Forget what they say, sometimes you CAN judge a book by its cover. Such is the case with The Pleasuring of Rory Malone (you can also sometimes judge a book by its title too) in which the titular Rory, a 17 year old virgin, uses a combination of astral projection and telekinesis to undress and have sex with any woman he chooses. It's material that could have easily been fodder for one of the era's R-rated teen sex comedies, Zapped! comes to mind, but instead here is the basis for one of the most perverse horror paperbacks of the 1980s.
Rory is tutored by Dr Liz Hartman, who hopes to
use his telekinetic abilities for the greater good and regards herself as a
mother figure to the 17 year old boy. A perception not shared by the horny
teenager himself 'she bent forward while working and her blouse hung free from
her bra, revealing her full breasts and, through the stretched-thin beige
fabric, huge brown nipples'. Rory is introduced trailing Kathy Sue Bauer -a
popular girl in his school who he has a crush on- into the crowded NYC subway.
Only for him to be consumed by guilt when molesting her in his astral form
causes Kathy to take a tumble and fall in front of a train, losing a leg in the
process. Was Rory's abilities the cause of her amputation?, or was the fact
that Kathy was on the verge of a heavy period the reason she lost her balance?
The Pleasuring of Rory Malone is a book steeped in
mixed messages and sexual dysfunction. Initially the book points to sexual
repression being the source of Rory's problems. The victim of a catholic
upbringing -you can always rely on those nuns to instill sexual shame in a
young boy- Rory's salvation appears to be Dr Liz, who teaches him that there is
nothing wrong with masturbation or looking at pornography. This stance however
is countered by the good guy of the book, Thomas Webb, a police captain and
psychologist, whose feminist girlfriend Carrie is heavily involved in the Women
Against Pornography movement. Webb himself is garnering praise for his upcoming
Messe Commission like paper, which aims to prove a definite link between
violent pornography and male violence towards women. The Pleasuring of Rory
Malone does lend a megaphone to anti-porn rhetoric, in one instance quite
literally by including a scene set at a WAP protest. It also sets out to
validate the feminist belief that all men are potential rapists by having just
about every male character, even the WAP aligned Webb, admit that if they
possessed Rory's powers they'd be tempted to use it in an identical fashion.
The book poses questions over whether men projecting sexual fantasies onto
women represents a form of sexual assault, and further attempts to win feminist
favour with its frank and open discussions about female menstruation. The
Pleasuring of Rory Malone certainly leaves you questioning which side of the
porn wars it is on, with the lingering suspicion that it may be playing both
sides off against each other. It's championing of anti-porn feminism seems at
odds with a subplot about a constantly masturbating woman, Susan Stiner, whose
fantasies are dominated by thoughts of being roughly taken by men. Singling her
out as a potential victim for one of Rory's astral sex assaults.
If the author of the book was of the opinion that
violent pornography adds to society's ills though, just why then is The
Pleasuring of Rory Malone full of graphically described rape scenes perpetrated
by an invisible assailant. One memorably depraved incident involves Rory
entering a peep booth, jacking off to a stripper from behind glass, only to
then astrally project himself so that he can fist the terrified and confused
stripper 'the hotter he became, the greater the urge to ram her up to his
elbow'. If ever there was a set piece guaranteed to null and void a book's
feminist credentials, it was that.
The Pleasuring of Rory Malone also boasts an
incriminating and extensive knowledge of the pornography available to New
Yorkers at the time, as well as the XXX movie theatres and sex shops in which
to find it. To the extent that you'd be forgiven for thinking you were reading
a later issue in the original run of Sleazoid Express. 'All around him men
passed into private booths, inserted quarters, viewed films of any sexual
fantasy they desired, and when they left, the attendant mopped the floor. At
this peak hour, though, it was impossible to keep pace with the flow of
clients, and he'd entered one booth and skidded on the slippery floor, striking
his shoulder against the wall'.
Rory himself emerges as a highly sympathetic
figure, considered a 'freak' by his abusive father, frustrated by his prudish,
strict catholic girlfriend and the victim of a society at war over the pros and
cons of pornography. Rory's problems are added to by being marked for death by
Lou Bauer, a racist, homophobic police sergeant who happens to be the uncle of
the girl who lost her leg under the train. Lou's pursuit of vigilante justice
leads him to Christopher Street 'if he found the kid in this fag ghetto, he
might be able to kill a few freaks with one ballistic stone'. Lou is the
angered epitome of conservative masculinity, who were this to have been on film
would have probably been played by either Aldo Ray or Lawrence Tierney, Lou is
that kind of guy. The Pleasuring of Rory Malone is the sort of book whose film
adaptation would have surely have had to feature Joe Spinell in there somewhere
too, the bullying, asshole father being the obvious Spinell casting choice.
As much as the book has Rory's back, it isn't
above having some sadistic fun at his expense either. At one point the
narrative puts Rory at the mercy of an older, predatory gay guy who grabs
Rory's cock in the men's room of a porno theatre. Later, Rory seems on the
verge of losing his cherry to a nice, sexually free girl called Jacqueline,
only for life to deliver another cruel blow when Jacqueline turns out to be
more of a handful than Rory expected. The fact that Rory's torment lies in his
out of control heterosexuality, coupled with his violent lashing out at the
same sex encounters that comes his way, makes you wonder if there isn't something
deeper going on here. Rory's escape from the authorities being driven by a fear
that they want to turn him into a woman. The only cure for his abilities
seemingly being to fill him full of female hormones.
The Pleasuring of Rory Malone comes across like
the paperback equivalent of movies that were around at the time like The
Entity, Dressed to Kill and Incubus, whose classy veneer and intellectual
pretentions belied an often incredibly crass attitude to sex and sexuality. In
his introduction, the author credits several unnamed young men for helping him
'appreciate the attitudes of today's teenagers to the proliferation of easily
accessible pornography magazines and films (a rarity in my own youth)'. A
sentiment echoed in the book itself by Dr Liz's husband Gerhardt who secretly
resents the sexual stimuli on offer to Rory's generation that wasn't available
in his own youth 'he selfishly longed for halcyon days of strict morality- if
Gerhardt Kiner couldn't have all those tender young things, no guy deserved
them'. Making you wonder if envy or concern was the motivation for the book's
preoccupation with pornography's effect on young men.
Still, you have to hand it to The Pleasuring of
Rory Malone, its mixed messages remain as compelling as they are at times
perplexing, and on a sleaze level it is a book that rams it up to the elbow.
Making it all the more of a mystery why it has never attained the same level of
notoriety as the Richard Laymon stuff. The book perfectly manages to sum up
it's own contradictions, when it has Rory berate himself with 'you hypocrite.
Before the day's through you'll be lusting after the very things you're
condemning'. That, folks, is The Pleasuring of Rory Malone in a nutshell.
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