Virginie Despentes: King Kong Theory
Cover of the FSG Originals edition (2021)
I write from the realms of the ugly, for the ugly, the frigid, the unfucked
and the unfuckables, all those excluded from the great meat market of female flesh,
and for all those guys who don't want to be protectors, for those who
are not ambitious, competitive, or well-endowed. [1]
I.
I have to confess, I don't know a great deal about the French writer and filmmaker Virginie Despentes, other than that she likes to explore themes of gender, sexuality, and marginalisation and that her work is often labelled transgressive (i.e., that those marketing her books and movies want you to believe they have a certain edgy vibe).
Probably her most famous fictional work is the 1993 novel Baise-moi, which she adapted for film in 2000. Because of its graphic mix of violence and explicit sex scenes, the movie received extensive media coverage - but not great reviews. It is sometimes considered an example of what critics like to refer to as the New French Extremity [2].
I'm afraid that when I come across any writing which seems to thrill with graphic depictions of rape and murder, I can't help recalling Lawrence's letter to Aldous Huxley in which he warned how this ultimately results in a feeling of profound boredom [3].
Still, that's just me - and I doubt very much I'm the target audience for this enfant terrible of French cinema and the literary world.
II.
When not writing fiction or directing films, Despentes produces cultural theory and feminist philosophy from a radical pro-sex and post-punk perspective.
Her most famous contribution to such is the wonderfully titled 2006 book King Kong Theory - a work which, like Baise-moi, was shaped by her (not particularly pleasant) experiences as a teenaged hitchhiker and groupie and then, later, as a prostitute working in peep shows and massage parlours and walking the streets in low-cut tops and high-heeled shoes, not giving a shit about what people thought of her [4].
For Despentes, being gang-raped was the price she had to pay for living with total freedom: or living like a man, as she put it [5].
Or a giant gorilla ...
III.
In King Kong Theory, Despentes explicitly informs her readers early on that she is more King Kong than Kate Moss, by which she means "too aggressive, too loud, too fat, too brutish, too hairy, always too mannish" [6] to pass as a waifish and fashionable model of womanhood.
Later, she expands on what it is to be a King Kong Girl: essentially, it's to be transgender and to trouble all binary distinctions; not just male and female, but also human and animal, primitive and civilised, good and evil.
To become King Kong is not just to have an enormous appetite for bananas and destruction, but to realise one's potential for ultra-powerful, polymorphic sexuality and escape the confines of femininity (which she equates with bootlicking and the art of servility).
Arguably, King Kong Theory owes a good deal to a number of earlier works, including Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1968). But it reminds me also of a more recent book, namely, Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts (2015) and I thought it might be interesting to briefly compare and contrast these three texts ...
IV.
With its use of aggressive, non-academic, and visceral language to critique patriarchal structures, sexual violence, and societal hierarchies, Virginie Despentes's King Kong Theory is most comparable to Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto.
Both writers position themselves in the margins and address those excluded from conventional definitions of womanhood, respectability, or desirability. And both authors wilfully court controversy and reject mainstream feminist assimilation, opting instead to shock the reader into a new awareness of gender power dynamics.
However, in terms of their political ideology, they diverge significantly: whereas SCUM girls seek the destruction of society and the elimination of men, King Kong Girls don't subscribe to such a separatist (and androcidal) revolutionary model.
They seek only their own survival and autonomy whilst holding to the hope of building new relationships in a trans-future which liberates both men and women from the current forced masquerade of gender. For Despentes, feminism is ultimately a collective adventure.
I think Despentes is a little less crazy than Solanas - she isn't going to shoot anyone (even if she promises to provide a gun for every girl) and King Kong Theory is rooted more in sincere personal memoir (with its mix of trauma and vulnerability) than razor sharp political satire.
Ultimately, this makes it much less fun to read than SCUM, although, for those who like the kind of confessional writing (or autotheory) peddled by Despentes, King Kong Theory is more moving on a human level.
And it is precisely this shift toward the deeply personal, structurally fluid world of autotheory that brings me to Maggie Nelson ...
V.
By Nelson's own account, King Kong Theory was a direct inspiration on her book The Argonauts [7].
Both books are a very skilful blend of deeply personal memoir and critical theory used to dissolve traditional ideas - including mainstream feminist ideas - about gender, sex, and societal expectations and both writers refuse to separate the ideological from the biological.
Thus, it is that their philosophical thinking is rooted in the messy reality of their own bodies, sex lives, and personal histories (interestingly, both authors identified as lesbians, but both became romantically involved with women who then transitioned to men) [8].
Despite sharing certain foundational similarities, there are contrasting structural differences between King Kong Theory and The Argonauts and their tone and style are very different. I wouldn't necessarily say that Nelson is the more gifted writer, but she's definitely the more lyrical and coolly analytic; less punk, perhaps, but more poetic and intellectual.
Personally, as much as I like Despentes's use of a monstrous metaphor - King Kong - to describe polymorphic sexuality and a non-heteronormative way of being in the world, I think Nelson's mythological metaphor (borrowed from Roland Barthes) - the Argonauts' ship - is not only more subtle and sophisticated, but more useful for thinking about the continually changing nature of queer identity.
