Yesterday, I reviewed Inside Linda Lovelace, one of the books Lovelace wrote while she was still inhabiting the personality of the sex-toy 60s porn star. I consider I am honour bound also to review Ordeal, the book she wrote after leaving the porn industry. It's a very disquieting read. Lovelace completely denies all her earlier testimony. She says that, for years, she was regularly raped and brutalised by her partner, Chuck Traynor. Traynor controlled every aspect of her life and forced her into prostitution and pornography. Any time she objected, he threatened to kill her. When she needed to make a phone call, he would hold a loaded gun pointed at her while she talked. It is a little difficult to reconcile the two versions. Given that she admits to having systematically lied for years, one of course wonders whether this book isn't just more lies. Maybe her new life was being controlled by the feminist anti-porn movement in as cynical a way as her old life was controlled by Traynor.Well, I was thinking that earlier today, and literally a couple of minutes later the morning paper arrived. Let me copy in the story that appeared at the bottom of page 1 of The Guardian:At midnight on 28 November last year, Sarah made the phone call she says she thought would save her life. After nine years of abuse from a man she describes as so controlling that she wasn't allowed her own purse, let alone bank card or driving licence, she had finally been pushed over the edge.Minutes earlier, as she tells the story, she had been held down and savagely raped by her husband, Ray, again. When he went downstairs to have a cigarette, she dialled 999 and whispered to the operator what had happened. Waiting for the police to arrive, she feared Ray would kill her, but when the officers came and eventually found him hiding in woods nearby, she thought the worst was over and she would finally be safe. Ray would go to jail and she could make a new life for herself and their children.But on 5 November, almost exactly a year later, she was the one in the dock, being told by a judge that she was going to prison. And as she made her way in a van from Mold crown court in north Wales to start an eight-month sentence at Styal prison in Cheshire, Ray was waiting at the school gates to pick up the children. Ray pleaded not guilty to the rape charges and the Crown Prosecution Service subsequently decided to discontinue proceedings against him.On Tuesday, Sarah was released on appeal, on the orders of the lord chief justice, Lord Judge, the most senior member of the judiciary in England and Wales. There should be, said Judge, "a broad measure of compassion for a woman who had already been victimised". She had served 18 days.Sarah had been convicted of perverting the course of justice after retracting what Judge said was a "truthful" allegation that Ray had raped her six times. To many people, a rape retraction would be a clear sign of a damaged woman under pressure from a manipulative partner. But to the CPS, Sarah was perverting the course of justice.On Thursday night, she sat down and spoke to the Guardian for two hours from her older sister's house in Powys, mid-Wales. Judge had ordered her not to return to her own home, occupied by Ray and the children she hasn't spoken to since 5 November, when she told them she was going for some Christmas shopping; in reality she was heading to court to hear her sentence."Leaving those kids that morning was the most heart-wrenching thing I've had to do in all my life," said Sarah. "I remember kissing my eldest before they went to school and I wanted to kiss the youngest before they went to nursery, but I couldn't, I had to get in the car. I didn't want them to see me upset."Sarah is 28, but she looks 10 years older after spending, as she describes it, almost all of her adult life submitting to the wishes of a man who terrifies her. She picks her words carefully, apologising when she can feel tears coming, continually calling herself "stupid" and "foolish" for mistakes she says she has made. Her voice does not waver as she details years of abuse, but she avoids eye contact, staring straight ahead with dull eyes as she calmly details "a year of hell".At 11:30am last Tuesday, Sarah was working in Styal's prison garden when a guard told her that her barrister was on the phone."I was a little bit excited, thinking that the judge in London would maybe actually see what I had been through and see it for what it was and decide not to punish me any more," she said. "I felt personally that I had been let down seriously." When the lord chief justice's judgment came though shortly after noon, her happiness was tempered with anger."Don't get me wrong," she said, "I'm glad the judge let me out of Styal. But I haven't been let out without a punishment and yet I shouldn't have been punished at all."When Judge quashed her custodial sentence, he replaced it with a community sentence and a supervision order for two years. Though she is now free, she has a criminal record.A spokesperson for the CPS said: "Prosecutors are acutely aware of the difficulties some complainants face in reporting rape and supporting a prosecution. We recognise the sensitive and complex issues around domestic abuse and sexual violence. Decisions to prosecute women who report rape are taken only after very careful consideration of the evidence and public interest requirements and are never taken