by Gerrie Lim
To be sure, most men preferred their porn stars classically built, like the Vivid girl Briana Banks. I was stopped dead in my tracks when I first met her. She was runway-model tall, impossibly thin, with huge breasts, and so resembled a human blow-up doll. But hey, that was obviously what her many fans wanted to see. I actually preferred the more notorious Marilyn Star, the Canadian porn star sentenced in 2002 to three months’ prison for aiding and abetting her stockbroker boyfriend in insider trading.
The first time I ever saw her was when she posed with the rock star Marilyn Manson in New Rave magazine, April 1996, an outrageous fetish/bondage layout that was one of my first porn epiphanies (“How,” I thought, “could I even like this? Could there be something wrong with me?”). My AVN colleague Mark Kernes lambasted her for lies and deceit, after she’d claimed to the New York Times that she was “raped and abused” and had used her insider tips to “save money and get out of the abusive pornographic film industry.” But I was glad she got her fifteen minutes. Her layouts still turned me on, so what did I care about her real life? And, honestly, what would porn be without wacky kooks like her?
I felt the same way when the news broke in May 2005 that Joy Marquart, formerly known as the porn star Farrah, had stolen more than US$40,000 from six banks in New Jersey, and was accordingly arrested by police, who alleged that she was a frontwoman for a New York City based crime ring. Utilizing her glamorous physique and thespian skills, she had apparently used a series of fake driver’s licenses, fake bank checks and fake debit cards to pilfer some real customers’ bank accounts. (“She was very well-dressed, she didn’t need a lot of make-up,” a police detective noted.) Farrah was one of the forever-blond porn stars of the 90s who somehow never quite made it to Jenna Jameson status, but to me her saga contributed to the colorful quilt that made American porn so fascinating.
Sure, she was trading on her past glories—she had peaked, and her career never quite recovered, after some of her best films made for Vivid circa 1998—and now she was sadly slouching toward a second act. But the curtain had closed down on her, echoing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous dictum that there were “no second acts in American lives.” It lent a certain pathos to the whole picture, adding to the litany of celebrity death by metaphor—robbing banks, after all, meant stealing money one didn’t have, and sometimes the fleeting nature of fame could be desperately painful. For some, the porn persona was never quite enough.
“There is no wrong thought, only wrong action,” to quote Nina Hartley, who had talked about porn with more zest and zing than anyone I’d ever met. “Sex is a wonderful, joyous, positive, transformative, healing, hot, horny gift of evolution. Its immense power demands respect. As adults, we decide for ourselves what sex means to us … Shame over our desire is useless, alienating us from love and connection. Mindless chasing of desire is equally destructive … Ten honest seconds can change a life.”
Yes, indeed. I was, in my guise as a cultural observer, a collector of life-changing acts. I remembered a discussion with the director Nic Cramer, done as part of a long piece I was writing on Asia Carrera for Penthouse Variations. Nic told me how much he had enjoyed working with her and gave me a copy of his film Intimate Strangers, which he considered his best film with her. “She’s an example of how to do it right,” Nic said. “Asia and Jill Kelly, to me, embody the savvy businesswoman, the modern feminist, who says: ‘I’m a feminist, I like my orgasms, I like my body, I’m not ashamed of showing it and I don’t mind profiting off it, I see nothing wrong with it, and I deserve to get rich by it.’
“I think that’s cool. If I could get rich off my penis, I would. Or my naked body. I’d probably do it.” He laughed. “Are you going to quote me on that?”
Asia, in turn, had over the years made me laugh quite a lot too, as both comrade and friend. I remembered her closing lines at the end of Malibu Hookers 1 (which was slightly better than the sequel, Malibu Hookers 2, but not by much), in which she played a madam working her girls out of her beachside house. Her own house in Malibu was used in the film (I only know so because I’d been there many times and recognized the rooms onscreen) and, in the final scene, she was seen strolling contentedly alongside the lapping waves and hovering seagulls.
“They say there are two things in life you can count on: death and taxes,” she said, in voiceover. “Well, I’ve found two things I can count on: sex and money.”
