The Rise of the Porn Star Fan
Opinion/Editorial by Mariah Milano
In the 1970’s when porn became a legitimate commercialized product the porn fan was born. Marilyn Chambers and Linda Lovelace and Bambi Woods, Seka and Little Oral Annie and many others become the first "Porn Stars". Suddenly there were annual awards and fan clubs were started. PO Boxes were rented all over the valley by Cal Vista and Legend for fans to send in fan mail to the stars.
By the time that porn went to video, a new group came into the spotlight, younger and looking much more like actual movie stars than smut stars. Girls like Barbara Dare and Amber and Ginger Lynn and Christy Canyon and Tracy Adams and I can’t leave out Traci Lords lit up the screen of televisions all over the US on those giant VCR’s. Stars like Ron Jeremy and John Holmes and Harry Reems and Peter North and Randy West were in nearly every title and the porn business was booming. Jim South was the only agency in town, and even with the law putting him in jail for pimping, the business thrived.
The Mafia owned the porn business and the movies had plots and bigger budgets than a lot of the stuff we see today. The spoof was born and by the 90’s every major Hollywood film had a spoof in porn. I saw Johnny Depp say he was disappointed that he wasn’t asked to make a cameo in Edward Penishands.
The valley was pumping out shit loads of VHS tapes and more and more girls were venturing into the world of smut because it had become seemingly glamorous. The cocaine flowed and there was very little difference between Hollywood and the Valley from what I’m told. Bill Margold told me that at porn parties mainstream celebs would be showing up and porn stars were regulars at Hollywood parties. Remember Charlie Sheen dated Ginger Lynn for a while?
The porn star fan had an actual personality to put with the films. The smut magazines were doing feature articles on the stars and Penthouse started putting porn stars in their magazine. People got to know about their lives and when buying or renting movies they would base their choices on the cast and favorite stars. I remember going into Vivid once to pickup a check and there were mail boxes for Christy Canyon and Hyapatia Lee and Ona Zee and Ginger Lynn who had retired years earlier. Those boxes were overflowing! They are still very popular on the tube sites to this day!
Now with the Internet and porn stars appearing at all of the conventions and Twitter and Facebook and Myspace fans actually get to know their favorite stars. They see them talk about farting and see twitpics of their food and see them talking shit to other girls (I’m guilty of that one!)
Now it’s an everyday thing to be recognized in public. I went to a baseball game recently and had Yankees players recognize me! lol I have been approached on Mother’s Day while at dinner with my mom and been asked for an autograph and photo. While in Barcelona in February I walked out of the hotel to get into a taxi in the pouring rain and there was a guy waiting all day for me to leave. He had recognized the hotel from a photo I posted on my Twitter and spent his day waiting to get a photo with me. I was really freaked out and now months later find it even more crazy.
I could write pages of all the crazy situations where fans have approached me but I can say that not one has ever been disrespectful to me. They have all been very sweet and almost every one extremely shy. I had a guy at the Atlanta airport help me in the Blackberry store and he gave me a portable charger and a new case and car charger for free and when he handed me the bag his hand was shaking so bad it made me think he was having a seizure. He said he gave me everything because there was no way he could have pushed the buttons on the register!
I have mixed feelings about the porn fan. I love most of my fans. I have been treated better than I would have ever expected and I couldn’t be more thankful. But there are some who are just overboard with constant emails and sex offers and strange gifts and one guys sent personalized photos of himself taken at Sears wearing a Lynard Skynard concert shirt holding an "I Love Mariah" sign! lol I’m serious! I even had a guy tattoo my photo on his leg!
I don’t go to the conventions here in the US mainly because I think that the interaction with fans is just strange and uncomfortable and honestly I think that a lot of that has to do with ego. Obviously I don’t need any more of that! 🙂 I am attending Sexpo in Australia this year and am very excited about it! I had a great experience at the Erotic Expo in New Zealand last year. Don’t get me wrong, when I meet a fan when I’m out I’m fine with it if they are respectful but when there are thousands of them all at once for 8 hours a day it is just overwhelming I also don’t escort and 99% of the porn stars who attend shows are there to escort. It’s another fact of the new wave of access fans have to their favorite stars. They can see a girl in a video that they like and actually meet her and fuck her! In all honesty I know most of the girls in this business and I would estimate the disappointment level at around 70%. Up close and personal without photoshop and under fluorescent lighting can be cruelty at it’s
finest. I carry photos in my car everywhere these days because it just happens too often and I would rather sign a photo that I like than pose for a photo I might hate. 🙂
So to all the fans out there you are what makes our careers or breaks our careers. I thank all of my fans for being so great for all these years. I was gone from the business from 2000 until 2007 and still had so many fans it was insane. Even with a woman’s body and big fake boobs. I still get emails from people who didn’t know I was the same person.
I am not complaining about my fans, I am just a shy person when it comes to being recognized as a porn star. I can be naked in front of strangers anywhere, but when I have to speak and be sweet and pretend my day isn’t shitty or whatever I’m not nearly as bold. I have been fortunate so far 🙂
I hope that everyone is looking forward to another summer and have plans for things that will enhance your lives. If you ever see me anywhere I hope that you say hello even if you aren’t a fan. Give me the chance to prove myself in person, rather than the bitch ranting on the internet! I’m really not the bitch I may seem to be, and if anyone reading this knows me they’ll back me up, unless they are someone I don’t like and then who gives a fuck about them
anyway, right? 🙂
xoxo
Mariah
PS..I’m on the cover of the June Club Confidential and am the featured porn star in next month’s Hustler which is my seventh time! so get your copies and I’ll sign them! Just ask me nicely! 🙂