Hindsight: True Love & Mischief in the Golden Age of Porn

by Howie Gordon

  At dawn, all our guests did show up. The yard was full. We even managed to wake up most of the people in the apartment building next door and they joined the wedding party by watching from their windows.

  John O’Keefe changed his mind. He didn’t want to do the sword dance. Bob Ernst didn’t want to do it either. Fine. Cut the sword dance. Howie, do the monologue.

  I didn’t want to do the monologue. I was a lot more nervous than I ever dreamed I’d be. Facing marriage made me feel very humble all of a sudden. There would be no wise-ass Bob Hope monolog. Fine. Cut the monologue. Let’s get ‘em married!

  Standing there on our homemade altar with Carly, I felt plugged into the spirit of 5,000 years of history. Marriage was a lot more serious than I ever anticipated.

  Before we ate the apple, I reached into my pocket and pulled out this little stone. I don’t remember where or how, but this little stone had somehow become totally symbolic of our great love. It seemed like we had been passing it back and forth to each other in our most tender moments for years. It just had to show up at our wedding. This time, I passed it to her.

  Our water bearer had poured very, very hot water thinking that it had to stand in the cold dawn for a long time before we’d get to it in the ceremony. Well, not much went according to plan. We positively flew through the apple and wine parts of the ceremony.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Our Wedding Night

  Having stayed up all night before our dawn ceremony, we were in our bed and sound asleep by 6:00 p.m. of our wedding night. We slept all the way through it until the next day.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  The Honeymoon

  We sublet the little cottage we inherited from the commune and took off in Carly’s VW bus. We had it in mind to spend a year going coast to coast telling loved ones and friends that we had married. We even thought we might cross the big pond to have a look-see at merry olde England.

  We got as far as crossing over the San Francisco Bay Bridge and were just short of the airport when the car engine blew up. There was no explosion exactly, but we threw a rod and the engine had to be given last rites. We were ingloriously towed back to Berkeley. Our year-long honeymoon lasted less than two hours.

  But Carly’s parents, God bless ‘em, came to our rescue. They bought us a brand new used engine for a wedding present and we were soon on our way down South to visit them in San Diego. They couldn’t have been kinder.

  In the great in-law lottery of married life, I truly lucked out. Carly’s people are the best. Period.

  After San Diego, we headed east. There were a few stops here and there before we landed at my parents’ doorstep in Pittsburgh.

  Nothing I have ever done in my life has brought more joy to my mom and dad than bringing Carly into their lives. In a word, she’s been perfect.

  Our wedding ceremony, on the other hand, did not receive such high praise. After viewing the video tape, my mother in particular had been less than amused by the whole hippie-dippy thing.

  “If you want to sleep with that woman, in this house, “ she said to me when she had me alone, “then you’ll get married by a rabbi.” She said that our ceremony wasn’t “real.”

  Well, young and stupid as I was, them was fightin’ words to me. I was all set to do battle with her, but when I later told Carly all about it, she just cut me off at the pass.

  “Let’s get married in Jewish,” she said, “It’ll be fun. It’ll make your parents happy and I’d be glad to marry you in all the ways that there are to marry somebody.”

  Hmmm, I did pick the right woman!

  So, we were married again. My mother bought us gold wedding bands. They replaced the genuine zirconium ones we’d gotten at Woolworth’s for our first wedding. They’d been turning our fingers green anyway. This time, the ceremony was held in a rabbi’s study on August 7 of the same year. It was relatively painless and it did bring great joy to my parents. Izzy was there too. That was great. And for many years to come, my parents were the only people who’d send us an anniversary card every year in August.

  We never did make it across the Atlantic to England by the way. We only got as far New England where we stayed a while with our friends Peter and Phyllis and their three kids in Salem, Massachusetts. That was foreign enough.

  Peter was the guy who originally had hired me out of college to come work in the poverty programs. He was now running a highly successful employment type non-profit in Boston. He thought he might have a good job to offer me as soon as some funding came through that he was expecting. We hung around. Carly ran a series of workshops in the area for mental health professionals to learn how to run groups for the treatment of “pre-orgasmic women.”

  Peter and Phyllis had bought one of those old sea captain’s houses on Chestnut Street. Greyhound Bus Tours used to drive up and down the street. The house was huge. There was plenty of room for everybody. And it was quite a different life than we were used to in Berkeley, the main event being that we helped them out with their kids. Also, Peter and Phyllis were foodies. They were into fine wines, triple-cream cheeses and gourmet cooking on a daily basis. It was like we were in a training program for “the good life.” We became a part of their larger family and were included in their circle of friends. After a lifetime in sunny California, Carly loved the New England winter with its deep snowfalls and nightly fires in the fireplace. And I began a long-time love affair with the YMCA.

  It started with racquetball. Peter introduced me to the game. He was a good ten years older than me, but stayed in excellent shape through a regimen of both running and racquetball.

