The Devil In Miss Jones: Pornography, Philosophy, And Cinema In the Age Of Porno Chic

Explicit Sex, Existentialism, And Tragedy

Released in 1973, The Devil in Miss Jones is a film that occupies a unique position in the history of adult cinema and the audiovisual culture of the 1970s. Directed, written, and produced by Gerard Damiano, the same filmmaker behind the iconic Deep Throat (1972), the feature is often remembered as one of the most emblematic works of the so-called “Golden Age of Porn” (1969–1984). However, reducing the film to its pornographic nature would ignore its thematic complexity and aesthetic ambitions. Inspired by the play Huis Clos (No Exit) by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devil in Miss Jones fuses explicit sex, existentialism, and tragedy in a plot that challenges the boundaries between art and pornography.

Fig.1  The theatrical release poster of "The Devil in Miss Jones" (1973)

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Plot

The story revolves around Justine Jones, played by Georgina Spelvin, a lonely and disillusioned woman who decides to end her life by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Her existence, marked by chastity and adherence to moral conventions, seems to have been in vain. In the afterlife, Justine is informed by the angel Abaca that, despite her “pure” life, her suicide disqualifies her from entering heaven. She is left with two options: limbo or hell. Dissatisfied with this outcome, she proposes an alternative: to return to Earth for a brief period and indulge in carnal pleasures, so as to “earn” her eternal damnation in hell.

From that point on, the film becomes a succession of increasingly intense, bizarre, and disturbing sexual experiences. Justine is introduced to a menacing man known only as “The Teacher,” with whom she has her first experience of pain and pleasure. She then engages in various scenes of desire and transgression, including a ménage à trois and moments of sexuality that border on the grotesque, such as a scene involving a snake. However, just as she seems to have freed herself from her former repression, the time granted to her on Earth runs out. As punishment, she is condemned to spend eternity with an impotent and apathetic man who ignores her desperate pleas for sex and focuses only on catching flies—a cruel irony for someone now consumed by insatiable desire.

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Sex And Existentialism

The film’s tragic premise directly evokes Sartre’s existentialist ideas, particularly the notion that “hell is other people” and the rejection of any metaphysical meaning to existence. Like the protagonists of No Exit, Justine is trapped in a space where her existential anxieties are exposed without hope of relief. Her punishment at the end is not only the absence of physical pleasure but the confrontation with the futility of her newfound desire. The desperate pursuit of ecstasy becomes, paradoxically, the very source of her damnation.

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Click HERE for the first part of Nagisa Oshima’s erotic diptych featuring “In the Realm of the Senses” and “Empire of Passion"

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