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Ich bin frei

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Linda Lovelace is nothing. The woman who used to be Linda Lovelace is here to tell you that. She doesn't exist anymore. In this book you will find that a courageous, independent, loving woman has taken her place, and you will be moved by the story of the struggles she went through to make this happen.

When Ordeal became a national bestseller in 1980 it was an event that had meaning beyond the success of a single book. It is clear now that it was one of the early signs of a new awareness that the "sexual revolution" was not all that it first seemed. Some of its results now include growing awareness of sexual exploitation, battered women and child abuse. The author of Ordeal was swamped by letters and calls from women who immediately understood her story from having suffered similar experiences.

Written frankly, openly and in a style that struck such a chord in the heart of American public, Out of Bondage is an important addition to Linda Lovelace Marchiano's story. In it Linda gives details of the agony she suffered in facing the public with her story the first time.

"Tell me, Linda, what in your background led you to a concentration camp?" is the ironical but extremely apt sentence that Gloria Steinem used to describe the new ordeal that Linda faced on television. She had to sit in a court room where a judge arbitrarily insisted on a screening of Deep Throat, "for evidence," and she had to live as a person in fear for her life, on the run from men who had made millions of dollars from her degradation.

Linda makes clear that the dirty movie business is very much a dirty business. The people who run it, with the typical arrogance of real criminals, routinely enforce a form of slavery on its performers.

But things are a lot different for Linda now. She has had the warm support of feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Susan Brownmiller and she has participated in the campaigns of Women Against Pornography. She has even had the satisfaction of seeing some of her former tormentors arrested and punished by the law.

She has also had the warmth and portection of her marriage. Much of Out of Bondage is, in fact, a love story. Here Linda tells how she finally was able to share the burden of her past with her husband Larry. It was not easy. Larry is the kind of man who tells another man to get away from his wife, not caring that the man happens to be mafia boss Joe Colombo. But much of what happened was too tough even for him.

Linda, in her candid, unaffected way, andmits that she had much more to learn after she set out to control her own life, and she is still learning. In Ordeal she wrote, "I could be happy just vacuuming my home." In this book she tells us, "Well, that was the truth. Then." The truth now is that it is much more important to her that she is not totally dependent on anyone. Instead of vacuuming the house she prefers the picture of herself testifying before the Senate Subcommittee investigating the effect of pornography on women and children, bringing her message to the world.

Following publication of her book Ordeal, Linda Marchiano traveled extensively, speaking out against pornography in all parts of the country. The story of her victimization caught the attention of many feminist leaders who have since become her friend. Linda is particularly concerned with helping other women who have suffered from coercion and commercial sexual exploitation. She lives in a quiet Long Island community with her husband and two children, a son and a daughter.

Unknown Binding

First published May 28, 1986

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About the author

Linda Lovelace

13 books60 followers
Linda Susan Boreman, better known by her stage name Linda Lovelace, became famous after starring in the 1972 hardcore porn film Deep Throat. She later became a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement.

Deep Throat was notable for beginning a brief fad of porn chic; it was also the inspiration for Bob Woodward's name of his secret Watergate source, W. Mark Felt. Boreman later stated that she regretted her pornographic career and was coerced into pornography by her then-husband, Chuck Traynor.

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5 stars
34 (21%)
4 stars
41 (26%)
3 stars
49 (31%)
2 stars
23 (14%)
1 star
9 (5%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
169 reviews4 followers
April 2, 2009
I think I should have read Ordeal, Linda Lovelace's first book, rather than this one. Out of Bondage tells the story of how she came to tell the story she told in Ordeal. Out of Bondage kept my interest and everything, but I just had the sense that Lovelace was rehashing material she had already been through.

Caveat lector: I'm about to rant a little...

I also found myself getting really irritated with Lovelace's apparent refusal to take ANY responsibility for her actions. Yes, your mother was severe and controlling; yes, your family background set you up to have some problems; yes, Chuck Traynor was a really bad guy who treated you terribly and introduced you to a life of squalor. But...you were also AN ADULT when all this happened. No matter how low your self-esteem was, you can't blame other people for everything that happened. You made some really, really bad choices. It really bothers me when people act like everything bad that ever happens to them is someone else's fault. If you are alive and walking around, you ALWAYS have some kind of choice. Why is it so hard to say, "I have done some things in my life that I'm not proud of and that hurt me, and I regret them. I was really fucked up back then"? There is no shame in that.
Profile Image for Bookfanatic.
2 reviews3 followers
March 4, 2010
I liked the Gloria Steinem intro to the book. This book is good if you are a fan of Linda's first book Ordeal. I have nothing bad to say about this book. A little repetitive, but thats okay. I love how I learned about her life after Ordeal, her romance/marriage, and everything about feminism. Great read!
Profile Image for Fishface.
3,320 reviews248 followers
January 23, 2016
It's impossible to say I "enjoyed" a book this grisly. Recaps the terrible years the author spent being forced into prostitution and porno films by an abuse partner. Charts how she got out and how she decompressed afterwards. Not as powerful as her first book on the same subject, the contents being almost identical, but I support her having written it -- the reasons are explained in the book.
Profile Image for James Lundy.
70 reviews21 followers
March 27, 2008
You do end up feeling sorry for the former Linda Lovelace, now deceased. Exploited in the porn world and exploited in the world of tell-all exposees. Aparently she wrote another book before this one (I didn't read it) and didn't have much to say again a year or so later when they made her write another one. This one tells about the outpouring of support she got after the first book was published. Maybe she then wrote a third book to tell about her mail bag after the second book was published. Yawn...
Profile Image for Katie Wilks.
208 reviews
February 26, 2021
When I watched Lovelace with Amanda Seyfried my curiosity in regards to Linda Lovelace's story opened up again.

