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Rumpus Book ClubThe Rumpus Oral History Project— Lorelei Lee
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I got to go into rooms with people and experiment with being vulnerable in a place where I had no emotional responsibility. I went into work and people said, “What do you want to do today? What don’t you want to do today?” Nobody ever asked me that before in terms of sex. I could decide at any time that I never wanted to go back. I had to be there for four hours for the shoot and I got to deal with whatever the emotions were afterword on my own.
In 2005 I did my first boy/girl scene. I was like, OK, I’m really a whore now. Kink had become a bigger company, working with girls from L.A., hiring through agencies. The girls from L.A. told me how they worked all the time. I only worked every couple of weeks. I felt like maybe it was the next thing. I had done everything at Kink: boy/girl, two boys, location shoots, suspensions and all the blah blah blah. It stopped feeling new to me. I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing things. So I decided to go to L.A. And there was money, of course. I couldn’t imagine working every day for that much money.
I called Adrianna’s agent, Speigler. I said, “I’ll do everything.” He said, “Buy a ticket.”
He picked me up and we went to dinner at a deli. I already had shoots lined up for that week. I met Annetta Schwartz, who I fell in love with. We lived together at Spiegler’s. Everybody said we were girlfriends.
Spiegler was this father figure. We had curfew and he drove us everywhere. It was like being a teenager. All we did was work every day.
Spiegler is this older man in his fifties and he is very controlling and I think he would be lonely if he didn’t have girls living in his house. But he approached it like a businessman. He would encourage us to work all the time. He said it was for our own benefit. If you don’t work people forget who you are. At the time I believed everything he said but later I started to think everything was for him. He was getting his cut but I don’t think that was it. We had this sort of weird disfunctional family going on and I think that was a huge part of it for Spiegler. But I don’t think there was anything sinister about him. He’s a sweet and lonely guy. He would never try to hit on us or anything like that. He looks the way you think a porn agent is going to look. He’s got a big belly and he’s always wearing these t-shirts that have funny sayings. He always said, “I wouldn’t mess with the girls. It’s bad for business. Then they get jealous of each other. I have to lock my door at night. I’m scared of them.”
There was also George, our driver. He was younger and we would complain to him about Spiegler. I loved George. He was this tough gangster type and he would show up on set like mister tough guy. If somebody tried to pay you less… I shouldn’t name names but one director in particular had me and Annetta on set and we’re doing a blow bang and there’s four guys and the director wants to be in the scene too and he’s saying, “Well, you guys are basically only doing two blow jobs each because there’s two of you and four of them.” And I was like, “No fucking way. Obviously we’re both giving four blow jobs and if you’re going to be in it that going to be five and you have to pay us for five blow jobs.”
I was flying back and forth for a year and a half, spending two to three weeks a month in L.A. I lived out of a suitcase the whole time and felt very disconnected from my friends in San Francisco. I couldn’t take a class. I felt alienated from the world, except for porn. I couldn’t talk to people in the grocery store. I still feel this way.
I flew back for a week of shoots. There was a new Spiegler girl and I came in and she said hi and I went in the other room and started crying. Spiegler came in and said, “Alright. You don’t want to do it. You’re going to be crying more when you don’t have any money.” I said, “I don’t know if I can.” And he said, “Can you just come in tomorrow?” Then I did the week and I was fine.
I decided I needed a break. I came home and decided to take a class. At State I felt exposed, because the other thing about working all the time is that I never had to be in a room with a lot of people who weren’t in porn. I was kind of depressed. I was scared because I thought I couldn’t keep making porn and I couldn’t do anything else. I got a job as a waitress and I worked and I went to school. I got a boyfriend. I hadn’t dated anyone in years. I had been having all this sex and I hadn’t had any personal sex in a very long time. I was still performing at Kink occasionally. I was starting to feel better about myself, starting to feel sexy again. And then I did the Sex Workers Art Show. For six weeks I was on tour with all these amazing queer sex workers who felt really good about themselves. I was going to go back to L.A. after the tour but I didn’t. I called in sick the night before I was supposed to go back.
