Jenna Jameson’s X-rated autobiography is horrifying, gripping, sexy and pathetic.
You might wonder how a 30-year-old has gained enough life experience to write an autobiography. But this is Jenna Jameson, the porn queen multimillionaire who was a stripper by the time she was a junior in high school and a porn star before she could legally drink.
Much of “How To Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale” (written with the help of former New York Times rock critic Neil Strauss) goes like this, albeit with much more detail: Jenna has sex with this guy for two hours. Jenna has oral sex with that guy. Jenna has a threesome with this guy and girl. Jenna has an affair with a woman. Jenna has multiple orgasms.
It’s the literary version of her films, accompanied by photos of her at work and as a child–a bizarre juxtaposition.
Despite being one of the top-selling porn stars of all time, a woman who has bared everything and is embarrassed by nothing, Jameson writes about the things any young American girl would.
She had a black Labrador named Digby as a child. She has kept a diary throughout much of her life. As a child, she wrote about going to dance and gymnastics classes and being the unpopular girl at school. She is very close with her older brother, Tony. Her father, Larry, is a former police officer. She is an aunt. She has wanted to be a wife and mother since she was a girl.
Her family seems to have come to terms with her career. She brings her father as her date to an adult-video awards ceremony. There is a long interview with him and her brother.
Tony says in a VH1 interview promoting her book, “Nobody wants their sister to be a stripper, but better for your sister to be a stripper than dead.”
She came close several times. Much of Jameson’s life was a mess. Her mother died of cancer when she was a toddler, and though her father had good intentions, he worked constantly and was rarely around. He married a woman who was abusive to his children.
Jameson experimented sexually at age 12 and lost her virginity a few years later when a boy she liked had intercourse with her while she was passed out drunk. Instead of being angry, she was excited and continued to have sex with him.
Although the book is autobiographical, there also are tips and answers to fans’ most pressing questions.
As for whether she is embarrassed by doing something so intimate in front of millions, Jameson writes, “I have no problem with having sex on camera, but I don’t actually like watching myself doing it. It’s uncomfortable.”
When she met her second husband, Jay Gardina, an adult-movie producer whom she calls her true love, she stopped having intercourse on camera with anyone but him.
Crossover
Jenna Jameson is one of the few porn stars to cross into the mainstream. She was host of E! Entertainment’s “Wild On,” is a regular on Howard Stern’s show and appears in his movie “Private Parts.” She is the focus of the just-aired VH1 special “Jenna Jameson’s Confessions.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