  During the first game we played together, the score was 3-2. That was competitive. He was ahead. Then, the score got to be 13-2. He leapt way ahead because I was tired, out of gas, and staggering. I had to call a time-out. Peter looked at me and laughed, “Welcome to middle age!” he said. “Use it or lose it.”

  He beat me like a drum that day and for the next six months to come before I won my first game. By then, my game skills were about as good as his and I had worked my body into excellent shape. After a brief spell or parity, I moved ahead and he never beat me again.

  By that time, it had become clear that the expected funding that was supposed to provide me with that big job wasn’t going to be happening. And after a year or so, Carly and I had grown nostalgic for friends and places and the life that we had left behind. It was time to come home to Berkeley.

  Carly went back to her clinic and dove deeper into the therapy world beyond the sex stuff. She decided that she would pursue the credentials necessary to make her living as a therapist. I took a series of odd jobs wherever I could find them.

  In the fall of 1977, I took the oddest job I ever had.

  For Vic, Marina, and Dan, my beloved goyishe children-in-law:

  1. Schmendrick: a doofus, a moron, a sad sack, or a dimwit.

  2. Trafe: not kosher, taboo, unacceptable.

  3. Ferstaysh? Do you understand?

  Seventh-grade Howie. Gordon Archive.

  The body of my dreams. Gordon Archive.

  God liked my sculpture. Gordon Archive.

  About to go on a gender bender. Gordon Archive.

  I was wired for plump female buttocks. Mike Ross/Playgirl

  We were getting married. Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  And in a blink, we were standing there naked. Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  When we poured the water on ourselves, it was scalding, it was shocking, and that, dear friends, seemed perfectly appropriate! Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  That hug was something special too! Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  That’s it! Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  We were married! Tom Linney/Gordon Archive

  Part Two

  Gordon Archive.

  In The Kingdom of The Dirty Pictures

  “I have great respect for San Francisco and for the experience shared by thousands who came there and for what the California experience meant to s
o many people of my generation. You went there to be free — so that you could be gay, or you could be an intellectual, or you could be a poet, or you could be a hippie, or you could write pornography. You could do whatever you wanted, and I will always be grateful to San Francisco for giving me its particular kind of tolerance.”

  Anne Rice, author, Conversations with Anne Rice by Michael Riley

  Chapter One

  Beginner’s Schmuck

  Let me tell you about my first movie.

  The call came for my wife. Back when we were acting students with the Blake Street Hawkeyes, we’d met a few agents and gotten ourselves on some casting lists. This here was an agent calling with a feature film. He said that they were looking for women. As I was soon to learn, they were always looking for women.

  Carly asked him to describe the film. He said it was “a fun-filled romp through a hospital.”

  “Is this a porno film?” she asked.

  Temporarily disarmed by the complete directness of her question, he phumffed it and said, “Yes, it is.”

  I learned that agents normally tried not to spill the beans over the telephone. They had a much greater chance at success in casting if they could get the women to come on down to the auditions before they let them know it was going to be X-rated. Back then, it was much more difficult to find women who would act in porn, especially good looking ones. Even prostitutes looked down their noses at porn stars. They valued secrecy in practicing their trade. They didn’t want to see their faces ten feet high on a movie screen or being plastered all over the sex magazines.

  “I’m not interested,” Carly told him, “but I think my husband would be,” and she handed me the phone.

  “Hello?”

  Chapter Two

  “Well, I try my best

  To be just like I am

  But everybody wants you

  To be just like them

  They say sing while you slave and I just get bored

  I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.”

  Bob Dylan, “Maggie’s Farm”

  My fantasy was to meet an X-rated woman. I thought there was such a thing.

  It seemed to me that all of my sexual experiences up to that point had been about love. The sex had all come out of love relationships.

  “I love you. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Let’s fuck.”

  As some of you older folks may remember from those looser days before AIDS, all of that sex with all of those lovers begat so much crazy jealousy that it made our heads spin. By now, I was ready for something else. I had my wife and I had all the love I needed. But sexually speaking, I wanted to explore something else.

  I wanted to have a sexual experience that had nothing to do with love or relationship. I wanted some sex as “recreation” and I wanted one of those “bad” girls. Y’know, I didn’t know any of those “bad” girls. I’d never been with a prostitute and I wanted to be with some kind of “fuck me—fuck me” woman that I thought was really out there, that I thought was real.

  Lust, I was talking about lust. I didn’t even know it. It was the awakening of the dirty little secret sexual desires that I hadn’t even told myself yet. As a young husband, I had no idea how to ask my beloved wife to also be my willing “whore.” It just seemed like the kind of madness that a man would rightfully take care of outside of the house and then would come home later with some candy and flowers and a lot of gratitude for his wife’s tolerance.

  Yeah, I wanted some of that kind of sex, some very, very selfish lust with a sex kitten, a “fuck me-fuck me woman.” There’d be corsets and leathers, high-heeled boots laced up to crotchless panties, breasts spilling out of nippleless bras in lush red bordello bedrooms filled up with sex toys like blindfolds and vibrators, handcuffs and paddles. Yeah, there’d be me with a genuine tarted-up, “won’t-say-’no,’” woman, all the best drugs and oils in the world, and plenty of time.

