Often times, the producers weren’t on the set and they didn’t oversee the script. They just said, “Give us the hottest and the wildest because that’s what we’re going to sell.” As video became more and more of a reality that became the criteria. It was sad because we kept saying to them, “You’re going to lose your female audience.” The female audience could grow.
I used to have women come up to me at conventions and say, “Thank you.”
I’d say, “Thank you? What did I do?”
They’d say, “Because of you, my husband and my sex life is better.” To me that was the best testimony. It was the best thanks and gratitude that I could ever receive. I think the women — I can’t speak of the women of today and it would be unfair of me to do so, but as a group, we were able to create. It was a transition time from stag movies to video and during that time, we were able to get in there and make some classic movies with story lines and weren’t focused upon shaved genitalia. Pornos weren’t really focused on the sex even though they were sex films. Yes, there certainly was a formula and we strove to get the formula broken. You can probably talk to a lot of women of the golden era who will say this. There was a formula, and it was something like seven sex scenes per movie with one girl-girl scene, and one orgy scene. If the storyline didn’t have that formula, it wasn’t saleable. We strove to convince the producers that that was not true and that you could run the storyline throughout the film without compromising anything and have it be very sensual. There didn’t have to be an orgy scene, and there didn’t necessarily have to have a woman-woman scene. If was if there was a storyline, or if there was a build-up of eroticism, people have a tendency not to fast-forward. We tried to convince the producers of that. Ultimately, money wins over so they got to the point certainly as the video era came upon us and the video awards began, then they sold out again. “Let’s just pump as much sex into it as we can. Whoever has the hottest sex is going to sell the video.”
At the time, there were also several women directors. My own personal logo was, “Put the heart back into sex.” Up until that point, it had been the raincoat brigade. It had been stag films primarily, but the advent of video really broke the market open because now women could watch the films in the privacy of their own homes. That was the impetus, I think, for a lot of us to strive to do stories with women characters that were strong and empowered and I think that we were relatively successful until the internet.
For me, the way it was at the time, it was an opportunity to do some acting, but most definitely to make a difference. I think that people have to recognize that sex wasn’t a huge part of the movies. Even though they were X-rated, most of the movies that I was in, and I was only in about fifty which is nothing compared to most of those individuals, had story lines. In some cases, we had hundred page scripts, which was unheard of. They were movies. They were like Hollywood “B” movies with sex in many cases. Not all, but some. We were pioneers, and many of us tried to do what we could do to bring the female perspective into the films. That was it and then the golden era was done.
Many of us felt that it was a good time. I think that’s why it’s called the “Golden Age” because we were pioneering and of course, those women who were more intelligent — we really applied ourselves to make a difference and to bring quality and some sensitivity, and certainly, to empower women through what we were doing. I can remember many times being on talk shows with a group of my peers and that’s what we were talking about. We were saying, “This is why we were there.” We were even on Oprah. Seka and Veronica Hart and I were Oprah Winfrey’s guests on A.M. Chicago just before the launching of The Oprah Winfrey Show. We met her and that was cool. She was doing her job. I think where she was at the time was to do her job the best way she could with her particular brand. That was fun and it was a good experience.
It’s all very paradoxical. As I say, there was this window of time that lasted about ten years where we had the opportunity to insist in some cases that eroticism was not about penetration and bump and grind. A lot of men feel the same way as women. Still to this day, I get e-mails saying, “Thank you for your body of work. We get never get tired of watching it because of the quality and sensitivity.”
The God Factor
By the mid-1980s, Parker began to ease out of classic adult films as a performer excluding appearances in special projects of interest. Kay guest starred with her good friend Seka in Seka’s debut as a director: Careful, He May be Watching, released in 1987. In 1985, Kay adopted a different role as a PR executive for Caballero, one of the largest and most lucrative adult entertainment studios founded in 1974. Its empire was built upon a colossal collection of classic sex loops with major golden age stars as headliners. Parker’s one and only directorial effort came in 1994 when she helmed the instructional video The Tantric Guide to Sexual Potency with well-known feature performers Sharon Kane and Jon Dough demonstrating to viewers how to prolong the sexual experience while achieving greater satisfaction.
Parker fully recognizes that her choice to have worked in sex films is a confounding, complex issue, and not a decision she made lightly. As a woman, Kay has worn many hats, yet she bucks any notion that she fits the traditional feminist model.
I know many men in my life, actually, who are feminists more than I am. My dearest friend and my mentor and a gentleman who is fully self-actualized will often say, “I love women and I’m here to help empower women”. Certainly, at this point, women constitute sixty percent of the spiritual energy on this planet. A lot of the men are still lagging behind. They are stuck in the ego and stuck in their limited left- brain. Women have always been more willing to go into the right brain and into the creativity and explore the sixth sense.
