Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

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I think that porn stars and stand-up comedians have a lot in common. We’re both looking for a physical reaction from our audience—bodies flooding with endorphins and people feeling good in the dark. And laughter, like orgasms, can be faked, but it’s always better if it isn’t. Laughter can feel like short, abbreviated climaxes—orgasms in miniature—and porn, like a good laugh, can make you wet your pants. At least, that is the hope.

Tera Patrick and I have even more in common than the porn/comedy thing. We are both women who decided to go forward and forge our own path, leaving behind a culture that urged women to be silent and subservient. Tera’s story and mine are different in the details, but I love hearing about her journey because essentially we both came from the same place—invisibility.

I remember when I was six years old and I came to the bitter understanding that I was not white. Even though I was too young to have seen The Brady Bunch in its heyday, I never missed the reruns that played on a seemingly continuous loop on TV after school. I was obsessed with Cindy Brady’s blond hair, which glistened like gold ropes on either side of her head. I begged my mother to braid my hair in the same style, but no matter what she did, it never looked the same. I asked my mother why my straight black hair didn’t look like spun gold on the shoulders of an angel. She said simply, “Because you don’t have blond hair. Because we are not white.” This realization was shattering. To know that I didn’t look like the people on TV made me think that I would never be on TV. Never seeing anyone like myself out there made me feel like I didn’t exist.

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