Everything in the American porn industry, of course, really revolved around those two things, metaphorically represented by a set of jiggling 34Cs and some perfectly shaved pubic topiary. There was something both amusing and true about that. And while some may scoff, I had never met a more unequivocally honest and more morally courageous class of people that I did while reporting on the porn industry.
Perhaps there was something about the genre itself, perhaps best represented by the “real sex” metaphor—what you see is very often really what you get, and unlike mainstream Hollywood nobody uses body doubles or socks covering genitalia, which means nobody gets to hide very much for long. With or without Viagra. And if you get stabbed in the back, you’ll get it with your eyes open.
I’d talked about this a great deal with Kelly Holland, known to most porn fans as the Vivid director Toni English, who afforded me perspectives aplenty about the role of porn in society. As a female director in a business selling mostly to men, she possessed a unique stance, and I recall a formal interview I did with Kelly at her house in October 2001 in which I asked her if she felt any different being a woman behind the camera. Her answer was so startlingly profound that I haven’t forgotten it.
“I don’t put a lot of weight on being a female director, as opposed to a male director in this business,” she said. “Only because I have to answer to the marketplace. I have to put facial cumshots in. I have to put tight hardcore in. I have to put insert shots in. So anything I may or may not find appealing is overridden by my necessity to answer to what drives the market.”
Was she a realist disguised as a romantic? Kelly had come into porn straight from a career directing mainstream documentaries. She had shot riotous soccer matches and incendiary military coups d’etat in Latin America. She knew about organized chaos, so group sex was a walk in the park.
“I think what affects me more than being a woman is just my background, as a mainstream film person that came out of television and my background as an actress that came out of theatre,” she added. “It’s my background as an actress that, I think, moves me to try to always justify action in the script. I hate dumb shit, you know. I hate stuff that happens out of the blue for no reason, and characters that have these huge shifts in the middle of the story, where all of a sudden they discover that they’re lesbians within twelve seconds because the scene necessitates it. I can’t stand stuff like that.
“But that’s not, I don’t think, because I’m a woman. I think that’s because I spent a long time in college and then as an actress in theatre and television and then directing theatre. I’m always looking for what motivates characters. How do they move, how do they change. So it’s more my artistic background that dictates the way I make films, much more than I’m a woman.”
I realized there and then that while one’s personal leanings often informed one’s professional aspirations, the stakes were always raised in the sex industry. The personal and the professional always merged, and that explained why I was so attracted to it. These people had put their lives on the line. It was a vocation to them. Work was not a lacy bra and garters one merely wore and discarded after a shoot. It was a whole way of life.
That was why I’d always liked Alexus Winston, one of my favorite Penthouse Pets, who didn’t do hardcore movies and preferred to struggle with the vagaries of mainstream television and the occasional Pinnacle Horny Goatweed print ad. In every pictorial I’d seen her in, particularly those shot by the great Suze Randall, she looked a hundred percent the sexually voracious vixen and never failed to entice me with her confident, come-hi
ther stares. And when my colleague Tripp Daniels interviewed her for AVN Online and asked her what kind of underwear she was wearing, she replied: “I don’t wear underwear. That’s absolutely a fact. And anyone close to me knows that’s true.”
“I’ve noticed that working with Penthouse,” she added. “Pets don’t wear panties. I swear to God. Pets don’t wear panties. It’s like a rule of thumb.”
Ah, la dolce vita, sans underwear, that was her way of life. And that was my kind of rule of thumb, since exhibitionism was my particular favorite turn-on. Certain body parts never lied, and in the end we all relied on what we saw and heard and, more emphatically, on what we entrusted to imagination.
A whole industry, in fact, turned itself on because of four words, filched neatly from the familiar American greenback that was its very reason for being. That, in the end, was how I saw it: In lust we trust.
Photographs
Well, I watched them have sex and then we went out for drinks. Tabitha Stevens (left) and Jill Kelly contract girl Haven, Deep nightclub, Hollywood, May 2001 (Photo by Brian Gross)
Singapore girl Grace Quek, in her previous incarnation. Promotional postcard for the documentary Sex: The Annabel Chong Story, 1999 (courtesy of David Whitten/Greycat Releasing).
