4/5/05

I talk to escort Tatum Reed at the World Modeling talent call. She's done four movies. She's wanted to be a porn star since she was in highschool. Tatum Reed Victoria Allure, Tatum Reed

Tatum Reed Interview - One Of My Best

We speak by phone Tuesday morning, April 12.

She's just finished a class in Bar Method.

Duke: "When you were a girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Tatum, 26: "A professional ballet dancer."

Duke: "How far did you go towards that dream?"

Tatum: "I did. I was a professional ballet dancer for two years. In Cincinnatti and Columbus, Ohio and San Francisco [until age 22]."

Tatum has siblings.

Duke: "At what age did you start taking ballet classes?"

Tatum: "Four. My mother saw me doing the splits and said, take ballet. I was always very flexible. I could do gymnastics. All of that comes in handy now."

Duke: "Between 18 and 21, were you also going to college?"

Tatum: "A little bit. I got burned out trying to do both. I went to New York to do some auditions. It was frustrating. My parents wanted me to go to school and I wanted to dance. That was a struggle to do what I wanted to do rather than what they wanted to do. I ended up giving up both. That's what they get."

Duke: "Your parents wanted you to become a professional ballet dancer?"

Tatum: "It was weird. They wanted to pretend to support it. We'll take you there and we'll pay for it and we'll be sort-of supportive of it but, at the same time, we really need you to have a back-up career. We want you to go to school.

"To me it was clear you couldn't do both. It takes too much time to dance and too much time to go to school."

Duke: "You had a middle-class upbringing."

Tatum: "Very. My grandfather was the head of a major car company in Detroit. My dad was raised well. My mom was middle-class. They married [and lived] in a perfect white neighborhood. It had beautiful houses. Everything I needed."

Duke: "Was there anything that happened to you as a child that predisposed you towards the work that you now do?"

Tatum: "People ask me that and there is something that happened to me. Was that it? I know that there are girls that do it who have never been through anything.

"When I was about five, there was a boy about 14 who came over while I was playing in the backyard. He asked me to touch him. He took off my clothes and touched me. It was very scary. I couldn't tell my parents. I remember trying to tell my mom. She wasn't really listening or she would've dealt with it. I was too scared and stuttering and not explaining it well enough and she didn't really listen. I was too afraid at that age to speak up ever again.

"On the same day, I had walked into the house and she had just gotten out of the shower, and she was naked, and she yelled at me for seeing her naked. 'You shouldn't just walk in without knocking on the door.'

"That stopped me from taking it further and telling her. I felt like it was bad to be naked.

"But it was only once. I don't know how that affected me."

Duke: "Is there any part of you that wants to punish your parents?"

Tatum: "Oh yeah. Absolutely. I always wanted to date the black guys in school. Nothing was said in my house that I couldn't date a black guy, but I knew it wouldn't be accepted. My grandparents were from the South and they would've been horrified to see me with a black guy. A mixed couple having mixed children.

"I remember asking my mom once if I could go to prom with this guy. He was just a friend. But he was black. She said, 'Well, no. Because you could like him and you could fall in love and you could get married, and then you'd have mixed children.'

"I wanted to shock them and show them that I could do what I want."

Duke: "How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

Tatum: "I was 14. He was the love of my life. He was 14.

"He lives in Los Angeles and is dating someone else. I know them as a couple. Later in life we decided that we really didn't like each other as much.

"He had to move away. He said, do you want to do this? I'll take you out to a really nice dinner in a French restaurant. We'll rent a limousine. Then we'll come back to my house and we'll spend the night.

"I said ok. I always wanted to be the good girl. I didn't want to be bad. I was very shy and I wanted to please my parents and everyone. I was a ballet dancer and I got really good grades.

"I only wanted to do this with someone who I loved, but I didn't want to have to do this all of the time.

"I decided to do it because he was leaving and we wouldn't have to do it again until we were old enough.

"He was just really big. It hurt. I wasn't so happy about it. I didn't like it. I was kinda upset.

"I'd had a lot of sexual encounters that were oral and playful fun and 14-year old stuff that I loved and felt really good about."

Duke: "You'd already given a few blowjobs by then?"

Tatum: "Oh yeah. My phone number was 222-BLOW. Someone told me that. They spelled it out. They were crank-calling my house. I don't know if I made myself into that phone number.

"I don't know what came over me. I just started befriending all the boys at school. I would start doing that with them. It pissed all the girls off. All the girls said, 'That's disgusting! I would never do that.' Of course, three years later, they were all doing it.

"I stole all of their boyfriends. They all hated me. So I could only be friends with guys. Whether or not I was doing that, they were always friendly with me. But the girls always hated me."

Duke: "At what age did you give your first blowjob?"

Tatum: "Twelve."

Duke: "How many guys did you blow by the time you were 14?"

