GOLDEN GODDESSES: 25 LEGENDARY WOMEN OF CLASSIC EROTIC CINEMA, 1968-1985

by Nelson, Jill C.

  Understanding there were many commonalities between people working within the sex industry, Serena respected a person’s unique view of oneself and acknowledged her own individuality. She believes she and her generation of erotic performers were on an elevated platform.

  I went all over the country booked as a “Star of the Silver Screen” with a stage show. The clubs can be very, very depressing, populated with depressed men. Gross, gross, gross. These are people with not much else to do in front of mirrors applying layer after layer of make-up for hours and hours through the thickest cigarette smog ever, gossiping. No boss is there to tell them to do anything, they sit and gossip and grouse. All they talk about is family dysfunction and being exploited and all that stuff. It is true: but their own depressed energy is keeping it true for them. It had nothing to do with my case whatsoever, I am of The Dance, and swirl magick in my movements.

  I want to say that all of those girls in Vegas with fake boobs have allowed themselves to be exploited, but they seem to feel at peace with their decision. Looking the same as the next Barbie cutout seems to be a style. “The Industry” opened up that whole mindset after I’d retired. My industry was different: first story, then sex. Body type wasn’t that important.

  I was an active feminist in the eighties, marching on Washington, and wearing all white during the marches, and oh, I had fun. It was with the women and men. I visited the women’s art history museum, which is art only by women. It’s a marble building, but you walk and the entire rotunda ceiling is pink marble. It’s gorgeous! It’s so wild with beautiful paintings. A painting I was working on through that decade is twelve feet tall by nearly thirty feet long called “Women under Discussion”. On it are almost life size women dancers.

  In light of her experiences as a renegade female adult performer who pushed the limits to extremes even within her particular vocation, Serena related what the tandem of feminism and sexuality represented to her, as an inclusive designation.

  I think it is to be completely one self. To just express one self, no matter what that is. That would be the definition about being a man, too. In the eighties, it was about gender and it needed to be. I remember being the spokesperson for Doc Johnson, waving my hand at the vibrator. That was one of my little gigs when I lived in the Valley. It was a strange, fun time.

  I’m glad to have lived through the sexual revolution. I missed AIDS by minutes. I’ve learned a lot because it was such a different life than other people live. Whatever the view of your world is, you just need to take and learn from it. Life itself is masturbation. It is masturbating the Self, if you will. I’ve learned it’s really, really good to have an orgasm, and you should do it every day somehow. You should laugh, and have some kind of absolute bliss in your life. You should take responsibility for that and not depend upon anybody else to give you that. You should just do it for yourself or ring a bell! You owe it to yourself and you owe it to the world. If everybody just did that for themselves, and took care of themselves, and got out of everybody else’s business, the world would be happy and at peace.

  Everybody has regrets. The worst thing to have is regret, but it’s like guilt — it’s useless and it doesn’t do you any good. It eats you up inside. I wish I would have had more acting training and better scripts to play, but most all the sex was at least interesting: some dull and sweaty; some champagne and cocaine — the drug of choice at that time — created some honest, giggly, fun sex with familiar bodies mostly. Days on the set were “hurry up and wait”.

  We had a shared film lingo with the grips, ADs and fluffers (!) that wove us into a family of sorts. I crocheted the world’s second longest scarf — it had no end — in the long hours of lighting setups. The heat under the lamps that were used then could be scalding hot — performing in a crowd: the light creating a fire in the surrounding darkness of the soundstage, the cave. Sex could be like that when I was the instrument of lust. The object: my pussy, the entryway to happiness. I hoped to give this to the people that saw me through the flickering in the darkness of their theatre. In my personal time off the set, I was reading philosophy and studying Tarot, and putting together a sort of White Magick of my own.

