example, a woman who reported having been sexually abused since infancy said:
That night that I was filmed for a pornographic movie,
my stepfather tortured me both physically and sexually
because I did not perform adequately enough to be
convincing.796
A young man who had been the victim of a "sex ring" testified: I became involved in bondage. I was shown pornography and was bound in various ways and photographed.797
Linda Marchiano testified:
When I decided to head back north and informed Mr.
Traynor of my intention, that was when I met the real
Mr. Traynor and my two and a half years of imprisonment
began. He began a complete turnaround and beat me up
physically and began the mental abuse, from that day
forward my hell began.
During the filming of Deep Throat, actually after the
first day, I suffered a brutal beating in my room for
smiling on the set. It was a hotel room and the whole
crew was in one room, there was at least twenty people
partying, music going, laughing, and having a good
time. Mr Traynor started to bounce me off the walls.
I figured out of twenty people, there might be one
human being that would do something to help me and I
was screaming for help, I was being beaten, I was being
kicked around and again bounced off of walls. And all
of a sudden the room next door became very quiet.
Nobody, not one person, came to help me.
One witness before the Commission described how women and young girls were tortured and suffered permanent physical injuries to answer publisher demands for photographs depicting
796 Washington, D.C., Hearing, Vol II, p. 262.
797 Washington, D.C., Vol II, p. 49.
Public Hearings before Minneapolis City Council, Session I, p. 47, 49 (Dec. 1983)
sado-masochistic abuse. When the torturer/photographer inquired of the publisher as to the types of depictions that would sell, the torturer/photographer was instructed to get similar existing publications and use the depictions therein for instruction. The torturer/photographer followed the publisher's instructions, tortured women and girls accordingly, and then sold the photographs to the publisher. The photographs were included in magazines sold nationally in pornographic outlets.799
The Commission also had received several accounts from individuals who described the use of pornography in the course of physical abuse, and who attributed the type and forms of abuse to specific pornographic materials. For example, one woman who reported having been sexually abused by her father from the age of three testified that he would:
hang me upside down in a closet and push objects
like screwdrivers or table knives inside me. Sometimes
he would heat them first. All the while he would have
me perform oral sex on him. He would look at his porno
pictures almost every day, using them to get ideas of
800
what to do to me or my siblings.
Testifying before another body, another woman said:
He would read from the pornography like a textbook,
like a journal. In fact, when he asked me to be bound,
when he finally convinced me to do it, he read in the
magazine how to tie the knots, and how to bind me in a
801
way that I couldn't get out.
799 Los Angeles Hearing, Vol. II, p. 65, 77. publication was purchased in Washington, D.C.
801 Minneapolis City Council Hearings Session II, p. 68 (Dec. 1983).
A former prostitute testified before another body:
The man returned with two other men. They burned her
with cigarettes and attached nipple clips to her
breasts. They had many S and M magazines with them and
showed her many pictures of women appearing to consent,
enjoy, and encourage this abuse. She was held for
twelve hours, continuously raped and beaten, She was
802
paid fifty dollars, or about $2.33 per hour.
[s]olid charges . . . could be brought forth.
Amongst these charges would be sexual deviance due to
repeated inflictions of sadomasochistic acts. I was
also told I would be entitled to an annulment as the
marriage remained unconsummated throughout.
. . . While doing household chores, I found very
pornographic materials which illustrated sadist
techniques and answered my questions as to where my
husband got these bizarre ideas.803
A former prostitute testified:
He stripped me, tied me up, spread-eagled on the bed so
that I could not move and then began to caress me very
gently. Then, when he thought that I was relaxed, he
squeezed my nipple really hard. I did not react.
held up a porn magazine with a picture of a beaten
woman and said, "I want you to look like that. I want
you to hurt." He then began beating me, and when I
didn't cry fast enough, he lit a cigarette and held it
right above my breast for a long time before he burned
804
Another woman testified before another body:
802 Public Hearings before Minneapolis City Council, Session II, p. 73 (Dec. 1983).
803 Letter to the Attorney General's Pornography.
804 Public Hearings before Minneapolis City Council, Session II, p. 77 (Dec. 1983).
During the time that I was held captive by that man, I was physically and psychologically abused by him. I was whipped with belts and electrical cords. I was beat with pieces of wood. I was usually forced to pull my pants down before I was to be beaten. I was touched
and grabbed where I did not want him to touch me. I
was also locked into dark closets and the basement for
many hours at a time and I was often not allowed to
speak or cry.
The things that this man did to me were also done to
the children of the woman, except that they suffered
from even worse abuse. I believe that part of the
psychological abuse I suffered from was from the
pornographic materials that the man used in his
terrorization of us. I knew that if he wanted to, he
could do more of the things that were being done in
those magazines to me. When he looked at the
magazines, he could make hateful obscene, violent
remarks about women in general and about me. I was
told that because I am female I am here to be used and
abused by him and that because he is male he is the
master and I am his slave.805
A women's shelter wrote to the Commission:
One woman known to us related that her spouse always
had a number of pornographic magazines around the
house. The final episode that resulted in ending their
marriage was his acting out a scene from one of the
magazines. She was forcibly stripped, bound and
gagged. And with help from her husband, she was raped
by a German shepherd. His second wife became known to
us when she sought out support because of the magazines
and bondage equipment she discovered in their home.
Penthouse and Hustler were always a part of the
literature in the third woman's home. Occasionally,
her spouse would add Cheri, Oui, Swedish Erotica to the
collection. His favorite form of abuse was bondage.
He enjoyed playing what he called a "game" of whipping
and slavery. She knows that what he did to her was
directly related to articles about bondage and sex
[slaves] which he read. He wanted to involve a second
805 Public Hearings before Minneapolis City Council, Session II, p. 15-16 (Dec. 1983).
woman, her friend, in the scenarios.806
A mother of two girls testified:
[My husband] had a large collection of bizarre S&M and
bondage pornography that he kept in the nightstand
drawer in our bedroom. On one occasion [he] tied me to
our bed and sodomized me. This occurred after I
refused to agree to be bound and tied as the models
appeared in some of [his] pornographic magazines.
Also, the girls told me that [he] sometimes played a
game with them in which their feet were tied up tightly
with a rope. The molestation included "bad touching"
and exhibitionism by [him], but did not involve actual
penetration.807
In testifying before another body, one man said
I understand pornography to be a force in creating
violence in the gay community. I was battered by my
ex-lover who used pornography. The pornography,
straight and gay, I had been exposed to, helped
convince me that I had to accept his violence, and
helped keep me in that destructive relationship.
Then one time, he branded me. I still have a scar on
my butt.
He put a little wax initial thing on a hot
plate and then stuck it on my ass when I was
unaware.808
Women who were asked in a research project if they had ever been upset by anyone trying to get them to do what they'd seen in pornographic pictures, movies or books described experiences similar to those reported by Commission witnesses:
Miss F: He'd read something in a pornographic book, and
Letter from Donna Dunn's Women's Shelter, Rochester, to the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography.
Washington, D.C., Hearing, Vol. I, p. 126-27.
808 Public Hearings before Minneapolis City Council, Session II, p. 57, (Dec. 1983).
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