Now I work for Kink once a week, sometimes more. The difference is that I have my whole life. I worked with Annetta a few weeks after not showing up in L.A. We did a shoot together for Kink and it was the first time I’d seen her in months. She looked at me in the dressing room and said, “Don’t you think that maybe you had to cancel that shoot because it was the only way you could not be able to go back?” Because in Spiegler’s mind it was like I screwed up for the last time. He has this big with if you screw up that’s it. So it was kind of like pissing off dad. And I was like, “Yeah.” I mean, I hadn’t thought of it. But she’s smart. She knows me.
In the end you do all this stuff and you’re like- that was something, but what? I would look at these pictures of these mainstream porn girls. I thought they looked beautiful. The girl in the picture is always smiling. She’s not the girl who’s alone in her room. In BDSM you don’t get pretty pictures. The Kink shoots were fun but they weren’t glamourous. I had this feeling that it was not good enough nor pretty enough. I wanted to be the girl in the picture.
Sometimes I get emails. They tell me I’m beautiful, they tell me I’m a whore, it’s all the same. They don’t know anything about me. People come up to me in a bar and say, “You look familiar.” But they don’t why I look familiar. In real life I’m just a girl. On the Internet, on their computer screen, on their TV screen, I’m the embodiment of their sexual fantasies. But their sexual fantasies are wrapped up in every other part of who they are. I have this one guy who has been writing me for years. He tells me I’m like his little sister. He says he’s in love with me and thinks we could have had this amazing relationship if I hadn’t ruined it. It’s not really threatening. There have been times when I felt sensitive but for the most part I just think it’s fascinating. I think, “Look at all these lonely people out there. Why are they writing to me?” It’s like a window into the insides of all these people. Sometimes I feel a little less fucked up.
I’m an adult now and I make these choices because I’m doing what’s best for me. It’s not because I’m programmed by some trauma, it’s because I’m doing the best I can to make my life the best it can be.
**
See also: Lorelei Lee, The Last Book I Loved
Return to The Rumpus.net
See also: The Rumpus Sex Section
See also: The Rumpus Interview with Daniel Bergner, author of The Other Side of Desire
See also: The Rumpus Oral History Project, Nick
Lorelei’s page from the Sex Worker’s Art Show
Lorelei’s page at Kink.com. (NSFW)
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December 4th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Fascinating. I love these oral histories.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:11 am
This is great. Lorelei Lee is the current version of Marilyn Monroe, beautiful, voluputous, perhaps a train wreck waiting to happen. There is a haunting beauty about the videos she is in. She seems like a pet who is about to be punished for doing something wrong but is too fearful to resist. It is a twitching fear that no one else can show. True, pure bdsm from a submissive.
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Fascinating and beautifully written (I mean, spoken), especially at the end. A little sad, but also with a glimmer of hope. I wish the very best for Lorelei in the world.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Why no mention of her work at Insex? that’s where most people first became aware of her existence in the industry.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
I always love how Americans think that they only were abused as a kid if they were sexually molested. My God, this woman’s whole childhood was abuse. Moving 18 times? Dad never had any contact with her, but its okay because he was a brilliant artist? Now she lives with her manager Spiegler, who is this gross sounding 50 year old, who she admits is controlling and has her on a curfew and makes her work as much as possible ( for her own good, of course). She has a driver who escorts her to shoots who is a gangster. Sounds to me like she just has changed one abusive relationship for another.
They should make this required reading for anyone thinking of getting into porn. Her trying so hard to make it sound good, just shows how bad it is. Someone writing her story couldn’t make it sound as bad as she does herself by trying to make it sound so positive.
I just wonder if someone like Lorelei will ever find peace.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
OK, I am almost impressed by the ignorance Amstutz just splayed across this otherwise wonderful page. Congratulations are in order, but they won’t come from me.
We are all allowed to define our own lives, and to give the people in it whatever importance you so choose. You think you are worldly enough, wise enough, intelligent and omniscient enough to judge Lorelei’s life and interpret it for the rest of us?
People have their trauma, their abuse. It is theirs to define, they are the ones who suffered through it.
Personally, I appreciated a rare glimpse into the life of a person who does what I only wish I could do. Amstutz has obviously never visited Kink.com (or any of its’ satellite sites) and seen what Lorelei actually does. She’s working for one of the most progressive and innovative companies in the industry, successful and abuse free. Successful enough to buy a castle in the midst of San Francisco. Successful, setting an example.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Lorelei
I appreciated you opening up your life and your personal feelings to allow people around you be able to relate to your life.