  Aftermath

  I like to think I am in part responsible for the openness and freedom of speech we have today. My older sister has seen my films and supports my decision, and my other siblings are sexually positive because of the times we grew up. I’ve always been bi-polar and I’ve always been a loner, so I live a lifestyle like a hermit. I’m able to talk to my [younger] sister now. I don’t have any girlfriends. Actually, my childhood friend Leah and I send each other Christmas cards and I did see her when I was in the hospital in a coma. As soon as I came out of the coma, she was there, so I know she is with me. That’s one of the only times I’ve seen her in all my life. It’s okay because I have this connection with my best friend.

  In the fall of 2001, Serena experienced an altercation with a fixed object during an impulsive act of desperation. She suffered extensive injuries to her body from the fall that transpired, and was hospitalized and in a coma for one month. Today, Serena regards the event as a life-altering opportunity.

  I was torn between two men and I threw myself out a plate glass window and down a mountain. It was self-inflicted. I guess I wanted to go bye-bye — I couldn’t seem to keep anybody happy. I couldn’t stand it anymore — so much pressure. It was a very interesting experience. I think that was really the only time I got that close. I’ve never thought of myself as suicidal, but I get extremely manic and then I’m depressed.

  The pain my body has suffered has made me a lot more compassionate of others. You need to “get taken down a notch” by life sometimes, you know, to see who’s really in charge. It was really a good experience. Death is nothing to be afraid of; I looked straight in its eye. Of course, I came back kicking and screaming I might say, but granted, a lot of peace. It wasn’t like, “Oh, I have a second chance now.” Knowledge was given to me, but working through years of rehabilitation was the price I’ve paid. It manifested in me as having a lot more control of my life and a lot more true happiness. The fact is that the path of my life has always been on certain levels, and now I’m on a different level. I like who I am. My solid upbringing with such interesting people as parents got me through the wild years when I was young, gorgeous and doing movies, living in Hollywood and The Valley, and being part of the porn scene. My kid sister who went through Pre-Med, but considers me “the smart one,” has the paperwork on my IQ testing. I have an embarrassingly high IQ, and, like all mad “artists,” I’ve made my way as best I could.

  “Goddess” equals Peace, Love & Happiness

  It was a very special time, and this group of women that are included in this book — we were all very special and we were special as a group, as a community of artists. Like the Hudson River school of porn. I still have the taste of glamour that it gave me and I’ve actually started to appreciate it more because at that time I was treated with stardom and deference, which is delightful and delicious. You can eat it up, and as a young woman, that’s the good part. That’s why you put on lipstick and wear high heels. You can get back to that if you look in the mirror every day and like what you see. I felt I was an instrument of the message Peace, Love and Happiness. I still do.

  I just got back from a month of playing with my daughter and her two kids and my mom and my sister in Las Vegas. It was fabulous. I couldn’t have had more fun. It was just great. I had a big sewing area there and I got to go out to dinner with everybody; I got to ride on Ferris Wheels. I was there for a Christmas party, a New Year’s party, Christmas day, Martin Luther King day, my sister’s birthday — a Capricorn kid — and my birthday, on January 20, right on the cusp of Aquarius. I have a good relationship with my granddaughter who I adore. I just finished making her a quilt. We are on the same wavelength, because I like to be six and blissfully happy and that’s how she is. What could be better? I’m a sexy grandma and I’m very happy.


  What I do in the winter rain, I live on the top of a mountain in the redwood trees and look out on the redwood trees, play with my little bird and draw Marilyn Monroe. I’m obsessively drawing Marilyn Monroe this year, obsessively on purpose, finding out for myself why people make an image, an idol. I am drawing the Marilyn face that Andy Warhol did in a photograph. I’m doing that piece my way. I want a hundred of them, one hundred different ways. It’s that face over again, but each time, it will be Marilyn twinkling at you, just a little different. She comes alive and it’s fascinating to do. I just fall into her honey and when I feel a swoon, I know she has come alive under my hands.

