc you know she was herself in other words my father writing the

part and wrote Linda Lovelace as herself he was trying to portray that a woman who was free

sexually and so years later when her career didn't work out the way she had hoped and you know

she didn't want to do porn anymore she wanted to settle down she was the most famous porn star in the world she was the very first

porn star and when they made the film no one had any idea of the success of it

the backers thought they would triple their money and go home my dad was just trying to finish a feature length film shot on 35 millimeter

you know Linda was just happy to be in a movie nobody dreamed that 50 years later here we would be talking about it and it still has people

up in arms okay but I think that for Linda and this is my opinion you know after 10 years when she wanted to settle down

and have kids she couldn't escape that celebrity because she was famous famous around the world

but famous for sucking cock okay not just famous for you know discovering the cure for cancer or something so I'm sure she

couldn't go to the grocery store or you know fill up her tank at the gas station without somebody saying hey aren't you so I think that might have had

something to do with the fact that she had to really remove herself from the whole equation the only way she could kind of walk away

was to say I had nothing to do with it I was forced the whole time there was a gun held to my head it wasn't me that was somebody else but

that's my opinion but again I'm talking a lot but I just wanted to share some of that because you have a perspective

but these are stories that my sister and I grew up with in other words what really happened on the set of Deep Throat because we were all there

you know my mother was there my father was there and I should just end by saying that we've shown the film now around the world

on this world tour they love it in Italy we were in six different cities we showed in Germany and Holland in Belgium

but in the United States this has been the hardest place for us to show the film and

especially on the west coast that for us to be here in this theater tonight you would have no idea Dr. Suzy is probably the only one who knows

because she's been very helpful in trying to help us find a venue that would actually allow us to show the film because we've had different

venues my sister and I went to Vancouver British Columbia and show the film and there were death threats people threatened to cut our

heads off and burn the theater down with us inside of it okay there was a protest of 40 people out in front now we understand

their anger and there was a lot of women who had been raped and so to them Linda was symbolic you know a victim who nobody

believed somebody who was raped and people propited off of but that fits into their own agenda that's not really who she was and what really happened I mean

she portrayed that later on but that wasn't the whole story but it doesn't matter none of the people protesting the film had actually seen the film

which as all of you who have seen is very sex positive and also almost a feminist in a sense because the woman was

first and foremost it's about her quest for sexual pleasure it's about her satisfaction which was something again very new seeing

cunnilingus in a film it was a big deal okay even today you don't see that you know so much so the crazy

idea of the clitoris in the throat it got people talking it got men who didn't even know where the clitoris was anyway so it might as well have been in

the throat so suddenly this was a topic of conversation and so that's part of why this is such an important film and it's

just ironic that today some people think it's the opposite of that the people protesting outside thought it was some kind of snuff film we're actually going to see

a document of this woman being abused and that's not the story of it at all so we're happy to be here tonight

we're going to be at 910 WeHo in West Hollywood tomorrow to show the film in a different setting not the beautiful theater that's historic

like this one but you know it's more of a kinky club where we'll have we'll show the film and talk back

we have an intimacy coordinator joining us to be part of the discussion to get more perspective on it not just people who work with my father

but kind of see where we're at today because on the set of Deep Throat not only where there's no intimacy coordinator there wasn't even

a makeup artist they didn't have a still photographer and to think all of the abuse that Linda suffered

it was not during filming everybody was working together and very respectful of each other it's in Hollywood where you really need

intimacy coordinators because people are getting to take advantage of but on a porn film people are there to have sex anyway

so it's a different circumstance I'll shut up now and turn it back to Dr. Suzy thank you for your perspective

sort of an insider perspective of Deep Throat so to speak and what really happened

because it is a film that has so much impact on people and people bring their own

desires and fears to it even if they don't see it which most of them don't but we are grateful that you came

to see it and we'd like to know if you have any questions we have other luminaries in the crowd but first let's take

some questions before I introduce them I got to ask Superman what you wanted to say well I wanted to just comment

I think Kershle and Nina can agree that showing Kenalingas has improved much since 1972 I don't think that was proper technique

and I'm gay but while watching it I noticed certain things that reflect that era

that weren't intentional like when she finds a guy that she's able to please and pleases her as well she's like let's get married

I think that tells a lot about that time period in which there is that focus on oh marriage is an ultimate goal and that's something

we can see has definitely changed for a lot of people in the past 50 years I'm curious for the people on the panel while you were watching it are there

other things that struck out times have changed that really signal like either social

or political or anything that just really kind of stuck out as a big change in the past 50 years yes Nina

the whole casual race thing oh yeah yes that would not be presented nowadays

as a great foreplay for a marriage right but in that it was presented like oh yeah

he had plausible deniability because before we see the whole scene porn is certainly a live-action cartoon and Damiano had

great sense of humor it was clearly he's not really a robber even I could tell that but you could not have a weapon in a scene

today absolutely not even the hint one not even using your fingers as that is verboten name brands are verboten

he squirted around it by having the nurse say into the recorder that's the fantasy that he has but just