Its a funny thing how kinkiness separates us from the normal vanilla kids but brings us sooooo much closer to the kink community. They are just scared of how vulnerable we allow ourselves to be. We are the braves ones for being so open.
Thank you
Court
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:44 am
Well, Chris, I gotta call you on this. I’ve subscribed to Hogtied and Wiredpussy for years. Like you, I’ve read the NY Times article about how Peter Acworth came out of Columbia and made internet bdsm porn respectable. Its great that Kink.com is remodeling the armory in San Francisco and is a responsible employer. But despite all that, you read stories like Lorelei’s and you watch those desperate Eastern European women being used in Publicdisgrace.com and you can’t help but feel that porn exploits the vulnerable, regardless of whether it is done by Peter Acworth or the seediest pimp-pornographer around. I don’t disagree with you that Lorelei is a superb porn model, but you can’t help get a feeling of how sad her life sounds. Perhaps kink.com just raised my expectations of what a porn model’s life would be like.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Very courageous of Lorelei to open up like this and a reminder that as we ‘watch’ Kink.com there can be another side to the people who perform. Agree with Amstutz that if we are responsible and caring ourselves than the exploitation of some can’t be easily dismissed or justified by someone like Chris. Yes there are even those UNDERAGE – (not implying on Kink.com) being used for others ‘pleasure’ with little regard for them as human beings. Thank you Lorelei for your honesty and, of course your performing.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
lorelei, you are beautiful to me for whatever reason. we do or live the lives we do. life goes on and people live their lives they live for a reason. don’t waste your time on trying to make sense of it. oh and i do rember the insex days you were one of the BRAVEST models on the site. i do hope you find peace of mind because that is truley what life is about!!!
ps im confined to a wheelchair so i do know a little about the termoil that goes on in ones mind. PEACE
March 11th, 2009 at 8:31 am
ive been an avid fan of Lorelei for quite some time now.
she looks sweet and has that sort of innocence in her face.
after reading this i had the sudden urge to shake her hand if/when i meet/see her someday…Lorelei, if u can read this or even if ur not, goodluck and Godspeed
March 13th, 2009 at 7:50 am
There is so much powerful psychology and sociology at this site. I am grateful that the behind-the-scenes doors are open, because I’m damn near broken from the stereotype amongst my community and family that what we love to do and see here leads to nothing but violence and death.
If my family or the neighborhood I live in knew I subscribed here, there would be flaming torches and pitchforks outside my house. When other communities had red ribbons for drunk driving, this one had white ribbons in a fight against pornography. It’s maybe a little telling that the Catholic churches that conducted that campaign have recently closed 2/3 of their churches. Maybe that’s validation we aren’t as evil as they tried to make us.
It sends chills down my spine to see how happy Lorelei is when she’s twisting something already turning blue as the guy is screaming or trying not to. Then to know she’s laid herself out to be the subject of torture herself – that she knows what it means to lay down and have no control – is so mindboggling having just read about her past.
Some of us led – no, followed – cushy lives and never suffered anything at all, and that’s why we can’t get off the floor and do the things that we dream of. I’m working on it. I really don’t know how to describe what I would feel to be helpless and facing that smile coming from the person making it tighter and delivering the whip marks. I want someday to find out.
Even if I don’t, Lorelei, I have to believe that smile is real. There are so many liars and frauds in our lives, it’s an inspiration just to see someone – like almost everything I’ve seen at Kink.com – break all the stereotypes and demonization that defines those of us who live through this in our fantasies.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:02 am
From #5. Amstutz Says:
February 27th, 2009 at 8:45 pm “Now she lives with her manager Spiegler, who is this gross sounding 50 year old, who she admits is controlling and has her on a curfew and makes her work as much as possible ( for her own good, of course). She has a driver who escorts her to shoots who is a gangster. Sounds to me like she just has changed one abusive relationship for another.”
Add Amstutz to the long and growing list of people I wish could be given their own planet so they will feel free to leave mine. I wonder if Amstutz has any clue just how much damage is caused by doing just what he did – professing that he can see and know what is (or should be) in someone’s mind based on what little he knows about them.
I almost said, “shame on you”, but I’m sure if he’s willing to think for all of us he has none.
The only thing worse than professional psychiatrists are the armchair ones projecting their own morality and mentality upon people they’ve never met and would surely never condescend to.
I think this may have some bearing on the current problems this country faces, Amstutz. Why don’t You think for yourself, and we’ll think for ourselves, and maybe if more people were honest about listening to what is said rather than declaring they know better what is in the heads and hearts of another, we might fare better.
I predict Amstutz is collecting these comments for some anti-porn or anti-BDSM/Fetish article/blog/sermon. Shame he/she could not stick around long enough to actually listen to real people speak the truth about what they think and believe so that he/she might learn something.
March 14th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Well inescape, I always enjoy hearing from a college undergrad who has got the world figured out and is going to give us the benefit of his “wisdom”. If they don’t want people to comment here, then Rumpus should just disable the Reply section. Then guys like you can just smile and nod approvingly at whatever they are spoon fed. The point of my comment is that the kink.com actors have been held up as proof that pornography isn’t essentially soul-sapping. Yet you read her story and it is just sad. Maybe not to you,the sophisticate that you are, but to me. I guess I’m the only one who sees she is being used. Probably because I don’t have a curfew and I can go out in public and I don’t have a manager that makes me work in porn as much as possible for “my own good.”
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Rumpus.net has basically hide this piece. It is the most commented upon article they’ve done and has a lot of real news value yet they have buried it. My hunch is they don’t want to offend an advertising giant like kink.com with comments like mine that maybe, just maybe, Peter and company haven’t reformed porn at all.
March 15th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Inescape, you have an overinflated sense of the significance of fetish porn. You’ve decided that sex should be physically painful and humiliating, while dismissing as ridiculous the idea that it should be emotionally painful and humiliating. Maybe one day we can all just enjoy it for what it is. We’ve certainly already learned how to twist it into what it isn’t, getting so much pleasure that it HURTS, because that’s what pleasure is!
Amstutz, you have an overinflated sense of the significance of The Rumpus. In my short time working with the site, I’ve seen no indication that the editors are anything but committed to getting as much exposure as possible for everything that appears here. And if they don’t want something to be seen here, don’t you think they just wouldn’t publish it? Remember, Occam’s Razor cuts up most conspiracy theories.
Also, “real news value”? “Real news value” is what American operatives are doing in Latin America. A short memoir about the life of a porn actress and creepy sexual fetishes is not “news.” It’s frequently commented upon because it’s about porn, and this culture still can’t handle sex. We gotta talk about how bad and oppressive porn is, or about how good and liberating it is, like a bunch of Goddamn junkies.
March 15th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Of course, when I want to know what American operatives are doing in Latin America, I don’t come to Rumpus.net. I guess you can qualify that then as to news value for rumpus.net. So Jono, you work here, why was the link to this story taken off the front? As far as I can tell, it was the only one “pulled.” Its odd.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Amstutz is a great example of a very real problem:
Once you say you’re in porn, especially if you’re a woman, certain people tend to immediately assume they know more about you than you know about yourself.
Lorelei Lee is putting the way she feels out there and risking something. A lot of people in the industry don’t–Why not? Because of civilians like Amstutz judging them based on little or no information. So performers feel safer staying surrounded by porn people who aren’t going to assume that, for example, just because they didn’t have the happiest childhood in the world that they are immediately useless as a thinking human being capable of deciding how to live his or her own life. (Or, as he hippily puts it, “find peace.”)
This is one reason why very few performers have taken the time to explain to a larger audience what life in the industry is really like, and most people know less about what other people’s lives are like than they could, and why people like Amstutz have the narrow view they do. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy–if you assume the worst every time someone in the business opens their mouth, you won’t hear much, and when you do hear things, it’ll be when something’s gone wrong. If you assume less, you’ll learn more.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
“people tend to immediately assume they know…
“Why not? Because of… performers feel safer…”
Ha, ha!
On the whole, I would have to agree with Amstutz, although I start to wonder when he says the piece has been buried and it’s easy to find. You don’t have to interpret this piece much. When someone says they never knew how to take care of themselves, only others, and that they still feel they can’t talk to people in grocery stores, these are clear indications that something is wrong. This isn’t judgement, just observation. Maybe she’s dealing with her life in the best way possible, as she says, or maybe she can’t see other possibilities for the money and treatment. Who can say? Whenever I read pieces or interviews by porn performers, I always wonder how much is real.
