Pornography

Gyllenhaal produces and stars in the HBO series, now in its third season, about sex work, porn, organized crime, politics, police and feminism in 1970s New York. Originally broadcast Sept. 20, 2018.

Set in New York City in the 1970s, The Deuce centers on the intersection of sex work, pornography, organized crime, the police, politicians and feminists. Gyllenhaal didn't have a problem with the role, but she did have strong feelings about how the power dynamics of sex should be portrayed.

Perrotta's most recent novel was inspired by the upheaval he experienced when his kids grew up and moved out of the house. Originally broadcast July 31, 2017.

It's a time-honored tradition for novelists to draw material from their own lives, and author Tom Perrotta is no exception. His 2004 book, Little Children, sprang from his experience as the parent of young kids. Three years later, he published The Abstinence Teacher, which was inspired, in part, by the junior-high and high-school sports his children played at the time.

Offutt's late father went from running a small insurance agency to writing more than 400 books, mostly pornography. The writer tells Fresh Air his dad believed he would be "extremely famous" for it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt also wrote and stars in the film, about a prolific seducer and porn addict who changes his ways when Scarlett Johansson's character enters the picture. Critic David Edelstein says Don Jon is smart, with a subversive touch.

The Vanity Fair critic was an aspiring writer when he arrived in a turbulen Manhattan in 1972. In his memoir, Lucking Out, he writes about the crime and culture (and pornography) he discovered there.

His third novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America — where books don't exist and where the economy has collapsed. Shteyngart explains why he decided to write a love story in this dystopic vision of the future — and why he thinks technology is changing the way we think.

Jack Wrangler, an icon of gay adult films, died April 7. He appeared in more than 30 gay adult films and 20 straight adult films in the 1970s and 1980s. Fresh Air remembers him with an interview from 1985.

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are the team behind Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the 1972 porn classic Deep Throat. We talk with them about their movie -- and the original.