to the casual throwing around at the R word that is definitely an artifact of that of that time for sure

and plus it a lot of people believe then still believe that all women really need is a good digging down

and they're just the ones to do it yeah it's a male fantasy for the most part although there are some very oral women

but you know it struck me I don't know if this is in answer to your question but the coca-cola

scene like you say product placement but also very strange with the little device where you drink the coca-cola

right up against his pubic bone and his pubic hair there and suddenly I realized justice

or let's say injustice supreme injustice supreme court injustice Clarence Thomas if you recall

those of you who are old enough his hearing with Anita Hill she said he said

who put the pubic hair on my coke can and I could never figure out where he got that idea

of pubic hair on a coke can and when I saw this for the second time when Gerard gave me a copy

to look at I didn't notice it the first time but now that Clarence Thomas has said and I look at it and I go that's where he got it

because he was and probably still is a porn fan a very hypocritical one of course the worst kind

but I think that's where he got it from this scene is where he got the pubic hair on the coke can and on top of everything

the old spice rip off I love that I would add a couple things to that

just in reference to the songs it's come up a lot and we've often wondered how did Coca-Cola who's notoriously litigious

allow that to get away and also old spice and the more I thought about it again this is an opinion my father never got sued

and still nobody's come forward is that in the 1970s early 1970s this was a phenomenon

people were lined up around the block to see the movie if it made $600 million think of all the views of it and 50 years later

we're still watching it where you hear that Coca-Cola jingle and you go out with it subliminally in your head as if you were watching a commercial

and they realize that well we could we could have a cease and desist and make them take it out of the movie or leave it in and think of how many people

this is the trendy hip movie and it's got product placement that we didn't even have to pay for so left it in had they taken it out

you wouldn't be whistling the Coca-Cola jingle out of here same thing with old spice is that that really pays for itself

and just a thing about what has changed I'll just say the industry that was non-existent when my father made this film

there wasn't really an adult film industry you had swingers you had actors you were all putting it together so

so much has changed in that regard and I can speak from experience I met Herschel on the set of Alpha Blue when I was a kid

I was painting sets and making props I met Nina on the set of young girls in tight jeans in deep trouble when I was working

with my father as art director slash boom man or whatever holding the mic and so forth and things had changed

so much in that there was a lot of tropes in the you know valley porn that came out of the 80s and 90s that were part of the

industry the look the you know puffy lips and tit jobs and blonde hair and Malibu

look or whatever all of these things that you see in all those movies when my father was making Deep Throat and the other movies that come after

they were just making it up as they went along there were no stereotypes there weren't agents for porn stars you can say you know give me somebody

he'll do anal you know it was a whole different thing and so by the time he ended his career there was an entire industry that didn't even have

much use for him because he wanted to make a movie and they just wanted to make you know one day wonder do three in a weekend then you know cash

in and go home so that all changed as I mentioned before and this I'll leave on this is one thing my father really pointed out

was that on the set of Deep Throat there was no still photographer so at the end of the shoot when it was all done and everybody had gone

home except you know our family and Linda and Chuck he asked her to put on her bathing suit and took her out by the pool and he took those couple of shots

that are on the movie poster because they didn't even think to have a still photographer now flash forward to the end of his career when now

I'm out in California working with him on set with Nina who was in five of his films at that end of here his career he

discovered that after the production they would do a photo shoot as a separate thing

they didn't just they shot stills on the set but they would do a separate photo shoot for the box cover which was the big clam

shells those of you who remember VHS it wasn't just the sleeve it was a big clam shell for an extra big picture and also these slicks you know

you know eight by ten glossy two-sided things and he said that he discovered that the budget to do that

shoot for the box cover was more than he got to make the entire movie that was in the box so that in and of

itself shows you how things had changed from when deep throat was made to when our father in 1992

retired from porn I just want to say before we go back to questions that Christy Canyon is in the room

yay and and of course Luke is

filming and Alexandra silk silky up there, Luke Wilder, Alexandra silk

and who else is here Alan Adrian Adrian yeah

so we're excited to see you all it's not exactly a family but definitely a community so

questions or comments yes why did your father use a different name as director? the reason is actually not because he wanted

to hide his identity he thought going into deep throat that this was going to be his big film that he wanted more Hollywood sounding name

so to him Jerry Gerard was you know sounded a little more Hollywood not so ethnic and so forth but after that

that was the one and only time that he used an alias he's also Al Gork in the movie as actor

as the last man but after that he realized that everybody in porn used pseudonyms and nom de pornes as we

call them because they didn't want anybody to know what they did but he was really proud of what he did so we thought you know I'm not afraid to put

my own name on it and especially later not much later but when people were getting busted especially out in California

it was really dangerous you had to really be an outlaw and to put your name on a film you're out there and so

that was the one and only time that he didn't do that other questions yes this is the first time I've seen this film

it's really fascinating I'm a filmmaker and I'm just fascinated by the cultural reaction that happened immediately it's actually like Star Wars type

blockbuster phenomenon and you're watching this I'd love to get the panel's perspective on why it became mainstream