May 29th, 2009 at 7:23 am
@chris2. After I said they buried it, they unburied it and brought it back out.
@ zak. you have your opinion, I’ve got mine. Maybe you think it sounds like she’s got a great life. To a lot of people, being famous ( or semi-famous) is what it is all about, no matter the emotional toll it takes. And to those people – such as yourself- their fame justifies anything that happens in their life. To me, her life sounds pretty sad.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Hey Amstutz, what about YOUR life ?
Was your life a happy life ?
Has one single person ever tried to explain to you that the reasons why you chose the job you’re working are linked to childhood traumas ?
What about a person you’d never seen or talked to ?
What about a hundred people you’d never seen or talked to ?
What about a thousand ?
THAT is abuse. The way we as porn actresses can’t get a fucking break from amateur psychoanalyses.
%@$# dammit it pisses me off !
June 24th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Judy, I’m sure Therumpus.net could post your life story and we could all share our thoughts. The readership is very giving in that way.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Way to dodge Judy’s question, Amstutz.
Also, Amstutz said…
“To a lot of people, being famous ( or semi-famous) is what it is all about, no matter the emotional toll it takes. And to those people – such as yourself- their fame justifies anything that happens in their life.”
…to me.
For some reason.
Y’know doc, when you ASSUME you make…
Oh why bother
July 19th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Another porn star taking me to task for my comments? My God, what is this a conspiracy? Okay, Zak, you and Judy win. I amend what I say to the following: “Lorelei trying so hard to make it sound good, just shows how bad it is, UNLESS YOU HAPPEN TO BE ANOTHER PORN STAR!”
July 20th, 2009 at 12:22 am
amstutz–
You’re still not answering any of the real objections brought up about any of your big-fat-broad-brush comments.
You talked a lot of shit. Own up and defend your position.
July 29th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Zak you are proof positive of the f*cked up porn star stereotype. I ahve no idea what teh hell you are talking about.
July 31st, 2009 at 3:00 am
Oh you’ve sure got me there.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
She quit porn this year and is going to grad scool back East. She’s obviously burnt out from porn.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Coby:
Actually, she is going to school and is not quitting.
October 5th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Miss Lorelie Lee is the most beautiful woman in the world and as a domina she comes across as number one too.
May 29th, 2010 at 8:35 am
I feel like Stephen rewrote Lorelei’s story in his own words. The style is ALL Stephen. Which is great for him because he has a distinctive style but too bad for her because I would like to know how she talks what words or patters or ums or ehs or you knows or rights or whatever verbal tics she uses to make her voice her own.
Lorelei Lee is the name of Marilyn Monroe’s character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes…the book is by Anita Loos. It’s about women trying to find themselves with and without men.
We’re all trying to do that.
I dont think Lorelei’s story is all that interesting or unique. Can we make any ties between her growing up not knowing her real father and her desire for positive attention, especially from men? maybe… it’s a little trite but that doesn’t make it illegitimate.
The thing is, I dont have ANY feelings about her from this piece. She doesn’t have feelings here; the closest she comes to having feelings is when she hears her father is on the phone and then when she breaks down after another performer is brought into the house, and maybe when she tours with the sex workers art show. There’s some interesting stuff about her starting to have sex for personal pleasure, not for money or attention… that should be explored more. That’s an experience most people haven’t had and it would be interesting to know more about it.
Sorry, I just think the piece is weak and that you, Stephen, should do better to tell this person’s story. Stop being a just-the-facts-ma’am-type journalist and give me a feeling … right now I just feel empty and I hate to think that the emptiness is how I should feel about this person who is clearly a whole, feeling, thinking living being.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Lorelei Lee I really enjoy the way you write, and in the end when you said Im just a kid, every word fixed between. I cant denied i love the image of you on my computer.
September 3rd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Fact-check from a former Catholic girl: “Immaculate conception” refers to the idea of Mary being born without sin (because only a girl/woman free of the stain of Original Sin would be suitable to bear the Savior), not to Jesus being created without sexual intercourse. Which is not to take anything away from the blessed beginnings of Ms. Lorelei.