SOURCE: Hussey, Andrew. “The Pornographer's Manifesto.” New Statesman 131, no. 4601 (19 August 2002): 34-5.

In the following review, Hussey explores the controversy over the pornographic and anti-Islamic elements of Platform, contending that Houellebecq's apparent viciousness and intolerance stems from a perverse compassion.

Along with Catherine Millet and Michel Houellebecq, one of the bestselling authors in France this past year has been Ovidie, a 21-year-old porn actress. Pierced and dressed in black leather, Ovidie manages to look winsome, cute and sexy all at once (“She makes Catherine Millet look like a bad-tempered primary school teacher,” commented one rather overexcited observer). She is a veteran of more than 40 porn films, and describes herself as a feminist, an artist and a philosopher, “un intello du porno” (“an intellectual of porn”). In her book, Porno Manifesto, Ovidie proudly recalls how she discovered pornography in early adolescence and says that it came to her as a...