lightly."We will carefully consider the court of appeal's judgement, and particularly any comments that relate to our conduct of the case, with a view to determining any action that is required."A police spokesperson said: "Dyfed-Powys police, in line with national requirements, treat, and will continue to treat, all allegations of sexual assaults seriously. The officers involved in the case would be happy to discuss and address any concerns the victim has directly between each other."Ray, meanwhile, is holed up in the matrimonial home, refusing pleas from Sarah's family to stick to a plan agreed in conjunction with a liaison officer from Barnardo's before she was sentenced. This formal but not legally binding agreement stipulated that her sister would care for the children in the event that Sarah was sent down.Ever since she went to the police to allege rape last year, the children had lived with Sarah in the family home, but Ray was allowed to see them regularly with agreement. But it was allowing him this contact which, Sarah believes, was her downfall. "He used them to get me," she said.Ray was not afraid to draw the children into the most harrowing scenes. "After he raped me, before I called 999, I was sitting by the side of the bed in tears, and he went and woke up our oldest child, pulled them into the bedroom and said, 'Look at the state of your mother. She's called the police and the police are going to come and take daddy away'," said Sarah.When the police did come and take Ray away, the confused children, dressed in pyjamas and their dressing gowns, were bundled into the back of a police car and taken to a friend's house. Sarah was taken to a sexual assault referral centre in Shrewsbury, where she was photographed, forensically examined and interviewed on video.Initially, she says, the police were very good. Charges were swiftly brought against Ray, and he was remanded in custody. It was while he was on remand that Sarah believes the first key mistake was made: he was allowed to write emotional letters to the children, telling them what a "horrible" place prison was."At Styal prison and, I assume, every prison, they have to read all the letters that go out and all the letters that come in," said Sarah. "So if those letters had been checked by the proper people, they should have known why he was in there and looked at the address where the incident happened and looked at the address where the letters were being sent and quite obviously seen what was going on there. There were, I think, four letters that came through the children. It wasn't just one that slipped through the net."After three weeks on remand, Ray was let out on bail, just in time for Christmas.His bail conditions stipulated that he should have no contact with Sarah nor visit the matrimonial home. But before long, he was calling and texting, asking her to bring the children round to his mother's house to see him. "He asked me to come because he had hurt his hand and he couldn't pick up the youngest," said Sarah."He said he had no support from his family, that none of them were about and I wanted to help so I very foolishly took the kids down. But it was quite obvious, as soon as I had set foot in that house, that he didn't want to see the kids, that it was me he wanted to see."At one stage he wanted to give me a hug; he started crying and saying sorry for what he had done to me."And so, said Sarah, he wangled his way back. "It was the usual thing: 'I'm so sorry, I promise I won't hurt you again.' Every time I get sucked back in. I wasn't strong enough. I was in a very vulnerable state. He said how horrible prison was."He was telling me about drug dealers coming off their drugs and cutting their arms and there being blood all over the cells, horrible things like that, which made me, even though it wasn't my fault he had raped me, it made me feel in a way guilty because I had rung 999 and I had put him there."She continued. "He told me he didn't want to go back there and he had been told by his solicitor that he was looking at a lot of years. And that's when the first slip happened, when he said I was going to have to go to the police station and tell them I didn't want to take it any further."So I rang the CID police officer who had dealt with my case, and he said: 'From the moment you dialled 999 to just before Ray got bail, you were doing everything we asked you to. And from the moment he got bail, he got to you.'But if they had an inkling that he was getting to me you would have thought, surely to god, that they would have stepped up the emotional support. But there was no extra support, no nothing."There were numerous warning signs for the police that Ray was controlling her, she says. "I remember one time [after she had been charged with perverting the course of justice] a police officer said to me, 'So where's your purse, where's your bank cards?' and I said, 'He's got them all'. He asked why and I said, 'Because he keeps everything'. