As it turns out, I get to be a public spokesperson, and as a feminist, I’m grateful that I get to talk about sex work from experience as opposed to theory. Most of the theory has been created by women who have a real problem with sexuality, and with gender roles, and with male sexuality, and so on, so they look at this material and project onto it all sorts of intent on the part of the creators who have no such intent. They are a bunch of people making money — it’s a sexual enterprise.
All of pornography is hugely subversive in that it shows men and women going against every societal convention and living. I don’t know about Canadian filmmaking, but in Hollywood, particularly today if a woman goes against convention sexually, something bad has to happen to her before the end of the movie. She will become lost or abandoned. She will end up in jail or alone. She’ll lose her kids or lose her man, or go to prison, or become hooked on drugs, or lose her job, or lose her family if she — fill in the blank — has sex with a black man, has sex in groups, has sex without love, has sex for money, has sex with other women, has sex with toys. Pornography is sexual fantasy. Pornography is live cartoon. Pornography is a paid professional performance of a fantasy scenario. It is not a documentary. Now, it’s slightly a documentary in that it’s like a sports performance meaning how much dialogue happens before the sex starts.
Anti-porners have been saying for years and is one of the reasons they hate pornography is that it shows women as “whores by nature”. I think, well, if pornography’s raison d’être is to arouse; everybody in the movie is going to be in a sexual mode, the men and the women. Not all women are “whores by nature,” but some are. I don’t have a problem with that. I am a “whore” by nature meaning that I’m comfortable with a wide variety of sexual expression.
The legacy that these women leave us with is this: brave women who are willing to go outside of the cultural norm. Some of them have suffered consequences for it because there is no going back. Candida Royalle has done very well because she’s developed a successful toy line and she’s moved into producing. She’s made a very elegant and graceful transition to businesswoman. Her last performance was twenty-eight years ago in 1984 so she got out before the video explosion. People know her, but she’s not plastered everywhere. She’s harder to find in the middle of action because she didn’t do any video, only film. Annette Haven was the first real female to do it. She had very strong feminist principles and she was a big star. If she said she wasn’t going to do a thing, she didn’t do a thing and that was the end of that.
Porn and Family Values
As rosy as things may seem in Hartley’s world in accordance to her ability to accept and resign herself to her own sexuality as well as impart her knowledge for the benefit of others, certain members of Nina’s family haven’t exactly always welcomed what some may classify as her hedonistic lifestyle with open arms. Recently, Hartley’s father passed away.
No one in my family, frankly, makes much use of pornography. My mother did see Behind the Green Door (1972) when it came out. That was the porno chic era. Honestly, it’s a kidnap/rape movie. There’s no way around it. It’s what it was. When my mother found out what I did, all she could remember was that movie and how horrified she was. Finding out what I did was very, very hard for my mother. Now, twenty-four years later, we are quite close and she has relaxed a lot, but when she first found out in 1986 it was very difficult for her as you can well imagine. Your youngest daughter is not behaving in a way that you would really accept or approve of. No mother wants her daughter to become a sex worker. Even though I’m fine, in our culture, it’s not what a parent wants for their child. My family knows what I do, but we don’t talk about it. My family knows little or no details, but again, we do not talk about it. I’ll say, “I worked,” or “I gave a lecture,” or “I’ve been working a lot recently,” and that’s the extent of the conversation about it. It’s not appropriate anyway to provide them with details. I do have adult nephews and nieces. My adult niece has said that she’s seen some of my work and it did not weird her out, but she’s a very cool person and she was probably watching educational stuff. My adult male nephews, I don’t doubt that they’ve looked at some pictures because they have an aunt who does what I do, but again, we don’t talk about it at all. I have one minor niece who I believe knows nothing and we all want to keep it that way until she’s at least sixteen. I prefer eighteen, but she’ll find out sooner or later. She’s only a young teenager right now so if we could wait five more years I’d just be thrilled. The [relatives] who do know think it’s cool that they’re related to “Nina Hartley,” but they did not grow up with me. I might as well be “Jane Doe” to them. These are second and third cousins. They’re twenty-six years old, they already have tattoos — these are the children of my second cousins.
Once you get further out, there’s no problem. In the immediate family, at one point, my uncle and his girlfriend came to see a performance of mine in San Francisco, and my cousin and her brother came to see a performance once at the back row. I did not know they were there until the end. That, I think, is it. That is the extent of my family’s exposure to it and that was over twenty-two years ago.
For my sister, it would have been an unmitigated horror to do what I do. I think that when people are thinking about pornography, all they can do is project their own issues onto it. My sister imagines herself in front of the camera and could never do anything like this unless someone was threatening her children. For her, this is the strangest and most unusual job. She is monogamous. She’s very shy and enjoys it very much at home, thank you very much.
