When she returned to the Donahue stage, the mood had shifted from voyeurism to victimhood—and the audience didn't quite know how to handle it. This was no longer the bubbly girl next door who had accidentally become a smut icon; this was a woman who claimed she had been raped on camera for the world to see.
Lovelace stood in the center of this storm. During the interview, she stated clearly that she wanted nothing more than for the film to disappear. She wanted to reclaim her identity, Linda Bore linda lovelace interview with phil donahue
The Donahue interviews served as a battleground for different strands of feminist thought. On one side were the anti-pornography feminists like Dworkin, who argued that Deep Throat was not entertainment, but documentation of a crime. On the other side were "sex-positive" feminists and civil libertarians who argued that banning pornography was a slippery slope toward censorship. When she returned to the Donahue stage, the
Donahue, ever the journalist, did not soft-pedal. He asked the question everyone was thinking: "Why are you now condemning the business that made you famous?" During the interview, she stated clearly that she
During these 1970s appearances, Lovelace often projected the persona of the sexually liberated pioneer. The culture was shifting; the sexual revolution was in full swing, and Deep Throat had bizarrely crossed over into the mainstream, with celebrities and average couples lining up to see it. The Donahue audience treated her with a mix of curiosity and awe.