Between both of them, my grandma and my mother, sex became a game of outrunning the enemy—namely, boys. I knew what to look for and how to escape. But what left me awake and guilty and praying to a little gold-rimmed photo of Jesus every night were the hormones that were raging inside me. The memoir of a former TV star who found freedom, success, and herself in the pornography industry. I had gone to that wedding. It was the kind of wedding I wanted, with pink flowers and Disney ice sculptures, and where the bride wears a dress with tiers like cake layers. They even brought her there in a carriage that sort of looked like Cinderella’s, if Cinderella rode in more of an SUV-type pumpkin arrangement. Everyone thought she was an angel. The ideal daughter. My dad wasn’t weird enough to do a purity dance, but wouldn’t he still want to see his daughter honest in white when she danced with him? Talk to him,” my grandmother said, pointing to the frame. “Just tell him whatever you did bad today, and you’ll be forgiven.” I looked away fast from David Hasselhoff. “Unless it’s drugs or premarital sex,” she said. “Then you’ll have to be burned at the stake by the Beast because you’ll never get up in the Rapture.” I’m sorry,” I said, gathering myself, but some snorts escaped even as I bit my lip to stop them. He was now losing concentration and confidence. I knew I had to instill within him some masculinity again.

Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood - AbeBooks

Listen,” I said. “Just so you know, this isn’t something all special and gushy.” I cringed as soon as I said “gushy.” “I mean, I just want to experience something for the first time, so I’ll never have to experience it for the first time again.” An empowering, sex-positive, behind-the-scenes look at both Hollywood and the porn industry in this celebrity memoir unlike any other. Perfect for fans of Pleasure Activism and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.No,” she said, her laugh bubbling the water as she waded. “I mean when you touch it. My mom says it’s completely natural as long as you do it for yourself and don’t show anyone.” I don’t really have any fancy panties,” I said, thinking she meant those satin ones from Victoria’s Secret I’d seen in the catalogs. They looked smooth and decadent and like they did something I didn’t know about yet. They looked like the kind of panties the girls on As the World Turns wore. I know that some boys kept her from realizing who she was, from pursuing her own dreams. Then she became a wife and a mother. I got my period the summer I was twelve, quite by surprise and in the middle of the night. I’m not sure why I was surprised. I was an appropriate age, and Alison and I constantly talked about it. She said she already had it, but she never produced any evidence, except for one wrapped tampon at the bottom of her clear-pink jelly purse. I guess the end of childhood just surprised me. I thought I’d have one more Christmas or Halloween. I sat there shaking on the toilet, lit only by an ocean breeze–scented seashell plugged into the wall, staring at the spots of blood on the toilet paper.

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I was acutely aware that if I could remain around the age of seven for the rest of my life, I would make my family proud. Seven, I thought, would be an age where when you danced around the living room in a Cinderella dress, they’d applaud you, but the glass slippers wouldn’t yet pose any real threat. It’s an odd thing to realize no one wants you to grow up when you’re actively doing that. In my panties? I was nearly twelve and didn’t know anything about my vagina except that I peed from it and one day soon I’d bleed from it too. To her credit, my mom didn’t act weird or anything, and she gave me all the information I needed for hygiene and personal care. My grandmother was always worried about everything, but mostly about God punishing her for doing something wrong. And when she was worried, she cleaned. She was in constant zigzag motion trying to avoid a lightning strike. It all stemmed from her father who took her out of school in the eighth grade. She said he didn’t like the teacher, and she said it like that was a valid reason. “He was a man of God’s word,” she would say as she washed each dish by hand in her sink. “And he brought us up right to obey.” And she never had a good night’s sleep because of it. She proceeded to explain how she did it, which involved wide, circular hip movements and some Nivea pump lotion. I just watched as the water whirlpooled around her as she demonstrated motions that looked less erotic and more like something that would earn fish at Sea World. “Next week,” she said, “I may try inserting a tampon.”I felt all-around cheated in the first kiss department. The one that I kind-of-maybe-wanted but pushed away, and the one I had that was okay because it wasn’t real left me susceptible to shingles for the rest of my life. It was just very confusing,” she said. “It hindered my sexual exploration and finding out who I was for a very long time.” A rush of fear came over me, and I let out some version of a scream as I physically pushed Daniel away. That’s when my friend ran in and took him out hard and fast by the knees. I walked home from school with the same kids in the first grade as I did in the eighth, and I could smell what was cooking for dinner the second my mother greeted me at the door. In the afternoons, my mother and I would watch soap operas, and then I’d play Star Wars with my dogs and cats in a big yard with a little frog pond that was shaded with avocado trees. Our springer spaniel was always Chewie, and I was always Princess Leia. At dusk, I’d sit at the front window and wait for my father’s car to turn into the driveway. Those headlights and that turn and my dad’s footsteps walking up our porch were predictable. Every girl should take for granted that her dad will always come home.

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When I apologized to my picture of Jesus that night, I told him how sorry I was for giving in to my lust, but then I paused and said to Jesus, “But at least no one knows about it but us.” The truth is, I couldn’t think of any worse way to lose your virginity than on your wedding night. I could never admit this to anyone—not my mother, not the church girls, and definitely not my grandmother, although she’d probably just tell me to become a nun as long as I was still a Baptist. Why would I want to worry about bleeding all over my new husband? Or wonder the whole way through the ceremony if my vagina might split open later? And how embarrassing to think that everyone at my reception would know the precise date and time that it all happened.

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I wasn’t supposed to want this, I was sure of that. This wasn’t David Hasselhoff or some Love in the Afternoon soap opera hunk. This was just some kid I knew. I was supposed to wait for some dazzling moment where the birds were singing, and violin music was playing, and a man in a tuxedo would give me my happily ever after. But Daniel was a boy, and I was a girl who didn’t quite feel like a girl anymore. And I wanted to feel like a real woman, if only for a few stolen moments on the grass. The whole thing left me with the feeling that being a woman would be an injury I’d always have to nurse. I reached a deal with Jesus that night: he would keep my sin a secret from everyone, and I’d keep our PR game strong.