Review: How to Make Love Like a Porn Star by Jenna Jameson w/ Neil Strauss
Posted by Mark Radulich on 01.18.2006
Jenna Jameson's autobiography is proof that even a porn queen can have an enviable happy ending.
Porn is considered to be a dirty, dirty thing. At the same time, since sex is important for the continuation of the human race, you would assume that visuals of adults having sex for an adult audience would not be such a monumentally big deal. However, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is religious objection, pornography is shunned, shamed and in some cases burned.
If pornographic material is something to be hidden away and never spoken about, you can imagine what it must be like for the people who participate in the creation of said materials. Most assuredly, it is assumed that those who actively create pornography are the devil incarnate. The men who engage in this behavior are said to be satyrs and should be condemned, and the women need a saving by God's good graces. It is only right and proper for people to be having sex in private, in the dark, in a closet, in a bomb shelter.
Please.
Pornography has been with human civilization for almost as long as there have been people. Many who participate in the adult sex industry are not without feelings or morals per se, but our society is so quick to condemn sex workers of all stripes that we end up dehumanizing them. In turn, porn stars only seek to lower the bar for acceptable, sexual human behavior because it benefits their line of work. And quite frankly, who are they trying to impress anyway?
These factors are what make a story such as porn icon Jenna Jameson's so compelling. With Neil Strauss, co-author of the Motley Crue and Marilyn Manson biographies, she has shared with the world her tumultuous tale that resembles the bio-psycho-social of many of the clients with whom I have worked in my time as a substance abuse therapist. In Jenna's own words she tells us about the tragedies she's experienced in her life.
The rapes.
The deaths.
The drugs.
All of the dysfunctional sorrow her family thrust upon her tiny frame in the most important developmental years of her life are accounted for in this autobiography, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale."
Jenna Jameson (whose real name is Jenna Massoli) begins the narrative in her late turbulent teenage years. A final blowout with her mostly absent father sends her into the waiting arms of a tattoo artist and his biker gang friends. At the tender age of 17, Jenna is raped for the second time in her life by her boyfriend's neo-Nazi uncle, and instead of seeking the solace of her family she opts instead to permanently attach herself to the biker gang. Jenna takes the reader on a tour of the Las Vegas underbelly where guys tattoo and use methamphetamines while their girlfriends strip for rent money... and use methamphetamines.
So begins Jenna's dual life. She becomes a quick study on how to separate large crowds of men from their cash using sex and fantasy as bludgeoning weapons. Jenna states that in a very short period of time she was the top dancer in the local strip club and the envy of both her patrons and her peers. She was also developing a rather unhealthy addiction to methamphetamines. This addiction, along with the cheating and abusive ways of her then boyfriend nearly became the death of her. Before she officially made a go of making pornographic films and becoming America's queen of the XXX screen, this girl nearly died, a pile of decrepit skin and bones.
The middle of the book takes us back to Jenna's formative years. She talks about how her parents met, got married, and the pain that resulted in her mother's untimely death from cancer. Jenna includes what appears to be a lengthy conversation between herself, her brother (another recovering drug addict) and her father (a former police officer). This conversation seeks to show what it was like growing up without a mother in the Massoli family. It is in this section of the book that we begin to learn about Jenna's father, a central figure in her development as a sex worker.
He is not a villain. He did not lay a hand on Jenna. Instead he's a very sympathetic character reminiscent of many widowed fathers. As Jenna explains, he married the woman of his dreams and counted on her to raise their children. When she was suddenly taken from him by cancer, the grieving process he undertook brought him to a place that had him avoiding his issues rather than dealing with them outright. From that point on, he tended to marry women he thought would be proper caretakers of his children so that he could then spend time doing police work and avoiding his grief. As it turns out, that ended up causing Jenna and her brother more harm than good.
In the end, Jenna and her family find a degree of happiness that had been so elusive to them throughout their lives. Jenna and her father stop running from each other and find a place to renew their bond as father and daughter. Here is proof that even a porn queen can have an enviable happy ending.
"How to Make Love Like a Porn Star," is chock full of cartoon vignettes that illustrate some of Jenna's experiences throughout the sex industry. She shares some hints on surviving as a dancer in a strip bar, the definition of a suitcase pimp, and a collection of early videos she starred in where her husband of the day used his power as director to harm and humiliate her. She also includes a litany of pictures from her professional and private collection.
All in all I really enjoyed this book. Jenna does make for a sympathetic character despite the avenue of success she chose. Though I don't think girls from dysfunctional families should always choose porn as their ticket to ride, Jenna's story does show that there are families who do not condemn their daughters and sisters if they are trying to achieve success out of the few resources available to them. If you are not offended by the sex industry and you like a good old fashioned American story of rags to riches, you should read "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star."
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