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How to Make Love Like A Pornstar: A Cautionary Tale
by Jenna Jameson, Neil Strauss
Regan Books (August 17, 2004)
Tucker’s Rating: 7 / 10
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What’s it about?: The autobiography of the famous porn actress, Jenna Jameson.
Tucker’s Opinion: This is another frustratingly good memoir: Good because it reveals a lot about a compelling person and is pretty honest, but frustrating because like most memoirs, it doesn’t really go much beyond what happened. It doesn’t try to understand the motivations, the implications, and what that means for the person today. The one thing I can say about this book: I have known and dealt with a lot of women in the sex industry (porn stars, strippers, escorts, pimps, etc), and Jenna is much smarter and more introspective and honest than pretty much any of them. They all basically have the same story, but hers is that story blown up as big as it can get.
Notable Quotes from [INSERT TITLE] (as marked by Tucker):
Now I know that if you’re dating somebody to improve him, you’re not really in a love relationship. You’re just being a nurse. The simple truth, and the hardest thing most women ever learn, is that what you see is what you get.
Relationships are funny, because they are not logical. Instead of judging them by the facts, we assess them by our expectations.
Before Cliff, everything I had ever done — every piece of myself I had ever given a man — was because it was something I had wanted to do with someone I felt an emotional connection to. But now that he had hurt me, it was on. Sexuality became a tool for so much more than just connecting with a boy I was attracted to. I realized it could serve any purpose I needed. It was a weapon I could exploit mercilessly. So, just to mess with Cliff, I continued to see Owen.
“Ignore what everybody else says,” he said. “They have their own reasons. How do you really feel?”
Joy had booked interviews and photo ops for me every ten minutes. And I was excited to do all that work. I was willing to do anything to be someone who everybody loved. Looking back on it, it was just a new type of insecurity replacing the old one, and I was giving myself away to the needs and expectations of the public instead of the needs and expectations of the men in my life. It was just a new form of dependence developing. And it was equally detrimental to any sort of mental stability.
A strange sort of arrogance took hold of me after all the accolades. I began to think I was smarter than everybody around me, which may have been true but didn’t give me any excuse to act that way. On set, I acted as if I were the only one who knew what it took to sell movies. I knew what kind of sex to have, whom I had to work with, and how many scenes I needed to be in. And if anyone disagreed with me, I’d pull rank. I realized all I had to do was threaten to quit the movie or sic Steven Orenstein on a director, and he’d do whatever I wanted. When you are twenty-one and have the kind of power I did, you enjoy brandishing it.
Of course, Rod wasn’t entirely innocent himself. He seemed to be taking out all his bad experiences with women on me as well. He had a passive-aggressive way of trying to keep me under control, and that was by playing off my insecurity. It’s a time-honored tactic among men who feel like they are dating women out of their league: never be impressed and always put her down.
We relaxed by the pool and ordered daiquiris. I was instantly drawn to him. He was so different than any guy I had met before. An that’s probably because I’d been in a world of strip-club owners, porn directors, and suitcase pimps for most of my adult life. He wasn’t loud or obnoxious; he didn’t feel a need to brag or prove himself; and he was unaware of good-looking he was. He had no game. And because of that, I felt comfortable, like I could let down my guard and be myself without worrying that he wanted anything from me.
Away from L.A., life seemed much more simple. I realized that my whole adult life, I had been in control: I had the power to make my life easy or difficult. I had just been giving that power away to other people. Taking it back was just as easy — and as hard — as stepping back and making a decision change.
Behind the scenes, I would make club owners move my hotel room every night for some dumb reason: if the hotel didn’t have room service — or if it did and there weren’t any burgers on the menu. I didn’t know these jokers, so it didn’t matter to me. But actually, it did matter, because I ended up getting a reputation as a cunt. That was never my intention. I was acting out because I came from shit, my relationship was shit, and my life was shit, so I needed an outlet. When I look back at the people who had to deal with me, I feel terrible. I’d call my agent at 2 A.M. screaming “If there isn’t a limo here to take me back to the hotel, I’m flying home right now.” That guy definitely worked for his commissions with me.
Ever since I was a teenager writing in my diary, I’d wanted to be a wife and a mother. It was never something I could explain intellectually; it was simply a gut feeling, like the urge to get pregnant when I lost my virginity. Perhaps I just wanted to know what unconditional love felt like, to look into the eyes of my own baby and make his or her life wonderful in all the ways mine never was.