  And there’d be no “I love you” in any of it. There’d be a thank you and close the door on your way out. Yeah, that’s what I thought I wanted. And I had no idea how to tell my wife about any of that. So I didn’t.

  She was right, though, when she handed me the phone for that X-rated audition. I was interested.

  My fantasy was to meet an X-rated woman. I thought there was such a thing.

  I would meet this X-rated woman at the hotel where they were holding the auditions for The Candy Stripers, and I would have sex with her right there in the hotel elevator. I don’t know why, but that was the fantasy.

  And then I would go home to my wife.

  Chapter Three

  There were a lot of women to choose from. There was this one, and that one, and another, but none of them jumped out right away as the right one.

  The audition was at the Holiday Inn near Fisherman’s Wharf. Larry the producer was the man in charge and a lot of people were moving in and out of his hotel suite.

  “Fill out these forms,” a woman mumbled my way and handed me a clipboard and a pen. “Here’s a script,” she said. “When it’s your turn, you’ll go into the bedroom and read for Larry.”

  STELLA

  (Raises her skirt and sneaks some fingers into her vagina)

  I have to come, George, you get me so hot.

  GEORGE

  Go ahead, baby, let me see you finger yourself.

  Stick ‘em in deep, baby, fuck yourself!

  (GEORGE is furiously pumping his own cock. STELLA turns around and shows GEORGE her ass. She pokes a finger into her asshole.)

  STELLA

  You like when I show you my asshole, honey?

  GEORGE

  I’m gonna come, baby, I’m gonna come.

  STELLA

  Me too, just keep watching my asshole, darling.

  They took individual Polaroid pictures of the men in the living room. We kept our clothes on. The women were then invited to go into the bedroom to have their pictures taken. They would be undressing.

  We waited. When it came my turn to enter the bedroom, there was Eileen. I shook hands with Larry.

  “Eileen,” Larry said, “would you mind staying to read with this young man?”

  “Not at all,” she smiled kindly.

  “By the way, do we have your picture, honey?” Larry asked.

  “No,” she said, “we didn’t shoot it yet.”

  “Let’s get one,” Larry said to his camera guy. “You mind stripping down?” he asked Eileen. “In fact, let’s take a few.”

  “No problem,” she said and rose up to meet the task. They didn’t ask me to leave. I was surprised and delighted. When she was naked, we all learned that she really was a blonde. Then Eileen made the cameraman wait while she played with her nipples until they stood up hard for the photo. That was fun. She had obviously done this kind of thing before. I was impressed. I liked her. She had a nice smile. She had a great body. She was a natural blonde. Houston, I believe we have lift off! I definitely wanted to fuck her.

  “Standing pose,” said Larry. Click. “Now,” he said, “lie down on the bed and spread ‘em.” She moved to the bed without a blink. Ooops, her Tampax string was sticking out. She poked it back within the folds of her vagina. Click. “Now, one more thing,” Larry added. “Stand up, turn around, bend over, and pull your cheeks apart.” Eileen did. “Just checking for hemorrhoids,” Larry explained. “They can look as big as testicles on film.” Eileen passed her hemorrhoid test.

  “Okay, thank you, honey,” Larry said. “You can get dressed now.”

  We played the George and Stella scene. It was awkward at best. Not everyone can talk dirty. And I was a long way from realizing that there is a world of difference between personal sex and professional sex.

  “Very good for a first reading,” Larry said rising from his chair and extending his hand for me to shake. I stood up and shook it. No mistake, I was being dismissed. “We’ll call you in a few days if we’re going to use you,” he said and turned his attention back to Eile
en. There was nothing for me to do but leave.

  Standing alone in the hallway, I nonchalantly let about seven or ten elevators come and go while waiting for Eileen to emerge. When she finally did come out and approached the elevator, I acted like I had just gotten there myself. We boarded the next empty car together.

  If life were a porno film, Eileen and I would have ripped off our clothes and done a scalding hot sex scene right there in that elevator that would have made both the fictional Stella and George blush. But the Holiday Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf only had three floors to begin with and our elevator was already on the second. My fantasy wasn’t gonna happen. It was time to move on to Plan B.

  “Can I offer you a ride home?” I asked her.

  “I have my car here,” she said.

  “Ding!” rang the bell as we hit the lobby floor. As the door started to open I managed to blurt out,

  “You want to go play with me?”

  She looked at me and said, “I knew you were gonna ask!”

  “Well, yeah, I’m askin’,” I said.

  “Well, all right,” she said, “follow me home.”

  She drove in her car, I drove in my car, and we got to her house. And as soon as we got to her house, she started talking. Well, she was talking, and talking, and talking, and I don’t know what happened to “Stella” and “George,” but they sure didn’t make it back to the apartment with us. They must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere.