CARNAL NATION

According to files recently released to the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a massive and desperate campaign to suppress the landmark 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat. In an attempt to hamper the burgeoning sexual revolution and the rise of pornography, the FBI repeatedly tried to stop screenings of the film and gathered evidence for the myriad obscenity trials that continued for years. Agents from most major FBI field offices around the U.S. seized copies of the film, confiscated and analyzed negatives, and interviewed just about everyone involved in the film, including actors, producers, and even the people who delivered the film reels to theaters. The files also contain correspondence about the campaign between the top bureau administrators, indicating both the breadth and level of priority dedicated to what would prove to be a vain effort. The correspondence shows that William Mark Felt, the Bureau's Associate Director and second in command, was regularly briefed on the investigations. Felt became known as "Deep Throat" for his role in leaking information about corruption in the Nixon administration to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, resulting in the Watergate scandal and ultimately Nixon's resignation.  "Today we can't imagine authorities at any level of government – local, state or federal – being involved in obscenity prosecutions of this kind," said Mark Weiner, a constitutional law professor and legal historian at Rutgers-Newark School of Law. "The story of Deep Throat is the story of the last gasp of the forces lined up against the cultural and sexual revolution and it is the advent of the entry of pornography into the mainstream." The files released this month constitute only a fraction of the total paperwork generated by the investigation, which includes a 4,800-page file on the film's director Gerard Damiano.

With the tagline "How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle," the 61-minute Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace (who would later claim that she was forced to do), was meant to be both titillating and funny. It was one of the first pornographic films to feature a plot, character development, and high production values. The film follows the exploits of a sexually frustrated woman in her quest to achieve an orgasm. After a visit to a doctor, it's discovered that (remember it's also supposed to be a comedy) Linda's clitoris is actually located in her throat, which leads her to develop and perform a particular style of fellatio that now takes its name from the film. Made with an initial investment of $25,000 (allegedly from an organized crime syndicate), the film has grossed as much as $600 million since its initial release. It also became pop-cultural phenomenon, dubbed "porno chic," with both high-profile celebrities and mainstream Americans clamoring to see the X-rated romp. Deep Throat marked the end of an era in American life and culture that the FBI was earnestly but futilely trying to preserve. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said of the scope of the FBI's investigation, "Certainly today, with our broadly socially less restrictive attitude to most pornography and to sex more broadly it may seem odd that the government was spending so much effort on something like this. But attitudes back then were much different." Not so different, however, to allow the FBI to put a gag on Deep Throat, no matter how hard it may have been to swallow. Given how much debate we still have over issues of sexuality and pornography nearly 40 years after the film's release, it seems that Americans are still trying to untangle their tingle.

[Editor's Note: A play entitled The Deep Throat Sex Scandal by David Bertolino premieres off-Broadway at the HA! Theater in New York City on August 31. The cast has not yet been announced.]