Tatum: "A lot. I can't believe I do it so much for free."

"About twenty."

Tatum Reed is an escort who, until a few days ago, was listed on the MyRedBook Adult Entertainment Guide.

Tatum's personal escort site.

Here's a selection from the FAQ:

What are your political views?

While i never approach neo-conservatives without a healthy amount of skepticism, I have a very open mind and I am continual proponent of decadent Bi-Partisan fun. My thoughts on the liberal bias in the media may give you some indication with regards to my political beliefs.

I cannot afford you. What should I do?

I suggest that you join my fan club and purchase a DVD. I'm always appreciative of fan mail, and general inquiries. Feel free to call the Popwhore phone line for information on upcoming events, tour info and this weeks TIVO suggestions.

Tatum blew about half of the guys in her class. "I didn't limit it to my school. I always went to the private boys school. Different schools. I was all over. Yeah. I didn't do anything else. Just that. I loved the attention from them. They were so happy that I was the only girl who would do that. I was the bad girl and yet still so cute and pretty and normal.

"After that boyfriend left, it was four years [before Tatum had any kind of sex again]. I had this crazy long distance relationship."

Duke: "What happened to you at 18?"

Tatum: "My parents got divorced. It was a crazy divorce. My dad ended up losing his job because he was screwing someone who worked for him. My mom came from the Mid-West. They don't work. The women just take care of the kids. All of her income was based on him.

"She had to go back and figure out how to work and how to get a job. She had to sell her house and the golf course.

"My dad had moved our entire family from Ohio to California for about nine months while he was having this affair. Of course they didn't know it.

"They divorced. Dad lost his job. Everything was s---. Nobody wanted to support anything that I was doing. I was being offered auditions in Europe. I couldn't get my parents to pay for tickets to get there. I think that is why I stopped dancing.

"At the time, I was dancing at a ballet company where there were a lot of guys around who were much older. They were obviously more sexually advanced. They knew I was 18. They were used to having girls around who were with them. I ended up trying to get attention from my parents. So I stayed out all night and ended up feeling like I had to have sex with this guy because I was spending the night there.

"I was really angry and I didn't want to do it but I did. That became a relationship where he would come over and we'd rent pornographic movies and have fun doing all that stuff. We spent a lot of time together doing that but I wasn't... I started to like him after a while."

Duke: "When was the first time you had sex for money?"

Tatum: "Last [January]. I had surgery [for pancreatitis]. I had to have my gallbladder removed. I was working freelancing [in marketing and PR] and teaching pilates. I did a lot of private lessons."

Duke: "You didn't have health insurance."

Tatum: "Right. I didn't have a way of getting sick days or vacation leave. I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. Then I had to recover from surgery. That drained my money. I was freaking out. I tried posting on Craigs List to do phone sex. Nobody responded.

"I went back and looked at the erotic services [section]. I saw people were advertising for advertising escorting, companionship, dinners. I decided I didn't do that. I could offer erotic personal training sessions. I'd bring my matt over to their home and give them a workout. It wouldn't even be a massage with a happy ending. It was something set up in an erotic way with a little bit of nudity and a little bit of touching. I charged $120 for an hour.

"I screened people so well. I had every bit of information about them that I could find. I knew where they lived. I knew everything about them. So I felt very safe. These people ended up developing [as clients]. 'If I paid this much, would you like to go to dinner, a movie, and you know. There are a lot of people in San Francisco and California who are bachelors with a lot of money and who don't have girlfriends. They don't like the girls here. They say they have to pay anyway to go on dates and then they don't get what they want at the end. They are happy to be with someone [who will leave]. I'm not going to become obsessive with them and call them every day. They pay me to leave and leave them alone, but I'm there if they need me. It's good for me too. I don't need to become attached to them."

Duke: "How much were your hospital bills for the pancreatitis?"

Tatum: "They were pretty bad. My father ended up helping me with that part of it. But there was something I had to do pretty quickly to make money."

Duke: "As it [sex work] developed, how did you feel?"

Tatum: "Good, actually. It's different from what people think. I don't know if I want to..."

Duke: "Don't say anything you don't want [published]."

Tatum: "I'm just thinking that it is different. Porn is really rough and objectifying and there can be hair-pulling. And then there's this kind of thing which is much more intimate and much more calm. This [escorting] is a lot more human than I thought it was. I think prostitution is something different. Standing on a street, getting in a car and doing a blowjob on somebody, that's very cut-and-dried. Sex, sex, sex. As an escort, I so many times have dates with people. We really have a date. We go out to dinner and the opera and sometimes they don't even do anything. It's non-sexual."

I remember when the Mayflower Madam was on Ronn Owens KGO radio show in San Francisco (either 1986 or 1987) when a man called up and said his girlfriend or wife had worked as an escort, but she only accompanied men to dinner and events and never had sex with them.

