Olivia Young and Linda Lovelace

In 1980, Olivia Young was a young black home nursing administrator in Janna Medical Systems, a large medical center in St. Louis, Missouri. She was invited to a meeting with the CEO of St. Louis University Medical Center and four top administrators, all men, to discuss using the hospital as a training site for nurses. As she was presenting an overview of her proposed course of training, the men interrupted to ask if she would review “one of the films we use to educate our nurses.” She agreed and the five men proceeded to run the film “Deep Throat,” which Ms. Young had never heard of. As the men giggled, the pornographic nature of the film became clear, and they began to hoot things like “We could make you feel that way, Olivia,” “Look at that dick,” and “I’ll bet you’ve never seen one this big before, have you?”

When Ms. Young began sobbing, the CEO Richard Strensrude declared “This film represents the price of doing business with Dick Stensrude!” As Linda Lovelace was gang-raped on the screen, a secretary walked in and said “Oh, you’re at it again” and Ms. Young took the opportunity to escape the room and the hospital.

At first she was sure she should not tell her husband, but after weeks in a stupor after the incident she finally told him what had happened. Her initial instinct to not tell him was understandable, as he blamed her for the incident and claimed the men wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t asked for it somehow. She withdrew from physical intimacy with him. Every time they tried to make love, movie scenes of anal intercourse and group rape intruded in her head. After several years of his rage and marriage counseling, their 16-year marriage ended. Following that, she was fired from the job she had held for 13 years because she would not drop the tort action for emotional distress she had brought against St. Louis University, the St. Louis University Medical Center, and Ricard Strensrude.

Ms. Young spent 10 years in the court systems. The court found the men not liable, and on appeal she lost at the appellate level and was rejected for consideration by the Missouri State Supreme Court and the U. S. Supreme Court. After the trial in which the jury denied her any damages, she and her lawyer found that over half of the jurors had already seen “Deep Throat” as entertainment. They were not going to acknowledge that the pornographic scenes of rape and sexual torture were used to shock, intimidate and humiliate Ms. Young.

Also in 1980, the “star” of the pornographic film that Ms. Young was ambushed with published an autobiography, “Ordeal.”

In it, Linda Lovelace described her relationship with her manager, pimp, and husband, Chuck Traynor:

When in response to his suggestions I let him know I would not become involved in prostitution in any way and told him I intended to leave, [Traynor] beat me up physically and the constant mental abuse began. I literally became a prisoner, I was not allowed out his sight, not even to use the bathroom, where he watched me through a hole in the door. He slept on top of me at night, he listened to my telephone calls with a .45 automatic eight shot pointed at me. I was beaten physically and suffered mental abuse each and every day thereafter. He undermined my ties with other people and forced me to marry him on advice from his lawyer. My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed…The lives of my family were threatened.

In 1986, she testified before Congress, “When you see the movie Deep Throat, you are watching me being raped. It is a crime that movie is still showing; there was a gun to my head the entire time.”

Nobody was ever prosecuted for the actions against Ms. Young or Ms. Lovelace. The movie has the reputation of “bringing pornography to the middle class.” It grossed at least $100 million since its release in 1972, none of which went to Ms. Lovelace. It is considered hopelessly quaint by today’s pornographic standards.

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For more information on Olivia Young, see Chapter One of The Price We Pay: The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, 1995, Laura Lederer, Pub. Farrar Straus & Giroux

For more information on Linda Lovelace see Ordeal and Out of Bondage