In sum: Despentes's King Kong Theory is probably closer in anger and attitude to Solanas's Scum Manifesto than to Nelson's The Argonauts. But in as much as King Kong Theory blends personal memoir with gender theory and addresses queer marginalized lived experience, you'd have to say that it anticipates the latter work more than it recalls the former.
VI.
A friend of mine asked which of the three books I would recommend for her fourteen-year-old daughter - which is a tricky question to answer.
Liberal-minded people doubtless wouldn't hesitate to suggest The Argonauts as the most age-appropriate work and there is a lot to argue in favour of this.
Maggie Nelson's book is a thoughtful, beautifully written piece of autotheory and for a teenager growing up in today's world, it offers a nuanced, empathetic, and highly relevant look at how we construct our identities and relationships. Whilst rich in fairly complex ideas, The Argonauts remains grounded in a real-world domestic situation and is written (for want of another word) with love [9].
However, I'm not particularly liberal-minded and always feel instinctively drawn to that which is inappropriate ...
And so I think I'd probably go with the SCUM Manifesto - even at the risk that this might be misinterpreted by a young mind and taken all-too-literally. King Kong Theory loses out simply on the grounds that I think it offers far fewer laughs and, ultimately, as Lawrence warned about obscenely graphic writing, it can become boring and a bit depressing after a while.
And - to be perfectly honest - I'd rather my friend's daughter dreamed of becoming a thrill-seeking female intent on overthrowing governments, destroying the male sex, cracking jokes, and building a magical world rather than thinking about the grim reality of pornography, prostitution, and gang-rape.
Ultimately, with its cynicism, nihilism, and dark humour I still think the SCUM Manifesto is more punk than King Kong Theory [10] - despite the gritty authenticity of the latter and its liberal use of expletives.
Notes
[1] This is a composite quote from the opening section ('Bad Lieutenants') to Virginie Despentes's King Kong Theory, translated by Frank Wynne (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2020). The original French edition, King Kong théorie, was published by Grasset in 2006.
Previous English-language editions, trans. Stéphanie Benson, were published by Serpent's Tail (2009) and The Feminist Press (2010).
[2] As a noun, un baiser simply means a kiss. But as a verb, baiser means to fuck. And so Baise-moi is best translated in English as Fuck Me. In some markets, however, Despentes's film is known as Rape Me - a mistranslation with which she has expressed her displeasure in interviews.
As for the term New French Extremity, this was first coined by critic James Quandt in 2004 in a piece complaining about the violent turn that French filmmaking appeared to have taken in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
[4] See the section 'Sleeping With the Enemy' in King Kong Theory where Despentes discusses her time as a sex worker. She claims one of the things she found most difficult about the job was dealing with the loneliness and vulnerability of the men who were her clients. She positively contrasts sex work with heterosexual relationships in which, as she puts it, women are fucked for free.
[5] That's maybe an unfair (reductive) characterisation of Despentes's position.
In the section of her book titled 'You Can't Rape a Woman Who's a Total Slut', Despentes recounts her experience of being gang-raped in 1986 at the age of seventeen, and explains how she has processed the experience since.
Her account and response is more nuanced than I imply. She notes, for example, how women who have been raped are socially encouraged to blame themselves and harbour feelings of guilt and shame for not resisting (this is, in fact, one of her central arguments). Despentes also suggests that female rape fantasies do not indicate an inherent desire for subjugation, but are the result of a patriarchal system that conflates female sexuality with powerlessness and oppression.
At the same time, however, it should be noted that Despentes famously rejects the status of dignified victim and this rejection is crucial to her punk-feminist philosophy in King Kong Theory. She will not feel shame and she will not be silent and prefers to assert angry agency rather than ask for pity (or even demand justice in the traditional legal sense). She explicitly claims that rape did not destroy or defeat her, even if it did permanently change her and lead to her wider political awakening.
[6] Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory, trans. Frank Wynne (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2020), p. 14.
[7] Maggie Nelson generously provides a blurb for the Fitzcarraldo edition of King Kong Theory in which she writes: "I can think of almost no book I've enjoyed in recent years as much as King Kong Theory - in part for its content, in part for the ferocity of its style. [...] This book is a classic, and I'm grateful for it."
[8] Despentes dated Spanish philosopher Paul B. Preciado from 2005 to 2014; Maggie Nelson is married to the artist and writer Harry Dodge. The Argonauts largely chronicles their relationship and experiences with queer domesticity and family life.
[9] I published a two-part post on Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts back in April 2025. To access part one of this post (on pp. 1-74 of the book), click here. There is a link to the second part of the post (pp. 75-180) at the end of part one.
[10] For a recent post on Valerie Solanas's place in the punk imagination - with particular reference to the history of the Sex Pistols, click here.
Bonus: Frank Wynne reads from Virginie Despentes's King Kong Theory (Fitzcarraldo, 2020 / FSG, 2021).
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