He Wanted to Stop His Own Porn Film — and Lost

WARSAW (VG): This week, controversial writer Michel Houellebecq lost a court case in which he tried to stop a porn film he had taken part in. VG has spoken to his female co-star.

“For me, sex is a way of exploring different subjects — not just the act itself, but rather the desires people have,” Jini Jane, the 23-year-old philosophy student and porn performer, tells VG by message.

She and Houellebecq met in Paris in December to shoot the film.

The French writer has been described as one of the country's greatest living authors, and millions of his books have been sold around the world.

But he is also highly controversial: because of the way Islam is portrayed in his books, far-right ideas and their misogyny.

Yet the writer continues to sell enormous numbers of books, including in Norway.

So it caused quite a stir when it emerged that the 67-year-old had made a porn film.

In a trailer, the star author lies shirtless in bed kissing the 23-year-old performer, who goes by the stage name Jini Jane. VG knows her real identity.

Since then, however, he has regretted it.

The writer has fought in court to have the film stopped. This Tuesday, he lost.

In court, he argued that the film damaged his reputation and that he had signed an unfair contract.

“It is incomprehensible why Houellebecq took part in the recordings if he found the agreement genuinely problematic,” the judge said in the ruling.

Houellebecq was also ordered to pay €1,393 in legal costs.

Through his Dutch lawyer, Jacqueline Schaap, the unwilling porn performer and writer says the ruling was “very disappointing” and that he is considering an appeal.

The writer also lost a similar case in France in February.

“I was tired”

It all began in December last year.

Houellebecq's wife, Lysis, met the director and told him her husband “wanted to make a porn film to counter his dark mood”, according to court documents.

Houellebecq and director Stefan Ruitenbeek then discussed by email their plans to make “a work of art in which the distinction between fiction and reality takes the form of a game with our enemies' horrifying paranoia”.

The AFP news agency has seen the documents, which show that Houellebecq fell out with the director after filming.

The writer also claims he was drunk when he signed the contract.

“I was tired, it had been a long day, and the necessary wine had already been drunk,” the writer says in the court documents.

“I have no ambition to become a porn star at my age.”

When the trailer was released, relations between the writer and director soured further.

The Dutch woman appearing in the film tells VG that she was fascinated by the Houellebecqs and that he is the only living writer she admires.

“My curiosity drove me to have sex with them,” she says.

She now feels disappointed by the writer's reaction after the film, and feels used.

“I admire his books as much as before, but his lack of interest in other people in real life in a way mirrors the same lack of interest that emerges in his books. It irritates me.”

The film is part of a series by director Ruitenbeek within KIRAC, a rebellious and experimental art collective responsible for a number of controversial films, often containing sexual scenes.

Their films frequently play with the boundary between fiction and reality.

But the porn film, at least, is becoming a reality and is due for release in May.

“It has always been my intention to make a work of art with integrity,” director Ruitenbeek said in a statement.

“Hopefully Michel will be happy with the result.”

“Houellebecq is a troublemaker in European literature, or the writer sitting in a corner at a party, throwing out unpopular and controversial remarks that spoil the atmosphere,” says writer and literary critic Hilde Østby.

She adds:

“He also writes beautiful, existential literature that goes straight to people's loneliness and longing for love, the impossibility of reaching one another in a cynical world. So he is a writer I admire and find fascinating.”

She was not surprised, however, to discover that the writer had made a porn film.

“His work depicts older men's longing for younger, beautiful women in a fairly semi-misogynistic way. I think the porn film is simply an extension of that. I was not disappointed in him because, quite honestly, I had no expectations of him in that respect.”

Houellebecq has several times been a favourite for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“I think his odds will be poor after this,” Østby remarks.

VG contacted the publisher of Houellebecq's books but received no reply. The French writer is widely known as someone who never gives interviews.