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere on my own. Ray had to take me. I didn't have my own handbag, my own wallet - nothing."I remember once wanting to get my driving licence, and my dad said to Ray, 'she needs to get her licence, it would be so much easier so she could come and go and you wouldn't have to take her to all these places.' And he swung round to my dad and said: 'Yeah, but if she gets her licence I won't know where she is.'"Though Sarah told the police she wanted to drop the charges in January last year, the CPS said they were continuing with the case against Ray. Then came an "out of the blue" visit from Ray's sister, Janine, who told Sarah it would be "very helpful" if she were to not only drop the charges but confess to "making it all up".By this point, Ray and Sarah's relationship was "half back on" - "for the sake of the children" says Sarah - and they had had consensual sex over the Christmas period. Janine handed Sarah the phone and she called the police. She said she had been lying and that he hadn't raped her. When they told her she would have to make a formal statement, the sister drove her to the police station.No one really believed the rapes had been a fiction of her imagination, she says. "It was horrible because I knew the police officers and the solicitors believed that the rapes did happen but the CPS wanted to prosecute me for perverting the course of justice."It was unbelievable. I remember going in and seeing my solicitor and finding out what course of action they were going to take and I was in tears coming out of the police station."I still can't get my head around the fact that the police officers and my solicitor knew damn well I had been raped and even when I rang the main CID person and said the rapes did happen as I had originally said, he said: 'I just thought it was only a matter of time before you came to me and said yes, they did happen.' Still to this day I can't get my head around it."She wishes that she had stood her ground after plucking up the courage to call 999."I regret greatly not staying stronger and going through with the trial in May. I really do, even to this day. It upsets me a great deal that after that horrific ordeal, he's got away with it. It does worry me greatly. I feel sorry for the next woman that he meets. I hope they see him for what he really is because I don't want them to have to go through what I did," she said.When asked what she wants from the future, it is clear her own ambitions are modest: "I want to get my kids back and get my house back and get my life back. To start to live again. I used to be a very independent person but I've got no confidence left. I've got to rebuild all that."I just want to be happy. At the end of the day, that's all I want. Am I really asking too much?"Linda, I'm sorry for doubting you. You were a little late getting there, but I think you were giving us the plain facts.
SPOILERS AHEAD READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION:Sorry this review is a little all over the place as I attempt to get my thoughts together.I am really trying very hard to get through this book. I watched the movie Lovelace, it doesnt even scratch the surface, and I will tell you, Ive seen Deep Throat and I am terribly uncomfortable at the thought of having watched this movie with the star being violently abused and forced into pornography...If she was: rumor has it that the abuse she details is over hyped. Its over the top at times, forced into prostitution, forced to mate with a dog, the book is literally page after page of the cruelty she endured under her husband, Chuck Traynor. I dont want to believe any woman has gone through this because doing so would make me wonder if I could be Linda Lovelace had I made different choices in life: a thought too horrible. But if you think she's a liar, watch Deep Throat, her bruises and evidence of abuse are indeed there, especially two fist size bruises on her outer thighs in the opening sequence by the pool. By the way, Linda made about $1000 on this movie, she received none of the money-do you know how wealthy the directors and producers got?This is not a comfortable read and is made even sadder when you realize how hard Linda's life was, especially since she died so young.I still have not finished this book. Its upsetting, and makes me look at women in the sex industry, actresses, Strippers and Prostitutes in a different light, I wont lie, it also makes me angry at men and angry at Linda. I want to scream at her FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP BEING A VICTIM AND TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!Linda died young in a car accident which makes this that much more sadder. Her entire life was affected by car accidents it seems. She blames a car accident for her meeting Chuck Traynor and getting into the sex industry-no, Linda, that was your poor choices. As I said, this book is leaving me conflicted, I really dont want to be angry at her, but I find that I am.As a companion piece, on Netflix is a documentary Inside Deep Throat, its really good and touches on Linda Lovelace's abuse, though mostly focuses on the times, the movie and the men behind it, the sleazy, disgusting movie makers-Im sorry but they are-and poor Harry Reems who was totally thrown under the bus. Lovelace is NOTHING like the book at all, but interesting.My last two cents: im really sorry that Linda and any other woman had to go through this. Im sorry they felt they had no choices and Im sorry they did not receive the love (and worth) they deserve. Im not sure what will make the porn industry more safe for women, maybe if women took it over? Maybe if society changes? Sex is a wonderful thing, I hate that this is the dirty secret of pornography and hate it more that most of us turn a blind eye to it.
Do You like book Ordeal (2006)?