“You’re from Penthouse? Man, I have to talk to you!” Such was the general reaction to my press pass at the Webnoize convention, Century Plaza Hotel, Century City, November 1999.
“Min mamma lagar de godaste köttbullarna i landet!” (“My mother makes the best meatballs in the country!”) says Swedish-meatball expert Linda Thoren, at Barney’s Beanery, West Hollywood, October 1999. (Photo by Leif Rock)
Asian faux-couple of the year. With Asia Carrera at the AVN Expo, Sands Expo & Convention Center, Las Vegas, January 2001. (Photo by Clarke Irving)
RIGHT “Look, mom, that’s me!” Asia Carrera, with our AVN Online cover story on the wall, at home in Chatsworth, California, September 2003. (Photo by Gerrie Lim)
Just before she gave me her masturbation video, she cooed ever so sweetly: “Let’s rock the legs off my bed, baby!” Sara St James, signing as Jacqueline Lovell, Los Angeles, May 1995. (Promotional poster from Crystal Fantasies)
With Nina Hartley, on the set of Naked Hollywood #6, Tango Blues Studio, Hollywood, June 2001 (Photo by Inari Vachs)
She’s dolled up in fetish gear and I’m wearing a Singapore Film Festival t-shirt! With Cheyenne Silver, on the set of Vivid’s Where The Boys Aren’t #14, The Faultline, East Hollywood, June 2001. (Photo by Melissa Monet)
A pornstar sandwich! Jill Kelly (left) and Shayla LaVeaux, Deep nightclub, Hollywood, May 2001. (Photo by Brian Gross)
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Wei Hui, who personally gave me permission to quote from her novel Marrying Buddha, for the opening epigraph. And to Asia Carrera, for allowing me to quote from her personal journals.
I am also indebted to Darcey Steinke, the first writer I met, back in 1992, who openly expressed to me her fascination with pornography. I loved the sex scenes in her novel Suicide Blonde, which compelled my own investigations into the shadowy realms of sex culture. Karl Taro Greenfeld also inspired me with both his own memoir, Standard Deviations, and one particular dinner conversation during which he shared his own experiences of covering the American porn industry and discussed with me the metaphysics of sex and memory.
Portions of this book have appeared elsewhere in other forms, in the United States (AVN Online, Fox, Penthouse Variations and The Wall Street Journal), Singapore (BigO) and Sweden (Guld Rapport). Salutations, then, to my colleagues at Penthouse Variations, past and present: Lori Applebaum, V.K. McCarty, Barbara Pizio, and Jamie Selzer. And at AVN Online, also past and present: Tripp Daniels, Tom Hymes, Erik McFarland, and Ken Michaels. And at our irascible mother ship AVN: Nikki Fritz and Mark Kernes. I would like to thank all parties for permissions to quote from my published text.
Special thanks to Dottie Meyer, Director of Pet Promotions at Penthouse magazine, for having facilitated so many of my more memorable interviews, particularly those with Janine Lindemulder, Dyanna Lauren, and Silvia Saint.
I’m also grateful in so many ways to the following people, for keeping contact and talking shop over the years: Wayne Akiyama, Halli Aston, Helen Boyd, Asia Carrera, Kyla Cole, Nic Cramer, Adrian Daskalov, Jessica Drake, Tomas Edberg, Luke Ford, Christine Fugate, Jennie Grant, Brian Gross, Kelly Holland, Jake Jacobs, Jill Kelly, Ginger Lynn, Monica Mayhem, Melissa Monet, Grace Quek, Devan Sapphire, and Brenda Scofield. And also, of special note, Cecilia Tan, who shared with me her experiences of working with Jenna Jameson.
None of this would have been possible, however, without the unwitting participation of three amazing women: Katie Elliott and Stephanie Smiley, who in 1994 first introduced me to Traci Lords (in person, not on video), and then Lily Burana, that same year, who as the then editor of Future Sex magazine encouraged me to interview Traci and then elevated the game with her own brilliant book Strip City.
For reading chapters and offering comments, thanks to: Sandy Cheah, Pamela Fahey, Anna Span, and Trevor Wingert.