The madam replied: "Bulls---."

That's the only time I've heard that word on the radio. The caller was taken aback.

Ronn: "They're going to have an interesting conversation over dinner tonight."

Duke: "So you haven't had a horrific experience?"

Tatum: "No. I've had really amazing wonderful people that I've met."

Duke: "Many of them are regulars that you get to know."

Tatum: "Yeah. I don't see a lot of people. I limit it. It's much safer that way. With the people I meet, if we get along, we develop a relationship. It's something that is ongoing and works very well for us."

Duke: "Any celebrities?"

Tatum: "Celebrities in San Francisco, yes. But not in the LA area. Not Hollywood celebrities. But technology celebrities, finance celebrities."

Duke: "Any of them give you insider trading tips?"

Tatum: "I wish. I thought about that... I actually tried...but nobody would say... They don't want to be caught."

Duke: "How has your time in the sex industry affected you?"

Tatum: "... There have been a lot of flaky people who haven't shown up on time or shown up ever or people who aren't that fun to work with. Being new to it, and not knowing everyone and the little stories, it's hard to know."

Duke: "What do you love and hate about the sex industry?"

Tatum: "If you're smart and a girl who enjoys the attention of men, it is exciting. It is exciting to show up on a set and there's a whole crew of people and make-up. It's a small sample of what it might be like to be on television. It's that same kind of feeling.

"I'm an exhibitionist. I like being naked. I like being in front of the camera. I like doing this in front of people.

"What I don't like? I'm not sure of the rules. I went to a bunch of interviews two weeks ago. If the director is interviewing you and says, 'You're turning me on.' Or, 'Look at what you're doing to me.' Pats your leg. Are you supposed to do that? I don't know. It makes me feel confused. It doesn't make me feel bad if that is what everyone does. But if it is not what everyone does, then I don't want to do it. It's not like real life. In real life you don't [often] go to an interview [and get hit on]. They're not supposed to. You know they're not supposed to say, 'Suck my dick to get a job.' In porn, that might be something girls do. My now knowing is frustrating.

"It's fine to do it because they like it and they're happy and they want that job. I just don't know that that is what we're supposed to do."

Duke: "Tell your agent and he will reprimand whoever is doing this."

Tatum: "Yes. This was before I had Jim South."

Duke: "In this industry, the producers aka pimps, are always trying to get as much as they can for as little money as possible, and the girls are usually trying to give as little as they can for as much money as possible."

Tatum: "I think they know how to talk to a girl. 'You'd be so pretty on a boxcover.' Of course it's going to feed into your ego. If we're innocent and nice, they're going to take advantage. I can see why some of the girls in the industry (and I hope I never do) develop that hard edge. They get so jaded and tough about everything. I don't want to be like that.

"Give me a rule book, someone, please!"

Duke: "Do you have an exit plan?"

Tatum: "Yes. It's more of a transition [from performing to directing porn]. I'm thinking about producing my own line. I have a clear vision and a lot of good ideas. I think it would be really popular.

"There are so many people in porn, like Jim South Jr. He was obviously raised in porn. They all have friends together. They all have families together. They're all so in-bred and so inside the [porn] world that they don't develop as real people. They don't have regular go-to-school experiences. They're always in LA. I don't think they have a good perspective of what real guys want. Developing as a normal person and then getting into porn is a neat perspective. I think I have both perspectives.

"At the casting, everyone was like, 'Who are you? Why are you here? You don't look like any of us. You're not all blonde and with big boobs.'"

I bet that most of these comments came from inside Tatum's head, rather than comments people said to her.

Tatum: "I feel out of place sometimes but I know there are guys who want to do girls who do look normal and who aren't trying to look like a porn star. You can wear make-up and have your hair nice. I'm not saying be granola [Berkeley feminist types who don't shave under their arms]."

Tatum is trying to buy popwhore.com.

"I'd like to make enough money so that I can start another business. A restaurant."

Duke: "Do your parents know?"

Tatum makes a guilty laugh: "My mom thinks that I'm a stripper, I think. I think she now thinks that I'm an escort."

Duke: "Does she know the name Tatum Reed?"

Tatum: "I don't think so."

Duke: "How has she reacted?"

Tatum: "She's been different since they got divorced."

Duke: "She's in shock."

Tatum: "Yeah. She's different. If she had been with my dad, they would've put me in a cage. Now, she's a little more liberated. 'Girl, get all the money you can.' She doesn't talk like that, but... 'Yeah, if you can take money from men... If you can make it that way... If you can do that...'"

It sounds like what Tatum would like her mother to say.

Duke: "Is she kinda bitter about men because of what she went through?"

Tatum: "Yeah. She really is. Although she wants to be back with my dad. We're all kinda annoyed with that, with both of them acting like children. I feel like I'm older than my parents. I feel like I'm more responsible than them. I feel like I'm smarter than them. It's a weird feeling because I had so much respect for them growing up.