Nina and Marie
Nina may be a construct, but she’s built out of actual pieces of my personality. My real self, “Marie,” is bisexual. “Marie” is exhibitionistic. “Marie” is not monogamous. “Marie” is expansive, and “Marie” is a nurse. I also have a bit of a people pleaser personality. Most of time when I meet new people, I’m “Nina” first. I introduce myself as “Nina”. Once a person gets to be a certain kind of a friend, they get to know my real name. “Marie” is a name that doctors, lawyers and police officers know. I am very open with who I am with friends.
Hartley spoke about decisions she made years ago as “Marie,” that eventually collided with her “Nina” persona. She has since purged any lingering negative feelings, and instead, used her experiences as a learning curve.
There’s Nina, who is all this and a bag of chips and then there is Marie who struggled with her own issues. Finally, Marie’s issues impacted Nina. My husband now says, “Nina took her host body and got the fuck out.” As long as Nina got to go to work and do what Nina wanted to do, Nina didn’t care if Marie was suffering. Nina didn’t care enough that Marie was suffering to do anything about it until it became a question of living or dying. When I finally realized that if I didn’t leave my marriage I was going to die, I went, “Oh my god! I don’t want to die!” I fled, but it was a very bad situation.
Part of the reason I’m not in a better place financially is because I was just fucking stupid about money in the way that many people are and many women are. I was the breadwinner in my first marriage, but I was in an emotionally abusive marriage. I did not understand my power, and how to take it, and exercise it, and tell him to leave. I didn’t get that. If I would have left my first marriage sooner and I would have managed my money differently, I should be rich. I allowed my messed up first marriage to drain all my money. Yes, I was young; they were older than I was. People can say I was taken advantage of, but I also did not choose to take control of my life until late in the game. Those are the only things I would have changed.
I wish I’d managed my affairs better and I would have more security now. I’ve made a lot of money for myself. I’ve made a lot of money for other people and because I was so artistic — being a hippie-dippy person, and quite frankly, being raised by failed Communists, you distrust the profit motive and the ambition motive and I did not pay proper adult attention to the business aspect
of what I did. I was raised in the sixties in Berkeley by parents who were in full retreat from all of that, and that’s something they did not impart to any of the kids. They had no money smarts to impart anyway so we did not get any. All my siblings have the same problem.
If I could do anything differently, I’d have paid more attention to the business side of things, and I would have gotten a business manager sooner. I would have gotten a bookkeeper sooner, and I would have honored my own happiness sooner and left my marriage earlier. I should have left my marriage in 1989 when I met the one man with whom I am now married. We have a wonderful relationship and he happens to be in the business. My ex had a great conflict about porn; they were from the Midwest. They did not like show business; they did not like being in show business. My current husband is a showman himself, he used to be in radio. He is a lovely, flamboyant character. I have a happy marriage to a former performer. He’s also a writer, director, and producer. My husband is a wonderful man and we have a lovely, vibrant, actual marriage-marriage — not what I had before which was a sham marriage.
Hartley celebrates a long term, open relationship with husband Ernest Greene.
He’s a tremendously fascinating person. I’ve known him twenty years and had an affair with him nineteen years ago. I’ve been with him now ten and we’ve been married for almost seven. He’s been a non-sex performer. He’s a BDSM guy so the films he’s involved with are kink-oriented and with the flogging and the spanking, whatever — he’s done that a long time, but behind the camera. He was the assistant director to a friend of mine. I was the lead and I liked him right away because, like me, he came to porn for a reason. He had something to say about sex.
In June of 2011, Hartley underwent surgery to remove non-cancerous fibroid tumors from her uterus that had plagued her for more than twenty years. Prior to her operation, several fundraisers were organized in order to assist with the cost of her recovery. Currently, she’s back in business.
I’m working on a new project also to do with sex education and community called Sexwise in the Community. I’m trying hard to break more over into coaching, speaking, being a public intellectual about sex. I’m filming movies but they are not the bulk of my income anymore.
In addition to projects like Sexwise in the Community, an online social network she started in 2010, the majority of Hartley’s movie appearances in recent years are restricted to MILF and girl-girl roles where she shows unseasoned players how it’s done. In 2010 and 2011, Nina’s filmography listed approximately twenty-five titles. Hartley enjoyed portraying former First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton in Hustler’s 2008 political porno satire Who’s Nailin’ Paylin with adult star Lisa Ann doing a send-up of former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In 2010, Tom Byron featured Nina on the cover of the twelfth release of his popular Seasoned Players line where she had sex with African American porn star, Sean Michaels, followed by an auxiliary scene with Byron from Seasoned Players 2. On camera, Byron thanked Nina for contributing to the success of his niche line after her inclusion in the 2007 release Seasoned Players 2 proved a financial achievement creating a demand for more product of the same type. During the interview just prior to their scene, Hartley expressed how much she looked forward to reconnecting with Michaels again after eight years, and reiterated that her first sex scene had been interracial with Billy Dee. Michaels, in turn, lauded Hartley for supporting him when he first entered the business in 1989 after he’d experienced some negative backlash on the part of studios because of his skin color. In a positive way, a great deal has changed in the past twenty years with ultra male stars of color such as Michaels, Lexington Steele and others harvesting a huge fan following.
