Female writer: Virginie Despentes (1969-)

WHO IS SHE?

Virginie Despentes is a feminist French writer. Before being writer, she was a prostitute, clerk in a music shop and critic of pornography films. She also writes and direct, along with Coraline Trinh Thi, a film about her book Baisez-moi. She left home and became a squatter (she immerses in the punk culture) and was raped when she was doing hitchhiking. Her characters suffer miseries and injustices, toxicomanies and violence, as rapings or terrorism. She is widely known because of her feminist essay King Kong theory, where she talks about the French sex industry and the glories and infamies that she suffered when she wrote Baisez-moi. Her language is tough, she didn’t mess around elaborating or decorating very much the sentences, she uses a colloquial language fearing not to use taboo words.

WHAT HAS SHE WRITTEN?

• Baisez-moi (1993)
• Les chiennes savantes (1997)
• Les jolies choses (2008)
• Teen spirits (2002)
• Bye bye blondie (2004)
• King kong theory (2006)
• Apocalypse bébé (2010)
• Vernon subutex #1 (2015)
• Vernon subutex #2 (2015)
• Vernon subutex #3 (2017)

WHAT HAS SHE SAID?

‘Consuming pornography does not lead to more sex, it leads to more porn. Much like eating McDonalds everyday will accustom you to food that (although enjoyable) is essentially not food, pornography conditions the consumer to being satisfied with an impression of extreme sex rather than the real.’

WHY SHOULD WE NOT FORGET HER AND HER WORK?

Her King kong theory is a must-read for every feminist reading. Not only the themes that she discusses about are interesting, but also her writing style. It seems that she is another one of the poètes maudits of the 19th century, or just another component of the beat generation. She talks about sex, drugs, rapings, making her message to reach us more purely and straight. Fearlessly.