America went to this film and was willing to do that publicly bring their girlfriends and boyfriends to this my instinct is there's

enormously to the characters they appear it's not salacious it's not a salacious movie

and very much it appears certainly how Ms. Lovelace portrayed herself she looks like she's enjoying herself she's girl next door

very much enjoying herself especially the final moments of the movie feels like she looks like she's satisfied and so was that

the issue or were there other cultural phenomena happening there that made this what it was that is the ultimate question

why deep throat why did it make such a splash so what does our panel think this movie really captured

the zeitgeist of the time the women's movement the sexual liberation movement the gay liberation movement is just starting

the black liberation movement the earth liberation movement everything seemed to be shifting and the old ways seemed to be dying out

and the shock of seeing things never before imagined just was astonishing and it seemed

it was very free for the time we now know it also caused a lot of backlash but it spoke

to the moment everything was changing and the

Nixon was out the party was starting the Carl Roevey end of the political spectrum was like oh yeah we'll show you

and that's who's emerging now they've been after that movie and everything it stands for for 50 years it was just

it was just too much for them absolutely of course so this is truly the age of

Aquarius we ended the 50s rock and roll was born and society

was changing drastically and then we get to Woodstock and everything breaks open the rain floods the field

people are kissing in the rain and it was just a natural progression I think from Woodstock

Altamont was sort of not a good time if you know the movie Kimmy Shelter with the Hells Angels

but at any rate it was like people were for the first time saying you know what I don't feel bad about this

I want to have fun even though their parents wanted the best for them they wanted to be free and Deep Throat was a part

of being free I grew up in New York so I remember when Deep Throat came out and I didn't see it at the time

I was a young man and I read the newspaper religiously and there were lines

around the block as Gerard knows I mean it was crazy man the famous people that all of a sudden

I mean if you can imagine a 1960s businessman and a tan trench coat

not a sleazy trench coat but these were the people that were lining up along with Jackie Oh and it was like whoa

and that served to like fuel it even further so what was something that as Gerard said looked to get

three times their money back went on to you know envy Star Wars but sadly

their father didn't cash in as he should have I know the story more personally because I

worked in the play about it so I learned more about the details but either way I mean

people have claims to fame in some way and Gerard Damiano definitely has a claim to fame as long as we're on the planet

oh yeah definitely a revolutionary film and yeah it just seemed to be to some degree in the right place

at the right time there was a war on sex it seemed to be part of the make love not war zeitgeist

and I believe it still is I mean it's the bonobo way and that as we are more and more in a state of

permawar abroad and at home I mean we've got so many AR-15s amongst us at the same time

sex is being more and more censored and confined I've been censored on Facebook

and Instagram over nothing the Kinsey Institute was just defunded by the Indiana state

legislature so this is happening right now and deep throat was at this wonderful time

in a way when the throat was open when we were open to sex and love and connection

and it's funny that it's about a doctor I always find it's a bit of a medical fetish you know in the nurse

and we do need to be taken care of we all need sexual healing and this is kind of an underlying

theme in this funny silly film is this theme of sexual healing of all these people that need it

both the nurse and the patients and the doctor they all need sexual healing and by the way about the marriage

thing yes they get married in the end but it's funny she wants to marry the doctor and he says no no no I can't do that I don't want to do that

I want to give you a job so this was part of feminism of a sex positive feminism

where yeah you worked and you could have fun and you could give pleasure to others give

sexual healing okay we're out of time so we're so happy you could join us thank you so much

and thank you Gerard and Cristar Damiano well thank you Dr. Suzy for for herding cats up here

moderating and thank you for again helping us find this place before we go out a couple of things I just want to say we're

trying to get deep throat recognized by the National Film Registry so we invite everyone to go online votethroat.org

you can vote for up to 50 films a year 25 are selected for preservation by the Library of Congress National Film Registry

so we encourage everybody to vote throat also if you haven't gotten enough tonight and you want to come join us at 910 WeHo

it's going to be a same film different panel different atmosphere and stay for the after party

70s themed dance party dress porno chic so we hope to see again otherwise follow us

at deep throat film on twitter and facebook at deep throat movie on instagram come see us in cyberspace

and thank you again Nina Hartley and Herschel Savage and do join us tomorrow night we're going to have Agua Cocoa Leaf LeCour

but Nobleville Communion for those of you who know about that thank you talk with someone about something you can't

talk about with anyone else you can talk to us I'm Dr. Susan Block your mistress of the airwaves

but my day job is director of the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts and Sciences specializing in sex therapy

over the phone anytime you need to talk whether you need serious psychotherapy or a hot phone sex experience

or a combination my world renowned telephone sex therapists are just a phone call away totally private absolutely confidential

we listen talk with you advise you role play for you fantasize with you no fantasy is too taboo

and help you with anything from impotence to exhibitionism fears to desires fetishes to marriages

for more information call us at 213 291 9497 that's 213 291

9497 anytime you need to talk you're listening to radio suzi one on the world wide web