
by: Pat Powers
Special to:
Hollywood Inside Scoop
April 1, 2025
“Why not rape?”
asked Hillmark Senior Vice President in Charge of Acquisitions
Cherry Sassoon as I sat with her and discussed the new Hillmark
series based on my semi-incredible “Prison Bitch Trilogy.” “That
was the question that always hovered over the table when we had
discussions about what new properties to pick up. We knew we were
doing a fine job of covering the market for insipid, almost humorless
romcoms. And we’ve got the romantic cozy mystery market sewed up,
too.
“But we also
knew that there was a huge market out there for rape erotica, bondage
erotica, incest erotica and bestiality erotica that we were
underserving, in the sense of not serving them at all, in any way,”
Sassoon continued.
“Isn’t serving
those markets mostly illegal?” I asked.
“Not in the
purely legal sense,” said Sassoon. “The only porn that’s
straight up illegal is the underage stuff. Hillmark will never touch
that market, because our own viewers would tear us limb from limb if
we tried.”
“That does sound
awful,” I observed painfully.
“Oh, it was… I
mean, it would be,” said Sassoon. “Anyway, we decided that the
most popular way to go was rape. There were all sorts of good reasons
for this. About 70 million of them, in fact.”
“Seventy
million?” I asked. “Where did you get that number?”
“That’s the
number of copies of “Fifty Shades of Gray” sold worldwide in its
first YEAR of release,” said Sassoon.
“But Fifty
Shades of Gray isn’t about rape, it’s about a consensual BDSM
relationship,” I said.
“Oh, that’s
just tedious rapey-wapey timey wimey stuff,” said Sassoon. “Rape,
BDSM, bondage, romance, they’re all pretty much the same. You say
potayto, I say puhtato. The old timey romance writers knew the truth
of it.”
“All right, I’ll
bite,” I said. “How is romance the same as rape? It would seem to
be the complete opposite.”
“No, rape is the
ultimate in romance,” said Sassoon. “The old time romance writers
had a subgenre called “bodice rippers” which were basically
historical rape romance stories. The male MC, typically a pirate or a
sheik, kidnaps a proper English or American woman and is so
overwhelmed by her beauty and grace and charm or whatever that he
rapes her. Then they make up and fall in love and he apologizes to
her and rapes her some more and then proposes marriage and they both
live rapily ever after.”
“But I wrote the
“Prison Bitch” trilogy, god help me, and there are no romantic
rapes at all in it,” I said. “All the rapists were
psychopaths and sociopaths of various stripes.”
“Oh yeah? What
about that Paul guy at the end?” Sassoon asked. “He is supposed
to be very romantic.”
“He’s not a
rapist, he’s a consensual lover, very big on safewords and so
forth,” I said. “Did you even read the books?”
“Of course not,
that’s why you hire English majors, women with no lives, to read
stuff so I don’t have to. They condensed the trilogy into this one
sheet of paper here,” Sassoon said, holding up a battered, stained
piece of paper with a few paragraphs typed on it. “This kind of
time-saving is why I’m an executive. Plus having the wit to see the
romance behind all the rape.”
“So, the rape
story is going to become a romance, I see,” I said. “Any other
intriguing changes to the story in the books?”
“Oh, yes
indeed,” said Sassoon. “We’re thinking we need to pull back on
the whole rich bitch storyline. What with all the Luigi stuff that’s
happened in real life, it’s kind of obvious that our readership may
not be in the market for stories about wealthy people unless it’s a
fall from grace type story. So we’re thinking of having Kim be a
welder or a beautician or something.”
“But “Rich
Bitch, Prison Bitch” IS a fall from grace story,” I said. “It’s
right there in the title. Kim starts out a rich bitch and winds up a
prison bitch in every sense of the word. She goes from shady banker
and party girl to everyone’s favorite rape victim. You can’t have
a bigger fall from grace!”
“Sure, there’s
a fall from grace of sorts in there, I suppose,” said Sassoon. “But
it’s not enough of a fall to make up for her early wealth in these
days. So that is not happening. She’s a welder, or a sassy waitress
like AOC, something like that. And she get picked up for shoplifting
milk for someone else’s baby, and goes to jail and gets raped
because, of course, she’s a beautiful welder. Well, ex-welder.”
“And how is the
rape going to be handled?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Two ways,”
said Sassoon. “We have two markets here, older readers who want to
recapture the gauzy pleasures of old-time bodice ripper romances, and
more modern readers who are down to watch fucking. For the older
readers we’ll have a version where, as soon as they get past the
chaste kissing stage, which basically is as soon as the sex starts,
we’ll cut away to a visual metaphor. Like maybe a pillow tightly
wrapped in rope being poked repeatedly with an eggplant with sexy
moaning and grunting in the background. Something along those lines.”
“Sounds boffo to
me,” I said agreeably. “What about younger viewers?”
Oh, we’ll give
them a long, steamy erotic buildup lots of near-nudity and some full
nudity, but no genitals, you know, and no genitals in action,” said
Sassoon. “I mean, they will do some fucking, but only R-rated
stuff, you won’t see tab A going into Slot B nor any of the other
slots. And what you do see won't last too long.”
“How do you plan
to tie her up?” I asked.
“Well, about
that…” said Sassoon. “We where thinking maybe a blindfold would
do the trick for delivering the kinky.”
“Mrs. Sassoon,
the people who read my book read it BECAUSE of all the bondage and
rape, not despite it,” I said. “They wanted those extreme sexual
bondage scenes, they enjoy them. If you back off from the sexual
bondage they are not going to stick around for the story, riveting
though it is. You’re not going to get those seventy million viewers
you wanted.”
“Well maybe not
seventy million,” Sassoon agreed. “But we’ll get quite a few.
While I’m sure your readers enjoyed your books, my summary of Fifty
Shades of Gray indicates it was pretty damn tame.”
“Oh, it was, I
read it,” I said. “Eight chapters until they got around to
kissing, very tame indeed. But when they did get down to it, they got
down to it big time. She was cuffed, blindfolded, tied up and being fucked in
the movie. And the movie had very, very good box office.”
“Ah,” said
Sassoon. I could see the dollar signs flashing in her otherwise empty eyes. “That’s
a very good point. Can’t let censors destroy artistic qualities,
now can we?”
“You’d be
surprised how much the sort of people who read my books care about
artistic qualities,” I observed.
“The summary
does say your books are full of artistic qualities,” said Sassoon,
nodding sagely.
“My readers
wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.
Note: the day
after the interview with Cherry I received a call from Hillmark’s HIP (Hot
Intellectual Properties) department head. She explained to me that
Hillmark had chosen the script based on my story to be converted into the first
story in a brand new series about a coven of detective witches who
try to change the bad reputation of witches by solving crimes and
doing good deeds using their special powers. Also, a giant spider
will be a regular character in the show. They’ll start by rescuing
the inmates of Brookhaven Prison from Club Rape. This will
necessitate further changes in the script, but I am assured that the
spirit of the story will be fully served, whatever that means.
I’m so glad I got
my check in advance!