Major thanks to Ming Pang and Collin Patrick for their excellent art direction and cover design. And, as always, salutations to Dana Duncan Seil, from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
And to Karen Green, wherever you are now.
I would finally like to, most of all, thank my most significant other, P.H., for her longstanding tolerance of my ongoing madness, particularly since she has absolutely no interest in the wacky world of porn. Her trust and confidence in me is precious and rare, and immeasurably appreciated.
Everything in this book attempts to echo the words of the late, great New York photographer Diane Arbus: “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.”
Recommended Reading
In the process of writing this book, I found the following useful as both research resources and inspirational touchstones, many of them having been my traveling companions over the years:
Anderson, Dan, and Maggie Berman, with the Vivid Girls. How to Have a XXX Sex Life: The Ultimate Vivid Guide. New York: Regan Books, 2005.
Bentley, Toni. The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir. New York: ReganBooks/HarperCollins, 2004.
Bogdanovich, Peter. The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960-1980). New York: William Morrow, 1994.
Boyd, Helen. My Husband Betty. Love, Sex and Life with a Crossdresser. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003.
Burana, Lily. Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Journey Across America. New York: Talk Miramax/Hyperion, 2001.
Carre, Didier. Stainless Ladies. Zurich, Switzerland: Edition Skylight, 2005.
Coren, Victoria, and Charlie Skelton. Once More, With Feeling: How We Tried to Make the Greatest Porn Film Ever. London: Fourth Estate, 2002.
Field, Genevieve, and Rufus Griscom. (editors) Nerve: Literate Smut. New York, Broadway Books, 1998.
Flint, David. Babylon Blue: An Illustrated History of Adult Cinema. London: Creation Books, 1998.
Ford, Luke, A History of X. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1999.
Gitler, Ian. Pornstar. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.
Greenfeld, Karl Taro. Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia. New York: Villard Books, 2002.
Greenfield-Sanders, Timothy. XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits. New York: Bullfinch Press, 2004.
Harvey, Philip D. The Government Vs. Erotica: The Siege of Adam & Eve. New York: Prometheus Books, 2001.
Jameson, Jenna, with Neil Strauss. How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale. New York: Regan Books, 2004.
Jenkins, Emily. Tongue First: Adventures in Physical Culture. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.
Kelman, Nic. Girls. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004.
Lim, Gerrie. Invisible Trade: High-class sex for sale in Singapore. Singapore: Monsoon Books, 2004.
Lords, Traci
Elizabeth. Traci Lords: Underneath It All. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Merritt, Natacha. Digital Diaries. Koln, Germany: Taschen, 2000.
McNeil, Legs, and Jennifer Osborne. The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry. New York: ReganBooks/HarperCollins, 2005.
Millet, Catherine. (Translated by Adriana Hunter) The Sexual Life of Catherine M. New York: Grove Press, 2002.
O’Toole, Laurence. Pornocopia: Porn, Sex, Technology and Desire. London: Serpent’s Tail. 1998.
Orloff, Erica, and JoAnn Baker. Dirty Little Secrets: True Tales and Twisted Trivia About Sex. New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 2001.
Palac, Lisa. The Edge of the Bed: How Dirty Pictures Changed My Life. Boston: Litte, Brown, 1998.
Serpieri, Paolo Eleuteri. Serpieri Sketchbook. New York: Heavy Metal, 1995.
Taormino, Tristan. Tristan Taormino’s True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2002.
Tan, Cecilia. Black Feathers: Erotic Dreams. New York: HarperPerennial/HarperCollins, 1998.
Tisdale, Sallie. Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex. New York: Doubleday, 1994.
About the Author
Gerrie Lim is a former Los Angeles music critic who was writing for Billboard, Playboy, L.A. Style, and L.A. Weekly when he found himself sidetracked into reporting about the adult entertainment industry in America. He wrote the popular “Cinema Blue” column for Penthouse Variations magazine (under the pseudonym Drew McKenzie) from 1999 to 2002, and then reported on the adult Internet industry as the International Correspondent for the trade journal AVN Online.