A little background, I first learned about Linda Lovelace during my pursue of my undergraduate degree. We've all heard the stories, but why?

Why did Deep Throat make millions of dollars yet Linda was left poor. Why did she perform those acts for the camera? Why would she stay if she was abused by Chuck?

If you were hoping to read about the nasty, wrong book. But if you want to know how Linda picked herself up, fought a fight against human rights and equal rights then this is the book for you.
317 reviews4 followers
August 26, 2019
40 years ago, well before the current #metoo movement, Linda Marchiano set out "to set the record straight" about pornography and those forced into performing. Her "play by play" account can be found in her book ORDEAL.
This volume is the story of her difficult life AFTER she escaped. To paraphrase Gloria Steinem's comments in the introduction, "Don't make any decisions until you have read the complete work."
I found this volume to be Linda's struggle to overcome Emotional Bondage from the memories that others would ridicule, belittle, or blatantly contradict.
This is not an easy read, but it is a necessary one, in order to understand the pornography business of the 1960s and 1970s.
The mistreatment of women occurred to often in the past, and unfortunately, occurs too often in the present.
Profile Image for devilioxa S. Al Nuaimi.
24 reviews
May 13, 2013
الخروج من عبودية (Out of Bondage)، وهي مذكرات ليندا لوفليس اللتي تركز على حياتها بعد عام 1974. قالت فيه لو شاهدت فيلم حلق عميق، فأنت تشاهدني أتعرض للاغتصاب. أنها جريمة ان هذا الفيلم لايزال يعرض؛ كان هناك مسدسا مصوبا إلى رأسي طوال الوقت "، وألقت محاضرات في الجامعات، لتشجب ما وصفته بالممارسات الوحشية واستغلالية في صناعة الإباحية.

ليندا لوفليس كانت ممثلة إباحية أمريكية. أدانت بعد ذلك عملها في الإباحية، وقالت أن زوجها الأول السادي هو من أجبرها على ذلك، وأصبحت فيما بعد متحدثة باسم الحركة المضادة للإباحية.
Profile Image for Cara.
104 reviews1 follower
July 7, 2015
Can't rate it higher than 2 stars because I skipped an entire chapter (28 I think) which I found boring and irrelevant to Linda's story. I'd like to rate it higher because some parts were good, but I got pretty sick of hearing how great her evidently violent new husband was (even without knowing they split later because he was abusive, a man who Linda admits in the book must "resent" her should not be as much of a hero in this book as he is made out to be). I was also hoping for a bit more about how Linda recovered from abuse but there wasn't much of that.
Profile Image for Monica Willyard Moen.
1,392 reviews32 followers
December 14, 2016
This was not a pleasant read, and yet it was worth reading. It is the story of one woman who escaped from slavery and worked hard to build A good life for herself. It is also the eye opening account and a reminder of the fact that many women do not go into pornography or prostitution by choice. They are threatened both physically and psychologically, and they may be imprisoned as well. I didn't enjoy reading about the sexual degradation in this book. However, I probably needed that to push me into awareness that this situation could be going on in my city, in my neighborhood.
Profile Image for Sean.
34 reviews4 followers
January 13, 2008
The sequel to ORDEAL. Lovelace writes about life after porn movies. The problem I had with OUT OF BONDAGE was that she kept rehashing about the events in the first book...too much. It started to get boring towards the end. But it did have some good stuff about her anti-porn crusade.
Profile Image for Jen Goddeeris.
66 reviews2 followers
August 4, 2013
wow - the writing wasn't fantastic but the story was good. it is very depressing that she had to go through something like this. that is was such a struggle for her to make people believe her is so sad. i haven't read Ordeal but probably will.
Profile Image for Philip.
43 reviews4 followers
March 23, 2014
Easy to read, hard to digest. Much respect for her breaking away and choosing to fight back against a morally bankrupt industry that thrives on exploitation, abuse and depravity.
Profile Image for Ale Canales.
65 reviews1 follower
May 2, 2017
Esta mucho mejor Ordeal, pero sigue siendo MUY bueno
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews