Nina Hartley
Podcast Transcript Season 1 Episode 4
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Liz Goldwyn: Hello, and welcome to The Sex Ed. I'm your host Liz Goldwyn, founder of thesexed.com, your number one source for sex, health and consciousness education.
Today on The Sex Ed, my guest is Nina Hartley. Nina is a world famous adult film actress, author and educator. Nina first achieved mainstream recognition in the 1980s and '90s for promoting sex-positive feminism. Today, she tours the country giving university lectures on self-love and sexual empowerment and awareness. I first met Nina years ago through our mutual friend, Dita Von Teese. Nina popped my sex academic cherry when she invited me to sit in on a lecture she gave at UCLA's relationship and sex therapy seminar program in 2012. I've been auditing the course ever since.
In this interview, we discussed Nina's early training as a registered nurse, feminism in the 1970s, and sex as an artistic medium.
Liz Goldwyn: Thank you, Nina, for being here with me again today. You are an icon around the world to anybody that watches adult films to anybody that likes to read about sex, anyone who's read your book, Nina Hartley's Total Guide to Sex or heard you speak. Very excited to share you with our guests.
Nina Hartley: I'm thrilled and delighted to be here. What are we talking about today?
Liz Goldwyn: Well, let's take it back to the old school for a minute.
Nina Hartley: Sure.
Liz Goldwyn: Because it was fascinating to me about your background is that you have this degree in nursing. So, you're coming into the sex work fields via nursing.
Nina Hartley: I went into nursing school so I could become a nurse midwife. I never wanted to do other kinds of nursing. I wanted to be a nurse midwife, not a lay midwife. I want the letters after my name, I wanted the training and I wanted the respect that having undergone formal education we give you in the healthcare field.
As it turns out, I'm also highly sexual person and quirky enough that I was exhibitionistic enough that I think public sex didn't freak me out. And I was pretty enough that I was not barred entry into adult entertainment.
So, I started as a stripper while going to school. And I started to see some of the flaws in the feminist theory at the time about them horrible mens and them horrible sex workers, and started to understand that the entire system oppresses everyone around sex, sexuality and sexual expression. It just does so differently for men versus women.
I started seeing the connection between embodiment, being in our bodies and how we experience the world and how we experience intimacy and pleasure. So, as I was going through nursing school with the idea of becoming a midwife and also being an early in my career as a sex worker, mainly stripper, and then in 1984 I started making movies. But I saw two parallel tracks: One, nursing is here to address suffering, bodily suffering after surgery, after childbirth, after anything, but also sexual suffering is real suffering. You're suffering in your body-- lack of attachment, lack of touch, lack of intimacy. The body is suffering.
Our culture does not promote sexual helpfulness. And so, we're all walking around sometimes limping, and labor and delivery in an otherwise healthy pregnancy, all the laboring body needs is support. I don't know if you've ever been present with a baby being born, but it's the most miraculous thing ever. And, assuming it's a healthy pregnant person and a healthy baby, all the laboring body needs is support until it's over. Breathing and walking and tubbing and rubbing and massage and chanting until it's done, the body can have the baby. And when it's correctly supported, the body can have pleasure.
And so, my job as a nurse is to address suffering where I see it because of my quirks, sexual suffering is more immediate to me and universal. There's many other kinds of suffering. There's mental health suffering. There is all kinds of suffering. I would be the worst drug counseling nurse ever. Because I have no empathy or understanding, true awareness of what it is to be an addict or dependent on drug. That'd be a bad use of my nursing skills.
But when it comes to settling into the body, at least if you pleasure, that I got all the patience in the world for. That that's my wheelhouse. So, turns out that babies and sex are related.
Liz Goldwyn: (Laughs) More so than we think.
Nina Hartley: I don't know if you knew that (Liz laughs). So, I tell people now I work at the other end of the cow. I used to want to work at the end result of a particular sexual act, i.e. delivering a baby. And now I work further up the stream with sex act that may or may not end up with someone becoming pregnant. American humans have lots and lots and lots of intercourse that will never result in a baby. And so, I think it's important for everyone to be at home in their bodies.
Liz Goldwyn: So, what did it feel like the first time that you did an adult film in… was that 1982 or 1984?
Nina Hartley: 1984.
Liz Goldwyn: Was it huge aha moment or?
Nina Hartley: The aha moment came during the stripping because it was San Francisco. I was allowed to do live lesbian shows, girl on girl shows and also a dildo show. So I could do an explicit solo show with penetration. So, that was the big thrill. Oh my gosh. The world did not swallow me up. It felt great. And I realized then that men are just as ignorant about sex in our culture as women are, but they're not supposed to be able to show that. You're the man. You're supposed to know what to do. But if no one teaches a man, how can he possibly know what to do?
The desire for intimacy is innate. The pleasure of skin on skin contact is inborn. But the skillset required to have a mutually satisfactory, non-abusive, non-assaultive encounter, that has to be taught. And we don't do a very good job of that in our culture. I realized that a lot of the feminism I had absorbed from Berkeley in the '60s and early '70s was actually… not wrong but not enough.
Yes, men do all these things. Men are raping the world. Men are in front of the corporation, the Fortune 500. Men are in charge of the law and the court. And that is true and patriarchy is a real thing. But for me, what gets lost is everyone's privilege on different axis. So, depending on where you are-
Liz Goldwyn: Men are also vulnerable.
Nina Hartley: Thank you for acknowledging that.
Liz Goldwyn: And men are not allowed culturally to be vulnerable.
Nina Hartley: The patriarchy --patriarchal norms-- damage males and females differently. And we're also taught to view each other as the enemy or the problem. Men this, women that. Yes, I know you feel this about the gender you're supposed to marry and you feel bad about the gender you're supposed to marry, but, you know, you’ll work it out. If I'm angry and alone, if I'm a man-person, I might have outward expressions of anger and self-loathing that may include environmental destruction because I don't see the value in a healthy environment. It gets bound up in capitalism, gets bound up in post-scarcity society, it gets bound up in chauvinism.
Liz Goldwyn: All this is going on in this very hyperactive brain you have back in the early '80s. (Both laugh)
Nina Hartley: Well, it started happening in the '70s. Again, I wish I'd had the word when I was younger, gay rights was barely starting when I was a kid in the '70s. And the women's movement was barely starting and the civil rights movement was barely starting.
So, now we have queer and polyamory and ethical non-monogamy and all the things that step outside the boundaries of “normal,” air quotes, behavior. But when I was younger, I knew I was different from other kids. But I didn't know how or why.
Liz Goldwyn: So did the work in pornography allow you to experience what for you was a more “normal” sex life within this structure of work as opposed to outside of it? Did you feel like you found your community?
Nina Hartley: Great question. Yes, I did. Before I got into porn, I had seen a couple movies. I liked them a lot. I'd read a whole bunch of smut. Magazines; Playboy and Penthouse, and read The Happy Hooker and The Joy of Sex, which is foundational. And I knew the word bisexual, exhibitionist and voyeur and recognized those all apply to me. And now I know that I am a pansexual polyamorous person and those words weren't there yet. So, bisexual, exhibitionist, voyeur and swinger.
Being in pornography always stepped me outside the bounds of normal so I could just be open about it. And I personally really liked the business aspect of my job so I could come to work and that happened to meet you in a bar or be drunk, you've already said yes. By being on the set, you have said yes and you know you're doing a girl-girl scene today with Nina. So, I personally really appreciated the clear boundaries and cut and dried aspect of commercial sex work.
Liz Goldwyn: Was there a different state of mind that you cultivated whether you are performing in front of a camera with a partner or partners or in your personal life?
Nina Hartley: Nina was always very clear, had excellent boundaries, excellent communication skills, knew what to say yes and no to, knew how to elicit her partner's needs and desires, how to keep her partners feeling safe, and welcome. And Marie was, in her personal life, much clumsier. Nina was a construct that Marie conjured up.
What would a feminist pornographer look like? What would she say? What would she believe? What would she do? What would she espouse? And so Nina took things that were really me and then formalized it and professionalized it. And I really deeply appreciate commercial pornography being there to act as a wonderful crate because it has clear boundaries. You go to work, you work, you go home. You don't call and say, "Can I see you again later?" No, we understand what we're here for and we don't try to make it more than it is.
And civilian life, oftentimes, if someone has a really amazing sexual experience, they start thinking, “I'm in love or I have a crush, or what does this mean?” And this means you had a good time. And so, in adult films, I can show my partner a great time and makes for good entertainment. But they don't all then think, “Oh my gosh, now, we should be dating.”
Liz Goldwyn: Did you ever feel fear physically or emotionally or encounter exploitation during your career in pornography?
Nina Hartley: I never felt fear or danger ever on a set. 1997, we were on a boat that sank and I did feel fear beforehand because the captain of the boat didn't seem like he was all on board. And I should have said, "You know what? I'm going to just get in my car and leave now." But in terms of other physical danger, never.
Growing up where I did, I was already prepared to step outside societal norms. My parents were already not like other parents. They were Zen Buddhists and they were already some weird kind of hippies on steroids, right? So, I wasn't coming from a traditional suburban middle class home with standards I had to uphold, what are the neighbors gonna think? So I was already a little more free by the time I started.
Liz Goldwyn: And self-aware.
Nina Hartley: Self-aware to a point. So, I was self-aware enough to know in a business situation, absolutely, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no. I never had a moment's hesitation to say I will do that. I will not do that. That's not enough money.
My personal life, much more difficult time advocating for myself, which ended up in the dissolution of my first marriage. Because I recognized that I was not happy and could never be happy in this situation and I had to go. My experience asked me to help give Marie words to use in her personal life that she had not yet developed.
I liked it because gave me a lot of experience. And because I'm a nurse, I'm very comfortable with bodies. I'm comfortable with nudity. I take nothing personally about what your body happens to like. You like stroking, this person likes patting, this one's tickly-- your nerve endings like what they like. It's just a normal variation of human body to human body.
So, I liked pornography very much because I got a lot of experience and none of the resulting date drama or relationship drama or anyof the other kinds of drama that can come when a so-called civilian woman is having a wild sex life.
Liz Goldwyn: You're still active in adult films. You have probably the longest running career of any woman in the industry.
Nina Hartley: Oh, double.
Liz Goldwyn: What's typical]?
Nina Hartley: Well, it used to be the typical career was two to three years because either she'd burnout or everyone would have seen her, but also I came in here for life. I'm a sex worker for life. I found my people, my tribe, my place to be, so I was going to learn how to work within the system and stay here. Other people stay here for a while, get their money and leave. They want to leave the system. Before the internet was actually possible to do that, you could totally make your money and go.
Liz Goldwyn: And no one would be the wiser?
Nina Hartley: No one would be the wiser. You’d take off the nails, let your hair go back to normal, get the implants out if you'd have them put in the first place and you could completely sink back into regular life and no one ever would know. I know several women who worked like crazy for two years, banked it all to get their nut for their business and they knew I'm here for the money and I'm out and they actually did that. They came here, they got the money and they left.
Other people drift in and out because they don't know where else to go. Other people get married, but I'm a lifer. Sex is my subject. And so, in our culture, if you make sex-art, it's called pornography because we don't value sexuality enough to let the great artists handle it. But sex and passion and pleasure are equally worthy of artistic endeavor as love and death and war and allegory and the Bible. Each culture gets the pornography it deserves because the explicit material we put on screen is a reflection of culture, not an engine of culture, even though some younger people may disagree with me on that one.
Liz Goldwyn: So, you brought up your parents being Buddhists and you have such a great knowledge and understanding of spirituality, your own personal spirituality, which I truly believe is integral to sexual wellness. I'd love to hear a little bit more about what that means to you.
Nina Hartley: You know, I’m one of those people who call for the small S spiritual. I don't believe in a deity. However, the brain is an infinitely amazing and wonderful and… fascinating place and the capacity for humans to have awe-inspiring, awe-some moments and the ineffable ineffableness and love and tenderness and all the things that humans can feel, it's a gift of being human that most of us who are not brain damaged or austistic or Aspergian have some way into the ineffable. I don't know how else to put it.
I've had enough experiences in my life that, in the middle of them, I knew, if I had the God story, I would say that's the presence of God. But I don't have the God story but it's still something.
Liz Goldwyn: Transcendent experience.
Nina Hartley: Exactly. Transcendent, the ineffable, the incredible closeness you feel after a really beautifully mutual sexual experience with a desired partner. Humans are amazing that way. We make art. Other animals may make tools, but humans I think are the only ones that make art. I don’t know if the bowerbird counts.
Liz Goldwyn: How closely aligned do you think this idea of transcendence is within fetish/bondage world?
Nina Hartley: In terms of fetish, I consider myself quite kinky. My second husband and I had a Dominant/submissive relationship in the bedroom. What fetishism does and what kinky people do that keeps the ineffableness alive is that there is always some kind of ritual that requires us every time we engage in the dance of power exchange to be fully present, fully cognizant, and fully consenting on purpose. We don't just end up in bed. Don't just end up holding a whip or being whipped. You negotiate. What does this mean to us? What is this building between us?
And I think a lot of people who are not overtly kinky or into power exchange per se, after the rush of, wow, you're so wonderful, I want to be naked with you all the time, and those chemicals subsided that the brain, what do we have now? And so, unless you and I decide what is our intimacy going to look like, what does it mean to you, what does it mean to me, are there gestures or clothing or words that are particularly resonant and meaningful to you that I should know so I can avoid them or use them to make this experience better?
So, anybody can have transcendent sex, but people who are not also fetishes, I think, might want to be more formal about what our sex means to us, as opposed to, “Was that good for you, baby?” That's communication but what is our ritual? What is our sex ritual? What do we do as a couple to demarcate our intimate erotic time from the day to day, putting on the collar or getting out the gear, setting up the space. That's the liminal space between work-a-day and magic time. Doesn't matter, as long as you and I agree that this is us putting down the character of the day and moving in to whatever is going to happen tonight with us.
I'm Jewish by culture and I've got to be with my sister for Shabbat. And so, on Friday night near sun down, you light candles and you say your prayer and there's a demarcation between the workweek and the special day, and then the demarcation after. There's our candles and singing after.
Liz Goldwyn: Which is like sub space?
Nina Hartley: It's a dom space. So sub space is the mental, emotional and physical state of feeling completely present in the moment with your partner, ready to go in any direction, and just calm and peaceful. Not wanting to be anywhere else, not thinking about the groceries, not worrying about tomorrow, just here. So, in Buddhism, I talk about, you know, be here now and there is no next. Everything happens now. Nothing happens next.
When the time comes for that next thing to happen, it will happen now. Next is an illusion, which is why all the meditation you talk about comes back to the breathing because breathing now, now, now. The breathing keeps you anchored in the now and human brains, we like to go everywhere. We like to torture ourselves with what happened last week, worry ourselves what might happen next week or 10 years in the future so we take our minds out of our bodies, and then we step off a curb wrong and hurt our ankle. I've had so many accidents because I was not presently aware of my surroundings.
Liz Goldwyn: Or holding your breath. A lot of people hold their breath during sex.
Nina Hartley: Oh, yes! Yes, day to day we often hold our breath to avoid feeling, to avoid expressing our feelings. I know nothing about that at all (Liz laughs). No, so breath is vitally important. You know, not only is it vital to survival. Energy is carried in the breath. Feelings are carried in their breath. Emotions are carried on the breath. And so when we block our breath, do shallow breathing, we are literally stuffing our feelings.
And so, deliberate sex, solo sex, conscious partnered sex, kinky sex, fetish sex, meditation, exercise, dance, playing music, singing, anything that brings us into our body as an experiential space is really important for eventual sexual, that happiness, lowering our anxiety neurosis about it. I'm very lucky, I have a great sex life and I'm still learning new things. I'm still learning how to connect my orgasm and my emotion with those of my partner and not be compartmentalized off.
So, I'm still working on intimacy. I'm still working on how does that work? So, sub space is a lovely place to get to. I've experienced it very rarely because I have a very hard time letting go. I'm an excellent bottom. So, bottoming and subbing are two different states. People have heard the term top and bottom. Topping and bottoming, feeling follows action. So, topping and bottoming are behavior-based activities that then will result in the desired feeling state.
Domming and subbing are emotional states and the behavior is irrelevant. So, if I am in a submissive state, if I'm really just letting go and letting my partner take over, my job is just to remain in neutral and not have any desires or plans for the future. Being in sub space is the eternal now because you don't know what's happening next. That's the Dom's job. (Nina laughs) Right? The Dom has to know what's going to happen three steps from now and still make it, hopefully, make it fun for you.
Liz Goldwyn: But you've negotiated all your boundaries and your safe words ahead of time.
Nina Hartley: Yes, of course, yes, yes, of course, absolutely. So, before any clothes come off, it doesn't matter, kinky sex or so-called vanilla sex. Vanilla is not a derogatory. It's a descriptor. I think my favorite flavor is vanilla, actually. It's my favoritest flavor in the whole world.
Liz Goldwyn: With a few sprinkles.
Nina Hartley: No, vanilla ice cream straight up. Don't besmirch the vanilla of the ice cream. In our culture, in movies, et cetera, sex just happens. We end up here. It's like you don't end up naked. Choices were made. They could be unconscious choices. They could be unhealthful choices. They can be unaware choices. But choices were made before you find yourself naked in someone's bed.
So, what I want to do for everyone's health and also to reduce instances of harassment or assault is, as adults, between impulse and action, we spread that out as long as necessary so everyone's safe and happy. Days, weeks, months, years? So, the impulse: Ooh, I would so love to get to know you better. Instead of, tomorrow night, say, "Hey, let's sit down and have coffee with our clothes on. You made need to be in relationship and I may want to have a playmate, so we'll have to just stick to coffee." So, we have to have a discussion.
What I would like to put out there as an idea for grown up people who want to have better sex more often is to extend the time between mutual expression of desire and actual action as long as necessary to have any conversation needed so that you and I both feel really great about it. Let's go get tested. Because here in LA and the big cities, you can go to iknowmystatus.com and find a testing place next to you.
So, if you and I experience mutual attraction, but can't wait 24 to 48 hours to seal the deal, maybe we're not mature enough yet to do this because I know I'll feel better if I'm tested. And you'll feel better if I'm tested. And we can just relax about that and then worry about other things that might come from sex, which is feeling.
Liz Goldwyn: The more safety you feel, the more you can let yourself go.
Nina Hartley: Absolutely, and talking about boundaries and doing this sober. If we agree that whatever physical boundaries that you need me to adhere to, I just want to know what they are. I personally don't care what your nos are or yeses as long as I know what they are. So I cannot accidentally mess up the entire evening by using a word that you just really hate because I didn't know. And then we can be relaxed.
The negotiation is setting the shape of the playground. The spontaneity will fill in the playground. It will fill in to the shapes permitted, and no one has to worry about running the street getting hit by a car because we have set the boundaries and they can really let go so you can plan for spontaneity.
“Well, but sex is supposed to be spontaneous.” Yeah, but you got a job and I got a kid. We can set aside a time in which spontaneity can certainly be promoted. But the idea that it was going to be spontaneous, that's unrealistic. And then people go, "Where did the spark go?" People say, "Oh, scheduling sex is so boring."
Liz Goldwyn: I think it's sexy.
Nina Hartley: I think it's sexy because now you both-
Liz Goldwyn: Set a little iCal reminder.
Nina Hartley: Absolutely. Yeah, cool! Exactly. So, it makes it special. You don't have to worry about, oh my gosh, did I shave my legs today? What if sex happens today. It's like, no, no, no. It's happening tonight. Going to start 7:00 so I can start at 5:00 with my bath and just get into ... And you can sink into your liminal space because you know a fun time will be had shortly.
And the meantime, you can pick out your outfit and do your grooming and your partners get to pick out their outfit and do their grooming, going to meet in a hot date situation because you know it's going to be a hot date. What exactly you're going to do, maybe you decide I'm going to try this new toy. Maybe we're going to see what happens.
Liz Goldwyn: A lot of people will take time aside for their workout or their overall wellness without considering their sexual health as part of that.
Nina Hartley: Because it’s just supposed to just happen. If you love me, it’s just supposed to happen. And that is one of the lies of our culture.
Liz Goldwyn: The Disney lie.
Nina Hartley: The Disney lie, happily ever after. It's like mmm (negative). (Both laugh)
Liz Goldwyn: I want to talk a bit about virginity. It's been bandied around a lot lately as virginity being a construct and I know you and I have spoken before about this idea of having multiple virginities.
Nina Hartley: Well, thank you. Well, the idea of multiple virginities I got from Dr. Carrol Queen. In traditional western patriarchal culture, virginity has meant the first time genital A penetrates or is penetrated by genital B. And that's it. That's your virginity. Back to women being chattel and her so-called sexual purity was her entire worth, but why do we “lose” our virginity? Why don't we share it? Give it up? Kill it? (Nina laughs) Release it? Why don’t we-- losing it, we’re not losing anything. We’re supposed to be losing so-called innocence and gaining experience.
My first intercourse was so boring. I was 18 and I've been thinking about intercourse for years and I'm looking forward to it. First boyfriend was much older and I thought he'd be better at it and it was just meh.
Liz Goldwyn: But you also had your first orgy at 18, right?
Nina Hartley: My first threesome was at 19 and that was a disaster.
Liz Goldwyn: Why was it a disaster?
Nina Hartley: Because I was inexperienced enough not to realize the difference between fantasy and reality. So becoming an adult is learning how to negotiate, how to, if at all, you can make real what's in your head because once you involve other people, then there are the people involved. So, think about your fantasies, the craziest one you have. Everyone's happy, it all works out perfectly, you are happy, they're happy. No one goes to jail. (Nina laughs) No one goes to hospital. It's awesome because it's in your head. But it got down to it, I tell people at this point, you know, and the LSD didn't help. (Liz laughs)
But all the LSD did was render me unable to ignore my true feelings. It didn't make it a, quote unquote, "bad trip." It rendered me unable to lie to myself about what was going on about how actually I was consumed with jealousy and envy and not ready for this ness. And I didn't understand where jealousy came from because I thought it was, “Jealousy is a learned emotion based on the fact that women were made to be chattel, la-la-la-la-la.”
But I came to understand that jealousy was a reaction to my own insecurity. And so, I needed to work on that before I've gone on to have hundreds and hundreds of amazing threesomes both on camera and off camera, in my personal life. But if I had been, quote unquote, "regular” or “normal," I would have taken that horrible experience and said, “See, of course, it can't work. Of course, this is supposed to be two people.” But I'm a '70s feminist and my identity is non-monogamous and bisexual. And so, I knew that I had the right to my sex life. I had the right to be happy in my sex life.
And it took me a number of years to figure out that a person, if they so desire, can have a healthy, non-exploitative, consensual, ethical, non-monogamous life, if that's what they want and if they're willing to do the work. So, consensual, monogamy is one kind of challenge relationship-wise. Even if you're monogamous, monogamy can be challenging.
And consensual non-monogamy is a challenging way to be in a relationship. Non-monogamy is not better than monogamy. It's not more elevated. It's not more evolved. It's just an orientation. You are a one person, one heart, one gental kind of person or you are not. But what really doesn't work is when they try to mate with each other, it really is not helpful. Because everyone's going to be unhappy.
Liz Goldwyn: I wanted to ask you how important self-love is to good sex.
Nina Hartley: Self-love is very important to good sex because with self-love, we learn to identify our boundaries, our needs, our desires, and hopefully, our own best advocate for being in a place where our desires are welcome. The difficult parts of my personal life has been when all of my desires were not welcome. And these desires were okay. But those are scary and threatening to me.