I happened to be reading this harrowing memoir of the now-deceased '70s pornstar, Lovelace, at the same time I was reading Sir B.H. Liddell Hart's history of World War II, and it occurred to me that if space aliens had gotten hold of both these books and done the same reading they might easily conclude that Lovelace's sexually abusive and violent Svengali husband/exploiter, Chuck Traynor, was a far worse human being than Adolf Hitler.There's been a lot of scuttlebutt throught the years about the reliability of Lovelace's testimony in this book or the extent of possible embellishments by her co-author/ghostwriter, Mike McGrady, but there seems to be enough corroboration out there to essentially back up her claims about the horridness of her then-husband-manager Chuck Traynor and his volcanic-controlling-exploitative-bullying ways. In the book she more-or-less presents herself as Little Red Riding Hood lured into prostitution and porn by Big Bad Wolf Traynor and the seeming impossibility of her escaping him, and regardless of how much of it is fiction the thing is such a twisted and seedy page-turner that I have to give it due props for being a "good read." It sure made my return plane flight from vacation entertaining. It is chock full of whacked sex (with dogs, too) and gossipy tidbits about Hugh Hefner, Sammy Davis Jr., and more, and I dare you to let it drop from the fingers of your prurient little self once started.
—Evan
The minute i stopped reading this book, my first thoughts were! " we people are sick, not sick with disease but sick in mind! Without our humanity We are no more than downright animals. "This was probably the most depressing autobiography I have ever read. The title ordeal suits perfectly. U might be thinking what inspired me to pick up this book out of the whim,well yesterday i was searching for a suitable movie to watch and i stumbled upon, a movie which was called as 'love lace,' sure Amanda seifreed did a marvelous job in this ,but i must say, the story was too one sided and did not do justice to this amazing and thought provoking topic.so which led me to her books.This is the story of a girl, naive and callow,and how she makes the mistake of her life, by living with a complete stranger, just so she can taste freedom, but wht does she know about this strange person, she is living with.Naive and innocent linda browley wanted freedom but as her mystery man turns out to be a vicious animal who runs a whore house, she felt more trapped than ever, and top of that he forces and blackmails her into prostitution and sex slavery.Poor linda! I really felt sorry for her, i can't imagine wht she was going through she was kicked, punched,raped, banged, fucked, demoralized,degraded in every humiliating way possible and to end it the viscous animal called as chuck enters her into porno making where she makes deep throat, the most everlasting porno movie to set records and give her fame and turned linda browley into linda lovelace.To me it was like marylin monroe in porno and i found myself relating marylin's life with linda's and how their fates were so similar,but rather than committing suicide, linda took maters into her own hands, and fought for her freedom. Linda never embraced linda lovelace as a part of her, she never called herself a hooker or a pornstar because in her heart, she knew no matter who many guys she slept with ,she didn't asked for this life, but was forced to lead it.Linda describes that there is far difference between love making and fucking.Love making is something special between two people who are in love where sex is something to be enjoyed in a very sensible way, but fucking contains the word fuck which to me and linda is a ugly word and describes sex in the most ugly way possible.Nomatter how ugly linda was i know she was pure, she repeatedly ask God for his forgiveness and guidance and help, and finally at last she had the courage to defeat the devil named chuck( i hope he will be rotting in hell right now).This book started out dirty and vile but turns out to be very inspiring and influential, exposing the face of reality and how fake hollywood can be. This the story of struggle, struggle for survival in which linda fights for her life and this story is an inspiration to warn us of all the chucks out there, and trust me There are a lot of chucks out there, because this world is a sick place.
—Hasnain Bahleem
I picked this up at my Mum’s friend’s house and I read it in an entire sitting; I just couldn’t put it down. This is such a tragic and moving story that really shows more than just the corruption in the porn industry that is still prevalent today. I really felt reading this that it spoke more about the human race than it did about the porn industry; so many people around her knew what was going on but no one was willing to try and help. Then there is Chuck; a frequent male figure seen in all societies all over the world. I’m a male and I’ll state right now that more often than not we wind up being total deviants. Don’t worry, the world is a big place, there are still plenty of good ones, I’m not saying the planet is filled completely with sex crazed, manipulative vermin; I’m just saying that one should be careful, that’s all. Of course, that’s not saying woman can’t be just as malicious. . . Anyway . . . the psychology in the book is absolutely frightening, I’ve always found manipulation a scary thing, and it’s worrying that it can be so easy to manipulate someone; just by tearing them down by using the power of belittling you can gain total access. I see it every day in relationships, some cases are worse than others, some people don’t even realise they’re being manipulative. I’m sure in the past that I’ve probably manipulated a situation, which may be considered at someone else’s expense, but ever since reading this book, I know for sure that I haven’t and never will. In fact, I even wrote a book that highlights this issue that is huge and spreading within the youth culture of today; a kind of after math tale, if this kind of thing continues. I’d recommend this book to anyone! This story will really open your eyes to what is going on around you; if your eyes aren’t already open. If I have daughter I’ll be sure to make her read this book! A must read!
—Matt Williams