"I always had this sense when I was younger that I would do something that people would know about. It wasn't like I was going to work at a desk. I was never happy with that kind of stuff. This is something that fulfills that."

Duke: "And your dad?"

Tatum: "He's not quite sure. He knows that I've been able to pay him back lately. He knows that I am not starving anymore. That I'm not asking him for money. I don't think he's quite sure what I'm doing."

Duke: "And he doesn't pry too hard."

Tatum: "No. He said, 'I don't want to know, do I?' I said, you don't. He knows.

"He's always been very interested in the porn industry. I don't think he rents it, but even if he did, I don't care anymore. I used to care before they got divorced. I probably wouldn't have done it. Now I don't care. It's my life. It's not bad. Everyone thinks that it is bad. Most of the women in my neighborhood think that renting porn is bad. If they all knew that I did it, oh G-d...

"I have the sense that if he saw me in a movie, he wouldn't be surprised. He'd probably be really upset. He'd probably be really sad."

Gene Ross interviews Tatum: "Reed is an enterprising woman who stages gangbang parties up in the San Francisco area and advertises them on Craigslist... My [rock musician] husband is a lover of porn just like I am."

Tatum tells me Tuesday that she is not married.

Tatum Reed: Popwhore LLC

She writes:

I'm working on a novel entitled Popwhore LLC, it's a post modern piece of popart that combines naughty sex, with politics, espionage, and contemporary pop culture. It's a book that both men, and member's of Oprah's book of the month club will enjoy. Imagine Catcher in the Rye remixed with Shopaholic, Patriot Games, and Penthouse Forum. I've always been a very sexually open person and found the idea of working in the traditional business world boring.

My father has a corporate background and I, myself worked in PR for an Internet company for several years, so I found myself to be a natural at entertaining elite and distinguished corporate citizens. When I moved away from home at age 18, I became obsessed with renting pornographic films. I'd count down the seconds that I could return home from working, or from class, and I'd put a video in and masturbate for hours. It was a bit of an obsession. I love performing, I love reality, and I love fantasy, and when all three combine I see it as a powerful force. I see porn as a positive force in society, and I want to bring something positive and fun to the industry.

Tatum sends along this excerpt of her writing (which I assume is based on experience):

Are you tired of your Marina mistress that you brought home from The Matrix Al Gore soiree to just lay there as you pound away she "moans", waiting for you to be done so they she get back to watching the Apprentice.

Now she's talking about how she graduated with an MBA from Harvard and about how successful and powerful she is in business! On your way out the door she asks when you're buying her a new Marc Jacobs handbag and you oblige limply handing your diner's club card over to her. Are you sick of her wearing Juicy, heading to the Grove, waiting for the City Tavern to be rebuilt....

You return home, relieved to be away from your young marina girl madness yet you're still somehow tired of your anorexic nob hill wife, her racket of a shrink, and her annoying dog. Sunday brunch at Nob Hill cafe with Muffy isn't what it used to be. Sure her face is still hot, but where is the axx that you'd love to spxxx and lxxx? And it's a bit difficult to pick her up anymore with the huge rock on her finger... The Brie and wine for dinner every night can get a little bit old .. Why did your mom insist that you to marry her anyway? Isn't this the parklife?

By now you're fed up and the only thing that can get you out of this rut is wishing for an orgy scene out of Eyes Wide Shut, or a cultural enema to cheer you up. You would call your overpriced Beverly hills arrangement, but the last time you saw her you wound up talking to her for several hours about how her most generous clients are the Saudi Arabian royals, and when it came to erotic engagement her entire body was wrapped in Saran wrap with a do not disturb seal.

The frustration is mounting.... you'd go indoor rock climbing or to the batting cages but realise that the board of supervisors never approved the Chelsea Piers Project...

Oh how you wish you were back at your childhood home in the Dakota where'd you'd now only be a cab ride away from Chelsea Piers and AOL Time warner Center...

You've finally had it, your masons ring and your hard work towards new world order is getting you nowhere. You decide it's time for some extra services... You call several girls, waiting for a girl that doesn't speak in post modern military industrial complex Ebonics, you finally find her and when you show up her first demand is to get undressed... Within seconds she chanting please don't hold back on me!

Four minutes later she kindly closes her eyes and asks for you to hurry up. I'm a serious, stylish, conservative girl and I'd love to help you vent out your frustration about your current unmet expectations.

Once we've both vented successfully, it's time for you to return home with a fresh and clean perspective and a mind relieved of it's dirty thoughts ready to be clear and focused on the hard work of new world order that you have at home.

Stylish, witty, well bred, well educated, and elegant are a few of the words I would use to describe myself.... Not to say i don't have a very dirty side as well.