The Final Word
Because I’m a MILF, I’m a Cougar, I’m classic — I’m an icon — I’m trying hard to find a lucrative way for Nina to continue to make money for me. I’ve built this brand. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort building this brand “Nina Hartley”. I’ve not diluted it, and I’m trying late in the game to get smarter about business and figure out a way to maximize the profit that I do have from this “Nina” person I have created. “Nina” enjoys a great deal of affection from the public. My name does stand for something, and I just have to find a way to monetize that. That’s where I’m at now.
All life is good, but I tell young people that the choices you make when you’re twenty do affect you when you’re fifty. I’d say that eighty-five percent of sex workers have trouble with money in and money out. I don’t beat myself up too much for being stupid, but I am sorry that I did not have a philosophy about money and I did not understand about money, and power, and all that that does.
I used to think that if I had kids in my mid-twenties it’d be okay, but the kid bug never really bit me badly and I married the wrong person initially so I’m not sorry today that I don’t have children. I never really wanted them so for me being childless is not a loss or sadness. It’s very hard to be a sex worker and be a mother.
During down time, Nina and Ernest Greene seem to have found the perfect way to amalgamate their love with their loves.
My husband and I like to have people over. We have friends with whom we are not sexual — we talk and chat, and then we have friends with whom we are sexual. My husband and I do enjoy at least once or twice a month, extracurricular activity with another woman. We like threesomes. I have a wide circle of friends who are potential sex partners and I go to my share of group sex situations because there are lots of us out there. I also have a special male friend that I see alone whenever we can make it work, and he has a special female friend that he sees if he can make it work so we are this way. My husband is more this way than I am. He has less jealousy than I do. It’s hard to believe. I had to heal mine and he never had it.
My husband likes being married and he likes domestic life. He likes to go shopping and that kind of thing. At home, I like to cook and I like to read. I like picnicking, I like hiking in the woods and I like museums. We like hanging out together, doing errands, going to movies. We do like to spend a lot of time together. We enjoy each other’s company a lot. It’s very important. I never thought I would find someone I would still want to make love to for as many years as we have. I wasn’t looking for it! I wasn’t thinking that there was a man I’d want to make love to all of the time, but I’ve found one and it’s so weird! It’s fantastic!
XRCO awards, late 1980s.
COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS
COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS
COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS
COURTESY OF WORTH MENTIONING PUBLIC RELATIONS
Nina Hartley, Triple X Cinema: A Cartoon History.
Boogie Nights, NEW LINE HOME VIDEO
Nina and partner Ernest Greene. AVN
26.
Honorable Mentions
I have dedicated the following pages to a group of women deserving of an Honorable Mention for beauty, talent, acumen, fame, longevity or all of the above. With such an extraordinary and magnetic range of women to draw from, it was difficult to narrow down to a small selection. I have personally chosen fifteen women for this section and provided a short summary on each one.
Without wishing to disregard any of the other female contenders who gave their all during the vintage phase of adult filmmaking, or classic adult film historians, critics and fans, I have deduced that a favorite actor or performance is similar to a preferable taste in music, or style of clothing. Since screening more than three hundred erotic films and loops over the past six years for two books, as one might expect, certain actors, films, performances and/or scenes have remained with me.
This year, 2012, marks the forty-year anniversary of influential pictures Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door. Along with the twenty-five portraits, I believe the following group to be an exceptional bonus assemblage of women further representing the period this book covers, bringing the total number to forty.
Here, then, are th
e finalists: Fifteen Retro Film Divas.
Linda McDowell
Linda McDowell (aka Claudia Grayson) began her short career in adult entertainment in approximately 1970-’71, combining modeling for several Men’s magazines (including in the U.K.) with a handful of loops and short films. The late adult film historian, Jim Holliday, classified McDowell as one of the most beautiful women in the history of the business. Blessed with an hourglass figure, large blue eyes, thick brunette hair, and a sexy mischievous smile, the irrepressible McDowell’s most popular and famed appearances are when partnered with John Holmes in three designated Playmate Series loops titled Playmate of the Year, Supercock, and the aptly named Wild Beauty. McDowell displayed a remarkable sense of adventure and joy indulging in oral, vaginal, and (yes, even) anal sex with young Holmes who appeared unusually handsome sporting tamed wavy hair with a trim moustache. As the captain of the ship, Holmes precariously guided McDowell through the couple’s anal voyage as she giggled and hugged an accent pillow.
Linda was also showcased in a threesome with Holmes and sidekick, porno-jock Rick Cassidy, while another loop featured a pregnant McDowell sandwiched between Holmes and Cassidy. Despite the fact, the two guys obviously got their rocks off, from a woman’s perspective it is worth mentioning that Linda seemed completely at ease and playful in her maternal state. The loop is tasteful and fun and denotes the unsophisticated, innocent period in which it was shot.
GOLDEN GODDESSES: 25 LEGENDARY WOMEN OF CLASSIC EROTIC CINEMA, 1968-1985 Page 90
