Gayle Sterling had the attributes that were in great demand: shapely body, pretty face, easy-going demeanor, long flaxen hair, and a love of sex. She wasn’t hired more often because of “Dennis,” who usually accompanied her on shoots.
He wasn’t the helpful sort of on-set mate, like Nina Hartley’s husband Dave, who’d run errands, string cables or hold pussy lights. Dennis would sit there watching, with an aura of menace. During the Chocolate Cream shoot, he lit up a joint.
“I like smoke as much as anyone,” I said, “but I have a policy against drugs on my set.”
The tall, bellicose man glared at me. I stared right back. If there was to be a contest of wills on my production, I wasn’t about to come out second. After a few tense moments, he snuffed it out.
After we wrapped, I found out why Gayle hauled Dennis along like excess baggage. She motioned me to a stairwell, away from the crew packing up equipment. Like a cop about to frisk a suspect, Gayle leaned Dennis against the rail. Chattering about how well-hung he was, she unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants. I wondered what this was all about; Dennis didn’t work in porn movies.
Then I recalled how the couple had kept telling me about their exploits swinging with third parties–both male and female. Gayle alone I might have considered, but I wanted no part of this scene. To this couple, Gayle’s porn work was part of their elaborate fantasy life.
(Excerpts from SKINFLICKS, such as above, are in italics.)
Many a porn queen has found out the hard way that the worst thing in the world to have is a boyfriend.
A common phenomenon is the beautiful porn star, who could have her choice of gentle, caring men, yet sticks with a brutal boyfriend who beats her silly. (Example: Posche Lynn’s boyfriend who bashed her head open with a vase during an argument. Reportedly, they “patched” things up.)
Many, such as adult film historian Jim Holliday, cite low self-esteem among porn ladies. Declaring he’d no longer date sex pros after “more than half a decade of romantic frustration and grief”, Dave Patrick, editor of the Bay Area sex tabloid Spectator, quoted a rock musician who’d written in to agree with Patrick’s decision: “Strippers and porn stars are a lot like rock ’n’ roll groupies. More often than not, they come from similar backgrounds of sexual and emotional abuse. They don’t have much self-esteem. Treat ’em good and they’ll walk all over you; treat ’em like shit and they’ll worship the ground you walk on.”
At lunch one day, four of us were discussing the sobbing ladies who call (porn agent Jim) South to cancel appointments due to black eyes and chipped teeth. “They’re beautiful and they’ve always had men bust ass to do them favors,” said (porn director) Richard Mailer. “So they play ’em for chumps. They only respect the dude who treats them like dirt.”
“Maybe,” I conjectured, “They find it easy to leave the responsibility for their affairs in the hands of a guy who dominates them. When they step out of line, he clouts them to establish his control. Maybe they take that for love.”
South wisely refrained from offering his own theories. He had to deal with these ladies every day and didn’t want anything he said getting back to them. But the problem of the meddlesome mate was so common that South–and others–had a word for it: “boyfriendinitis.”
Next: The Curse of “Boyfriendinitis”
Skinflicks 