You know that we’re sticklers about sharing art on its premiere date. Just by coincidence we had two tabloids published today, which we’ve shared above, and we also have movie promo art. This all makes for a very naked day on Pulp Intl., but that’s the way it happens sometimes. We take no responsibility—this is the smut of previous generations, not ours, so blame your grandpa. Anyway, the above poster is for Toei Studios’ Tôkyô dîpu surôto fujin, aka Tokyo Deep Throat, aka Deep Throat in Tokyo. This is a non-pornographic film because, as we’ve mentioned many times before, such acts were illegal to show in Japan at the time, so what you have here is really a pinku or softcore flick with a lot of suggestive action—such as star Kumi Taguchi tonguing a mango, as seen on the poster art—but no actual sex.

The plot is similar to the real Deep Throat in that a woman has a clitoris in her throat. How did it get there? Well, her husband had her undergo implantation surgery after she refused to give him a hummer. We know. She won’t go down on him, but somehow he’s able to make her go under the knife. Whatever. After the surgery oral sex is equally pleasurable for both of them, though she seems to have lost her voice, and what happens is… zzzzzzzzz. Where were we? What time is it? Oh yes—plot. Taguchi can now orgasm by eating a banana—that’s not a euphemism, as she does exactly that twice—and there’s some mobster stuff and a murder that really isn’t. But none of it matters. Just know that with a disastrously crappy transfer from the original print, production values here are so low you’ll feel like you’re in a sleazy, mid-disco era Kabukicho wankhouse. Not that we’d know. Tôkyô dîpu surôto fujin premiered in Japan today in 1975.

1972’s Behind the Green Door was considered part of a porno chic movement—along with Devil in Miss Jones and Deep Throat—that brought porn into the mainstream. That mainstream now amounts to several billion dollars in profit a year, or as much as $97 billion, depending on whom you believe. But of course, profit and consumption are two different things. Most porn is consumed for free. But as to how widely viewed it really is, ask yourself this—what would you think of someone who claimed they had never seen a porno movie? The answer to that question tells you how pervasive it really is. The above poster, which features Marilyn Chambers symbolically wearing a pearl necklace arranged in a not-so-symbolic X, was produced for Behind the Green Door’s Japanese run, which began today in 1976.

We’re back folks, and what a lovely trip it was—at least, the parts we remember. Above you see three Japanese posters, each advertising Deep Throat and Deep Throat Part 2, which we gather ran as a double bill in Japan sometime in the mid-1970s. Deep Throat and its sequel starred Linda Lovelace as a woman whose clitoris was in her throat, and the first installment was the first truly mainstream porn film. 

In the U.S. this week, declassified FBI documents revealed that the U.S. government conducted a wide-ranging investigation into Gerard Damiano, director of the 1972 porn film Deep Throat. The heavily redacted documents showed that FBI agents across the nation were directed by top figures at the agency to conduct a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Deep Throat producers and distributors in a deliberate effort to stem the tide of sexual freedom that was sweeping the nation. Records show they seized prints of the film, and questioned everyone associated with its distribution, from delivery boys to theater managers.

Included in the stack of documents is an August 1973 letter stating that Damiano was being considered for prosecutorial immunity. The papers don’t say what crime exactly Damiano had committed, but at the time the film was thought to violate obscenity statutes and, because of an assumed link between porn and organized crime, various RICO charges might also have been considered. Ironically, the second-in-command at the FBI at that time was Mark Felt, who would soon play Deep Throat in real life when he became a secret source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward during their Watergate investigation into Republican Party corruption. He adopted the moniker Deep Throat as his code name, and his real identity remained a mystery until he came forward in 2005.

Despite the FBI’s efforts, the tides of cultural change were too strong. What had been universally offensive just a generation before was seen as entertaining in 1972, and Deep Throat became the most popular x-rated film ever released, eventually earning more than 300 million dollars after an initial investment of around $25,000. At the height of the Deep Throat craze, the film was booked into mainstream cinemas and moviegoers attended packed showings without an iota of shame. Since then American culture has changed again, and, though consumption of pornography is so widespread it generates untold billions of dollars in yearly revenue, it has lost its aura of respectability and is virtually always consumed in private.