  When it clears up and becomes spring, I do the garden — that’s out by the coast, and I play with my horses. Then when it becomes summer, I’ve got to start sculpting; that’s my schedule. I sculpt into the fall and then I’m firing and glazing. That was my routine last year and it worked really well. A lot of my pieces went to my family — I took a piece for everyone, but I sell enough. I sculpt phalluses, and goddesses, and eroticism and yard art.

  When I found the other half of me, my soul mate, words poured forth, and for the first year of knowing him, I did nothing but love him and write poetry. It’s the juice, it’s just like the river; it goes where it goes.

  The closing poem is an example of Serena’s talent for articulating the written word in this symbolic gesture of love and desire for her partner.

  Sex

  My toes standing on the tops of your feet;

  You hold me suspended as if I weigh nothing.

  All my body pressing into you;

  Sweat the sweet and sour sauce of lovemaking

  Tangy and sharp, salty;

  Your breath on my ear hot,

  A trade wind bringing your gifts;

  A hollow box echoing, the moans in your chest

  When I find what you need.

  Hips leading, I slide the length of you –

  My hands move around you

  Hold you

  Hold your bones

  Your body

  Your breath;

  Hold the life that is in my embrace

  I circle you and I am pierced by you

  There is nothing else.

  Lust our only boundary

  Lust has no conscience

  No memory and no allegiance.

  First Communion. COURTESY OF SERENA

  COURTESY OF SERENA

  Protecting our Freedom. COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS

  COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS

  Bill Margold and Serena, 2012.

  COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS

  PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL SUSSMAN

  Serena and Jamie Gillis. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL SUSSMAN

  Ecstasy Girls. CABALLERO CLASSIC. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL SUSSMAN

  COURTESY OF SERENA

  Serena. COURTESY OF SERENA

  PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL JOHNSTON

  11.

  Annie Sprinkle

  Global Goddess

  COURTESY OF ANNIESPRINKLE.ORG

  “I was in mainstream adult entertainment for twenty years. I’ve been in alternative sexually oriented art and film for almost as long. Theater, visual art, performance art, writing, but still almost all sex related. I feel like my best is yet to come in the Eco-sex movement I’m helping to co-create.”

  — Annie Sprinkle

  Annie Sprinkle’s list of professional and lifetime achievements beginning with her chosen field in prostitution, burlesque, and erotic entertainment where she still reigns as the buxom, golden shower Queen — and presently as a Ph.D. sexologist-activist, eco-sexual conceptual performance artist, lecturer and writer is staggering and a tribute to her dedication to her craft and her devotion to the environment. To quote one of Sprinkle’s artist friends, Kembra Pfahler, the pleasantly curvaceous Annie prefers not to “yesturbate,” and constantly propels forward with a third eye on the future as she conscientiously teaches about the indelible fusion between sex and ecology.

  Since leaving her work as a prostitute/sex performer, Sprinkle has reinvented herself many times while remaining true to her heart and her passion for sexualized issues. She is the ultimate alpha female of her era and continues to swath paths in new territories exemplifying what it is to be a feminist: a term that is once again in favor and credibly articulates Annie’s modus operandi.

  The eldest of four, Annie Sprinkle (now her legal name) was born Ellen Steinberg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1954. The family migrated to Southern California where they settled into a life of normal domesticity. Annie happily participated in family gatherings or outings to musicals, the movies, and various activities. Sprinkle’s father supported his brood as a social worker and would eventually become a professor at USC (University of Southern California). Annie’s parents were politically progressive and active members of the Unitarian Church; they extolled the virtues of their belief system to their children. When she was thirteen, the family moved to Panama in Central America. While earning her high school diploma, Sprinkle dabbled in various hallucinogenic drugs — to which she attributes the expansion of her psychological, sexual, and spiritual peripheries.

  In Tucson, Arizona in 1973, Sprinkle began working at a theatre where she was introduced to her first X-rated film, Deep Throat (1972), when it played at the twenty-four hour movie house. Annie found the film to be an exhilarating event coinciding with the coming out of her introverted shell. Charmed by Deep Throat creator and director, Gerard Damiano, Annie and Damiano kindled a meaningful romance and long time friendship.

  While studying filmmaking at Kirtman Studios in Manhattan, Sprinkle (who later studied photography) decided she was better versed in the act of performing oral sex than the girls she observed on screen and made her hardcore feature film induction in Seduction (1974) followed by Teenage Deviate (1975). Annie soon became known for alternative mainstream porn showcasing her superior and playful abilities in the art of fetishism. Her famed original erotic piece, Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981), was one of the largest grossing pornographic films in the early 1980s. In 1999, the educational and explicit DVD Annie Sprinkle’s Herstory of Porn provided audiences with over one hundred clips from Annie’s inspiring filmography, ranging from her maturation years to present day. Sprinkle also helped to launch Club 90, an exclusive group of women characterized by their careers in porn during the golden age. In 1992, Sprinkle received her Ph.D. in Human Sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Sexuality.

  The sex industry continues to shape shift in the new millennium, and Annie Sprinkle, in conjunction with her life partner Beth Stephens (a tenured Professor at Santa Cruz University), remains steadfast and true to herself and to our universe. With a caring and concerned heart, Sprinkle celebrates and promotes the symbiotic relationship between eroticism and the world as its Eco-Sexy Spokesperson, Friend, Mother, Sister, Daughter, Lover, and Philosopher.

  I spoke with Annie Sprinkle in February and in March 2010.

  Gypsy Dreams

  I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1954. At the age of five years old, I moved to Los Angeles with my family. We went to Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles. I didn’t like it very much but we had a swimming pool in our back yard and I loved swimming. That’s partly why I chose the last name “Sprinkle”.

  I was the oldest of four kids so by the time I was five there were three more kids, which was a bit tough. I was expected to tie my own shoes and feed myself, but couldn’t so I grew to be a little insecure. My mother was busy with other kids. That’s about the worst thing that happened during my childhood. That’s actually not too bad. In fact, my parents read us stories a lot and we went camping, and we did a lot of family activities. My mom taught English as a second language once we got older. She was one of the best in L.A., and my dad was a social worker and later became a college professor. My mom is still alive.

  I have Russian and Polish Jewish
blood; my grandmother spoke Yiddish. We were culinary Jews and ate the right food for the right holidays. My parents were always very political and anti-war, and pro-civil rights. My parents were Unitarians and I was raised Unitarian. They were Liberal intellectuals. A lot of famous Americans that worked on the Constitution were Unitarians. It was about believing what you are drawn to believe. You can be Jewish, and also be Unitarian or Christian and be Unitarian. It is a very open-minded concept. You can be very religious or you can be an Atheist. My parents are pretty much Humanists.

  Predicated upon the belief that God is “one,” the practice of the Unitarian faith is rooted in Christian theology with origins in Transylvania and Poland dating back to 1540. Unitarian devotees denounce the Christian belief of the “Trinity” that symbolizes and unifies God with Jesus (the Son) and the Holy Ghost as a single unit or that Jesus is the incarnation of God.

  I was very shy, very shy. I preferred staying in my room doing art projects. I liked to paint by number, and I did ceramics and ballet and tap, and I was a Girl Scout. Actually, I was a Blue Jay, which was a Camp Fire Girl. I was so shy, you know, I think my mom was kind of tough on me but I was never physically abused. Once I had my hand slapped for reaching into the cookie jar. That was it. I was never sexually abused. My dad was working a lot.

  My parents were not sex negative, but they weren’t very open about sex either. They left a few books lying around on the shelf like The Kinsey Reports [Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948, and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953] and the Joy of Sex [1972] which they figured we would find when we were ready. They didn’t talk to us about sex. At the Unitarian church we were shown films of babies being born; the church is well known for having sex education and they are sex positive, in general. I had that healthy influence. Essentially, I think I was raised to be political. Sex is political. Other than that, no one ever could have predicted the life path I would take, especially me.