What I've Learned: Jenna Jameson

Actress, 34, Los Angeles

C’mon downstairs. I just got a new couch. We can break it in.

The first thing that comes out of my mouth is always right.

If I have daughters, I wouldn’t want them to go into pornography. That’s not really a conflict with who I am. You don’t ever want your children to struggle. You want everything to come to them beautifully and perfectly. My industry is not cut out for harmony. I don’t want my little girl to have to worry about whether or not those whispers are about her.

Don’t let your son read my book until he’s sixteen.

Duxiana. It has this technology that doesn’t allow you to bounce all over the place, yet it’s still really supersoft.

Getting a tattoo should hurt. It’s a rite of passage.

I’ll be out having a good time and stick my gum on the side of my cup -- I know, it’s a horrible habit -- and people will steal the cup. I’ve had girls come up in crowds and rip out my hair. Not because they’re being mean. Because they want a piece of me. It’s really weird.

Women’s vaginas go back to their normal size after sex. They don’t stretch out. Whatever you’re born with you’re kind of stuck with. And once you have a baby, you can always have extra stitches put in, right?

I did my bathroom like that on purpose. The photo of Jean Harlow. The one of me spread-eagle across from the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I think what you see is such a beautiful contradiction. That room is me in a nutshell.

I’m a paradox wrapped inside a paradox.

Yeah, I see those “Increase your size” e-mails. So sad. To have someone actually put some implant into your penis -- that’s crazy! If I were a man, for me to even think of doing that, it would have to be inverted.

I’m a powerful woman. I think that’s intimidating to a man, on every level. That’s why I always go out of my way to be ultranice and ultrasweet and coy, because it makes people feel comfortable, and I want people to feel comfortable around me before I put them in a headlock.

I would never cheat on the person I’m with.

I think more people out there need to have more sex.

There are certain things that I just didn’t feel comfortable with on film, and anal sex was one of them. It’s just too intimate. To this day, I equate doing it with only someone that I 100 percent trust. It’s very private for me.

Dancing at a strip club is a job. Men don’t want to feel like they’re giving us money to do what we’re doing. They want to feel like we’re doing it on our own. Guys have to realize that the money they’re giving a stripper is paying rent and making car payments.

I hate getting political and stuff, but when really right-wing people get into office, they worry about things that should be the least of our worries. Whether or not I’m getting it doggy style from a black man should not be their concern. They should be worrying about health care, about our homeless, about the war. How about bringing the troops home? Call me crazy.

George Bush has read my book. Don’t act like he hasn’t.

What the news is feeding us is so different from what is happening.

When I was first approached about debating at Oxford, I was like, How am I going to do this? I barely got a diploma. How do I debate against professors? But my husband at the time said, “Do you think those professors know more about pornography than you?” So I wrote a ten-minute speech. But I never looked down at it once. The passion just poured out of me. I could see how many people in the audience were against me in the beginning. But as I got into my story and talked about all the things I’ve learned along the way, I could see the tide turning. I could see the women in the audience understanding that I’m just a normal girl, and slowly they started to relate to me. After a debate at Oxford, the audience can walk out of one of two doors -- one for pro, another for con. I stood there watching nearly everybody go through the pro door. It was beautiful. There are certain moments in my life that I remember kind of stepping back and thinking to myself, Please print this on your brain, because this is something that you want to be able to tell your children. That was one of those moments. I win, motherfucker. I win.

When you’re fearful, you stumble.

My definition of courage is never letting anyone define you.

I don’t know what happens next. At the end, I just want to feel completion. What’s completion? I don’t know.

I remember finishing my book and thinking, Okay, now I’m going to settle down, have kids. I’m going to ride off quietly into the sunset. Now look. It seems like I will forever be that crazy girl who never rides off into the sunset. I’m always going to be the one riding the fucking bronco. In assless chaps.

Jameson was crowned porn's best new starlet in 1996 and inducted into the industry's hall of fame in 2006. She left acting behind to write her memoirs and launch a clothing line: House of Jameson.

-by Cal Fussman, Esquire August 2008-
-photo by Shawn Mortensen-