Jenna Jameson

Jenna Jameson has been in the news a lot lately (at least the kind of news I read). She has announced her retirement from performing in adult movies, and to that end had her breast implants removed. In the world of adult films, this is what counts for headlines.

Jameson is, without too much doubt, the most successful adult film star of all time. She has a $30 million dollar empire, with Web sites and her own production company. She wrote an autobiography that apparently does not suck (I've never read it, but should I stumble across it in a bargain bin I'd snap it up in a second). Though she has led a picaresque life (her E! True Hollywood Story was a hoot. My favorite part was when the owner of the Crazy Horse strip club in Las Vegas told her he wasn't about to hire a girl with braces, so she went home and had her brother remove her orthodontics with a pair of pliers) she has not been ravaged by drugs, a common predicament for porn stars.

Who would have thought she would turn out to be such a great businesswoman? I remember her back when she was billed as Daisy, and she was as fresh as...well, a daisy. In those days she was a cutie-pie little blonde with nothing artificial about her at all. One of her first scenes was a threesome with Randy West and Kylie Ireland. West points out that Jameson is still a little uncomfortable with intercourse on film, and she only performs oral sex. She quickly became comfortable with intercourse, thank goodness, and has made over 100 films, including some kinky shit (one of her last films is called Jenna Loves Pain). I'm sorry she ever did get breast implants, as she certainly didn't need them (most women don't, in my opinion), and the plastic surgery did not stop there. She has had so much work done on her face she has that tight-skinned, big-lipped look that makes her look like she is perpetually in a wind tunnel.

That someone like Jameson could become a multi-millionaire is a testament to the schizoid personality of America, where our leaders condemn pornography (most of them do--Janet Reno, when she was attorney general, refused to prosecute federal obscenity cases, saying she had more important work to do, god bless her) while the rest of us are downloading it and watching it in all the big hotel chains.

I never got a chance to meet Jenna. It was in the works--while I was at Penthouse I was friendly with the marketing director of Wicked Pictures, who employed Jenna at the time. I was told the next time Jenna came through New York she would try to arrange a visit. Unfortunately I got sacked before that could happen. I would have liked to tell Jenna how much I admired her work. Seriously!