In terms of being a feminist, I would never call myself that because even during the day when women were burning their bras, I was on my soapbox, appealing to men and women to come together and harmonize. I so appreciate feminists and women like them who have spoken out, but if you’re speaking out angrily, it’s still the same as men speaking out angrily. It’s like the pendulum swinging too far to the other side. We know a whole generation of women who want to be more like men because of how we’ve been treated and because of the dominance of the male. We still live in a male-dominated society, there’s no doubt about it. To me, it’s more about balance. It’s not about running off, putting on pants and entering the corporate world because I find a lot of women who have done that have moved way over into the left-brain and that’s not what we’re after. What we’re really after is harmony and peace that comes from the balance of the two. That’s why I would never really call myself a feminist.
Kay cautions young women and men contemplating entering adult entertainment as a career choice and explains that ideally, it’s about building a bridge to a higher ground.
My guidance for anyone considering entering the adult entertainment business has always been “Think very carefully.” It’s like with children; they’re going to do what they’re going to do. The more you tell them not to do something it’s more than likely their impetus to do it. It’s not an easy industry. Filmmaking is filmmaking. It’s grueling, and can be long, and it’s tedious. If you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it, but women need to think doubly or triply about it because it takes its toll on the emotional body. This is where a lot of people have that idea about women being objectified and abused. If you take a young lady, a little babe, who has been scarred in some way, and put her in front of a camera and you pump her full of ideas of success and stardom, it can be extremely damaging in addition to the damage that’s already there. We have seen that and I think we still see it, but I think it is part of any industry. It happens in Hollywood. If you introduce drugs or a lot of alcohol into this whole equation, then the confusion begins.
I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs, and by the time I was in movies, I had a rule that if drugs were on the set, I’d walk. Then, if you add to that the one other component called sex, it’s
even more of a fragile scenario. I’ve seen it in the music industry and Hollywood today. My advice to young individuals with aspirations of entering the business: Think very hard about it and do some research. Read some of the books about performers because it’s not easy, and it’s not glamorous. I was emotionally strong, even at that time. I’m intelligent and I’m well educated so I was aware of what was going on all the time.
Actually, to really address this properly is from a spiritual perspective which is where I’m coming from. I met a young gentleman from the Chicago area who had been a priest, and he had defrocked himself because of the corruption in the church. He became a counselor and a learned psychologist. He was a funny guy because his calling card had a very buxom blonde on one side so he may have been a sex or a marriage counselor of some kind. He was profound in his own way. He had written and self published some very controversial books where he talked about the corruption in the church. He had a blurb on one of the front pages of his book essentially that said in all sexual relationships we’re ultimately looking for a deeper connection to God. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s why I say we’re really on that journey of finding out about what we are. The more pronounced that desire is to have a deeper connection to God, the more we want to take our clothes off and get naked. I think if given half a chance any actor would do a sex film because it’s really ultimately about their search for themselves. That’s what life’s about. For me to have gone through the process that I went through, of subjecting myself to that and going through it, was, in a sense, about stripping myself down to my core so I could discover who I was.
To whom much is given, much is expected.
In terms of being on the cutting edge not only as a woman, but also as a woman who has left her mark in a proscribed business often held up to scrutiny by the outside world, Parker moved in a defined direction when her past employment experiences segued to her present work as a spiritual teacher. Upon compromising to the external forces she believes have guided her as she continues to flourish in the Light, every day is a new opportunity and challenge.
While strolling with Kay in the summer of 2011 in the beautiful rose gardens at the Santa Monica bluffs where she had resided for over thirty years, I was awed by her inner beauty and her devotion to her belief system. Even during that pivotal time in her life, Kay is not one who waivers from the truth or manifestations realized through the power of her spiritual commitment. Nor does she lose sight of her sense of humor or forget how she arrived at this place in her life. As we waited at a crosswalk across from the bluffs, Kay shared a funny story that had occurred several years ago in a similar location to where we were standing. A police officer noted that Parker jaywalked across busy Ocean Avenue and started to write up a ticket for the minor infraction. Upon request, Kay handed him her identification. The officer suddenly looked her up and down, and with a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, he exclaimed, “You’re not the Kay Parker, are you?”
Kay smiled and answered, “I’m Kay Parker.” The officer smiled back at her and began to rip up the ticket. Stunned, she said to him, “You’re not supposed to do that, are you?”
Grinning, he replied, “I can do anything I want.”
Utilizing her credibility as a beloved legendary adult film actor, in the summer of 2011, Kay was in the preparatory stages of spreading her message of peace and love internationally specifically targeting the male population. For the first time in more than two decades, Kay Parker decidedly resurfaced as the identifiable erotic icon. Her new campaign “Putting the Heart back into Sex,” had already started into motion as she was featured with three other famous adult stars (Amber Lynn, Nina Hartley, and Asia Carrera) in a September 2011 article for Playboy Magazine written by acclaimed journalist Mike Sager. Kay also booked guest appearances on talk radio and television programs, and spoke to students at the San Francisco Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS). Since our visit in the summer of 2011, and after a trip to Asia in the winter of 2012 to further continue her spiritual work on a broader scale, Kay has relocated to Northern California which is home for now. She will be traveling to Scotland in the fall of 2012 for a speaking engagement. (For those interested in arranging a one-on-one spiritual guided session with Kay, she can be contacted through her website at: www.kaytaylorparker.com)
When you’re on a spiritual path, you have to be willing to let everything go for the sake of that experience of going deeper. I’m always going through that in my life. I’m going through a process of that right now where my finances are totally shot. It’s been such a tough year, but in the end, there’s a reason for it. I have a sign above my office door: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” That’s really another byline to my autobiography. Because of the job that I took on in this lifetime, I have to be so clear and so clean, and especially right now because there’s another sort of threshold that we’re moving past in terms of spiritual growth and the collective willingness to move forward. It’s almost as if I’m going through another clearing. It’s not comfortable at all, but I know what it is and I have got to go through it.
Since I draw from everything, and since I believe that there are no mistakes and that there’s a reason and purpose for everything, that path that I went down — every aspect of it in its own way was perfect. Would I to do it again if I had the opportunity to do it again? I can’t even begin to answer that question because it was as it was. When people ask me what I would have done differently, I say, “I don’t know.” Maybe it would be to become a better businesswoman! Seka used to wag her finger at me — we have a wonderful bond — she used to say, “You’re not taking care of yourself.”
That was not my way, but I really believe that what happened was supposed to happen, and as I’ve said, later, I came to understand why I went down that path. It continues even today. It’s kind of like a gleaming paradox in my life. There’s a reason for that also, but in one sense, it keeps me humble. I’m very careful and I have to be extremely cautious in terms of my own application with people. I have to be careful how I interact with individuals. Certainly, with those who contact me on the internet. It was always my intention to respond to every e-mail, but I have to admit there are some e-mails that come through occasionally that I just have to erase. It’s not appropriate that I have to deal with them. I shoot them a shot of love and that’s it.
The career was a piece of my past that brought me to this point with wisdom and understanding. In terms of sharing parts of my past with neighbors that don’t know about that — it’s not necessary. Sometimes it comes up, but it’s like with my family in a sense. At that time, they would not have understood, and it wasn’t necessary to expose them to that. It was my path to go down and for me to deal with, not for them to deal with. I didn’t want to impose that upon them and would not impose it upon certain people. Then there are other people — a lot of individuals that I’ve counseled and I’m speaking in terms of the male populous, have known about the past. For some reason it has been a plus and I’m very clear with people that my work is strictly spiritual counseling. If they have an issue, and they want to heal and they’re willing to do the inner work, then certainly, I’ll do the work with them. If they’re coming to me thinking that we’re going to do some kind of hands on work, sorry. That’s not what I do. There are times when just because of my past and because they know I’ve gone down that road it somehow gives me an opening that other therapists wouldn’t be able to attain. We can speak about sex, but I make it clear that we talk about it only in terms of it being about you and your soul.
Once in a blue moon, a person hasn’t known about me and something comes up in the reading or in the sessions and it’s rare, but I would say, “Look, I don’t know if you know about my past but…” I introduce it into the session and somehow it’s like a key that opens a door to a part of their consciousness that had been locked before. They’ve allowed me to go through it just in terms of counseling, and somehow, it was a healing for the
m. It’s been very gratifying from that perspective.
There is a book called The Artists Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (1992)
written by Julia Cameron. What I understand the significance of it to be is about having a lot of creativity in your life and giving it equal time. How that translates to me is spending equal parts of time living in the right brain. I’ve realized over the past several months because I’ve been going through a lot of financial stress, that I have been doing that. It’s ironic because I tell everybody else that you need to exercise and have your creative time and meditate. The last couple of days I’ve been realizing that I need to do more of that. I love to write — to me writing is the ultimate creativity. It centers me and when you’re inspired to do it, it comes from your soul. I need to dedicate myself to more writing, and particularly, I’m working with a woman to restructure my book so I think it’s going to be more about pulling the spiritual principles out of it and highlighting them which I’m looking forward to.
What I’m doing today is assisting in the uplifting of consciousness on the planet. That’s it, in a nutshell — anything that I can do and anyway that I can do it, God’s already using me to do this. I’m here to join the ranks of the other amazing souls on the planet who are working towards this end. I interact with some very profound individuals who are involved in global consciousness. I don’t believe that this planet third dimensionally will ever attain peace because the collective ego is still too involved. We’re moving toward a time of planetary ascension, meaning a dimensional shift, and at that point, those who are spiritually ready and equipped will move forward and they will experience peace. It’s a good time to be alive — it’s not an easy time but it’s what we came to do.
GOLDEN GODDESSES: 25 LEGENDARY WOMEN OF CLASSIC EROTIC CINEMA, 1968-1985 Page 49