And so, I don't want to hear about them. I don't want you to have them. Your desires are your desires, so there are no wrong desires. There is wrong action, but there are no wrong desires, okay? That's just you. We decide which of our desires we want to manifest or not based on our values, our situation, our abilities to change about tradition or whatever.
And then with whatever of our desires you cannot manifest, then we have to make peace with them so they don't eat us alive and cause resentment. Every committed relationship long term, it does involve pruning. There are certain things you cultivate and certain things you have to prune and just not focus on the thing you can’t have because then you'll be unhappy.
And then self-love is important so you know what valence to put on each of these things. So, when I got with my second husband, the most important thing after my first marriage was a non-monogamous partner, and I wasn't sufficiently recovered for my first marriage to understand that that itself wasn't enough. What kind of non-monogamy are we talking about? Who am I mating with?
So, for me to just be non-monogamous, that was, fine, I'll take it. But there are other non-negotiables I see now that I didn't wasn't aware of because they hadn't done enough inner work between marriages. Self-love is really important because it helps us understand what our bottom line fundamental needs are, what our absolute never, never, never, never, ever are and then what level of with negotiable are the other elements?
Liz Goldwyn: I probably bring this up every time I talk to you, but it's one of my favorite parts in your book, Nina Hartley's Total Guide to Sex, when you talk about being at a swinging party, you talk about what to pack; a duffel bag, a change of clothes and some snacks.
One of the things I love about the way you talk about sex, the way you write about sex is that you take these subjects that a lot of people are a bit freaked out about like polyamory and you really break it down on a, I think again it probably goes back to your nursing background, you break it down in such practical terms. I think that it gives people a way in if they're curious to kind of, “Oh, okay, I got a duffel bag. I got snacks. I got Ugg boots.”
Nina Hartley: Nothing feels better after this thing probably than Ugg boots. (Both laugh)
Liz Goldwyn: Because you were very early on that scene.
Nina Hartley: I was. So, I started swinging in '82. So, I would have just been 22/23 at the time, and I was by far and away the youngest female by 20 years in every party because at the time in the early '80s, most people came to swinging either after a long-term marriage and we want to spice things up and we realize that we trust each other enough that we want to expand, or happy second marriages from people who have been married to sexually non-compatible partners and got married in their late 30s, early 40s.
And in order to swing, you were going there. So, I was always an anomaly at any party because of my relative youth. That's no longer the case. And now, I'm age appropriate for most of the parties I go to.
Liz Goldwyn: And now there's lots of people that are in their 20s.
Nina Hartley: Absolutely, because out sex culture is now 35 years old. People who are queer can find their tribe sooner. They don't have to go through a bad first marriage and realize, oh my gosh, I've tried to fit the square peg into the round hole. I no longer have to do that. They can find their way to it more easily and sooner, which is, I think, overall the greater good because while 80% of people are what would be considered some variation of “the norm,” 20% of people are some kind of other, on gender, relationship, kink, or whatever.
Those people need to find their tribe because when you are “alt” in a straight world, you do have higher incidences of self-harm and being kicked out of your family. And the further away from the norm you are, the greater the chances your family's going to reject you. Younger people in bigger cities have better chances of finding others like them than they used to. I'll go that far.
Liz Goldwyn: I feel that your political and social activist views and your social work has always run kind of parallel to your career in sex industry.
Nina Hartley: A lot of the early talking about pornography in the '70s and '80s was all theory. Middle class, Caucasian and Jewish women would look at pornography and think about and talk about it, but they didn't talk to us and hadn't made any of it. So, when I got into porn, one of my goals was to speak about pornography as a feminist from a place of practice and not theory. And that turned to be a much tougher nut to crack. Took me twenty-five years after I started pornography, to recognize that not all feminists were my friends or wanted to hear my truth and take note. My truth didn't jive with their theories so they had to discredit my truth. And so, I was like, "Oh."
So, now I realize that the anti-porn religious folk in the last 15, 20 years have co-opted the language of feminism to talk about why pornography is bad because they were getting no traction on the sin part of it, right? So now it's bad for your brains. It's bad for relationships. It's bad for women.
And the feminist anti-porn people have started to co-opt some of the language of the religious rights saying it's bad for women to be viewed as sex objects and it's bad for relationships when boys are poisoned by pornography. You have young people who are naturally curious about bodies and what goes where and how does it work. We're giving them no information and so-
Liz Goldwyn: They're consuming pornography before they're having sex.
Nina Hartley: Right. Because, well listen, pornography thinking is, “I can see a penis or a vulva, I can see naked people,” but without any education behind it, how can they know how, quote unquote, "real” or “not real" this is? How can they know that this, quote unquote, "supposed" to be how it is or not because we don't have the conversation? And so, the anti-porn folk, “Oh, we can't talk about porn because it will give young people ideas,” but mother nature takes care of that. Mother nature gives body's ideas. We do a disservice by conflating ignorance with innocence.
And the more information I have, the more I can delay entry into this world because the world of adultness is fraught. "Sex," airquotes, carries a huge list of potential consequences, both positive and negative, and then to say to young people, “We’re not going to give you any ideas,” and, “don't look at that stuff,” and, “don't do that,” and then, “go off and have fun.” It's just-- why there's not more trouble around sexuality I am shocked.
We’re just now beginning to realize how great assault is and how great harassment is and how really endemic because we prevent women from having experience because we slut shame them and we prevent boys from having empathy because we man shame them.
So, we train young boys away from empathy and then wonder why assault happens. Wonder why boys can't be empathetic to the pain of others because we trained out of them. Children are naturally very empathetic. But we tell little boys, “Be a man,” you know, “toughen up, big boys don't cry,” and all the things that we do to little boys to make them, quote unquote "men." I've always said, women have been amputated from their clits and men from their hearts.
Liz Goldwyn: And we've also been teaching children since the time they first start speaking to name their genitals vava and weewee and don't touch that and don't talk about it and not explaining to children what the real names are for their genitals.
Nina Hartley: Right. Children as young as three can be taught privacy. “Sweetheart, sweetheart, we don't touch our genitals in the living room. You know it’s for the bedroom honey. So, go in the bedroom, okay?” They can learn. Kids can totally learn the appropriate places to explore their bodies and where it's not okay. In the living room with grandma, probably not ideal. At the dinner table, not ideal. But in your bedroom with the door closed, perfectly okay.
Liz Goldwyn: And I think there's this idea that parents have to wait a certain age to start talking to their kids about sex, but it's just about the appropriate age in which to broach specific subject, so no, you're not going to show your three-year-old porn. Of course, not.
Nina Hartley: No.
Liz Goldwyn: You’re not going to show your eight-year-old porn.
Nina Hartley: No.
Liz Goldwyn: You’re not going to show your eleven-year-old porn. But you're going to talk to your three-year-old about, oh, this is a penis.
Nina Hartley: And this is a vulva.
Liz Goldwyn: You're totally normal.
Nina Hartley: Right, right, age appropriate. The first question, where do babies come from? A special place inside mommy. That's enough for a three-year-old. By six, how does the baby get in there? There are wonderful books now to help parents talk to the kids about sex in a very fabulous way. So, the resources are out there in a way that they weren't before.
So, for me sex is about personal responsibility. My prime directive when I talk to young people, anybody actually, do not use sex to harm self or others. Need to be celibate for a while to figure it out? Better to be celibate than to be party to a sexual assault in any direction. There's no harm in being sexually inactive. There's no shame in being sexually inactive.
Liz Goldwyn: But we do shame people.
Nina Hartley: Absolutely, absolutely all the time.
Liz Goldwyn: In today's digital, transactional nation of sex.
Nina Hartley: You're supposed to be having, you're supposed to be wanting. And what if you don't want it yet? I think the uses of celibacy are real and very valuable. Because celibacy does not mean abstinence. So, if I'm a celibate person that means I'm not involved in anybody else. So, a celibate person of course can masturbate. They can investigate their own sexuality and find out what's important to them. And they can use pornography and journaling to figure out me. The smallest unit for sexuality is individual. So, before I start involving you in my stuff, shouldn't I know me first?
Liz Goldwyn: And it's also, let's not forget, sexual energy is not just creative energy, it's our life force. So, the more, in fact, that we do harness it and learn to control it ourselves, the more power we have in our careers, in our communities and the way we want to affect change in our consciousness, I believe. They say that both Shakespeare and Mae West would refrain from having sex when they were writing one of their plays or in her case, one of her film scripts or plays because she was holding back is the same way as athletes.
Nina Hartley: Right.
Liz Goldwyn: Don't come the night before a big game.
Nina Hartley: And tantra. If you don’t come-- there’s always-- eros has a creative energy. It can create life, but can create art. So, when we harness celibacy and recognize it, not the punishment, not because you're not pretty enough or handsome enough for a partner it’s just that right now, it is most helpful for me to withdraw trying to interact with other people sexually until I figure it out, get my own act together, find out more about myself, finish my therapy-- whatever the reasons are.
When I was younger and completely scattered in my energy and completely walking around like some kind of little victim, all I attracted were snakes and predators because I was emitting bunny signals, you know. So healthy people looked at me and go, "Oh my goodness, you held together with chewing gum and baling wire. I'm going to steer clear." Whereas a predator would look at me at my younger age and go, "Oh, lunch."
As Nina helped Marie become a more poll person, I came to understand that, wow, of course, so-called intelligent, smart, together people avoided me like the plague because now when I see young people who are admitting that “I'm lunch energy,” it's like, “Wow, I didn't realize how obvious it was.” To me, I thought I was invisible. To me I thought I wasn't in the world at all. No one was paying any attention to me.
People who were paying attention to me were jerks and people who were not above taking advantage of someone who was needy. So, being celibate helps you get stronger and so you avoid that. You go straight to people who have a higher vibration, not a bad thing. And I learned everything from all the bad sex I had. I've learned something new every time and in the relationships that so-called fail, I learned valuable lessons in them.
So I’m not saying-- people are going to do what they're going to do. They're going to experiment. They're going to so-called fail. But I urge everyone listening to take a look in themselves. And when they think the word "sex," are they filled with joy or despair, anger or contentment, fear or satisfaction, anticipation or avoidance. Until I can think of the word "sex" and feel basically happy and good, I probably shouldn't involve other people.
Liz Goldwyn: Because we don't have to have sex like we're eating potato chips and watching television.
Nina Hartley: Right. I would rather not. I'm definitely a quality over quantity person, no question about it. No question about it. So, why are we having sex? Are we doing it to escape? Are we doing it to check out? Just know why you're there. I'm here because I need an ego stroke and I want some attention. It's easier than saying, “No, I'm lonely,” whatever.
The consequences of sex are so great that the more mindful we can be when engaging in it with other people, the better is all. Even if you take away penis and vagina intercourse and penis and anus intercourse, which, you know, death and babies are pretty big deal, you have 50 other cards to play. So many other things you can do that don't risk death and babies.
And how can I relax with you if I'm worried about death and babies? Because we haven't had the conversation, because we just met earlier at a party and I'm lonely and you're drunk and you're not so bad looking yourself and here we are. Not useful. How we find ourselves in bed with another person is completely under our control. Whether we think it is or not, whether we accept it or not, it is under our control.
Again, sex never just happened. It’s like, “No,” until we recognize that we can step out at any time, we may find ourselves having the same less-than-happy experience multiple times.
Liz Goldwyn: I think it's so fascinating that this idea of self-imposed celibacy and then this word "abstinence" get mixed up so much culturally that celibacy is immediately aligned with right wing conservative, no sex before marriage instead of looking at it as this beautiful choice that you can make that doesn't preclude you from having like a whole history of sexual experience and even more sexual experience in the rest of your life just kind of like a palate cleanser between intercourses.
Nina Hartley: And you're learning how to date yourself. And also you're learning what kind of future do you want. Here's what love looks like to me. Working within celibacy, you can start then refining your coffee conversation.
My sister, first date with my brother-in-law said, “I want to get married and have kids. If that's not where you're at, we can stop right now.” So, you and I are negotiating either to be sex partners maybe become in a relationship, we have to lay out our cards on the table. Here's what I'm looking for. And here's what I want. And here's what I have to offer. And you can say those are really great things, but that's not what I'm looking for. And so, maybe we just need to be friends. We have to know.
And so, until we turn inward and pay attention to ourselves and not what the culture says you're supposed to want at this age or not what our friend is saying you should be doing at this age, what do I want? How do I find myself in all the noise? Maybe you're the child of immigrants. And so you're dealing with parent culture versus American culture in regards to sexuality. Maybe you're discovering that your faith pattern is not the same as your family of origin and how do you negotiate sexuality within that?
It's always safe to be celibate. Celibacy does not preclude personal examination, exploration, pleasure, information. You're not including other people in your bodily functions. Celibacy can be curious and information gathering. I think abstinent is you're not supposed to be looking at it. If people want to be virgins upon marriage, I'm okay with that. But that doesn't mean you should have the wedding night and know nothing about your own body or the body of your partner. At least you should know your body and I should know my body, so it's not the blind leading the blind. A lot of people who embrace culturally conservative situations who are saving intercourse for wedding night, and supposed to be so amazing and so important, they find that they have no language. They don't know how to do it comfortably or healthfully or fun.
My favorite joke is, “Back in the day, a young man comes back from his honeymoon. His friends were going, ‘So, how was it?’ And the young groom says, ‘It was amazing. We did seven times.’ ‘Seven times?’ ‘Yeah. In, out, in, out, in, out, in.’” Unless we have the conversation, it's going to be like that. And then of course, people, it's very hard to find a sex positive yet traditionally Christian marriage counselor, who's going to be open to your desire. So, celibacy is very useful and I think very vital for any person wanting to understand themselves and what they want.
Liz Goldwyn: One last question. What are you still learning about sex?
Nina Hartley: Oh my gosh, I'm still learning so much. So, I'm in a new relationship and I'm learning now about sharing my orgasm with my partner as opposed to us each having it sort of in our own little bubble side by side. It's nice so you can have so-called simultaneous orgasm, but it's not a goal that people should break themselves over because they'll just go crazy mad.
So, I'm learning more intimacy with my sex, with my new partner. She's a woman, my first female intimate partner. I banged plenty of chicks, but it's my first intimate girlfriend. That's a whole new thing. And it turns out, I am more bisexual than I thought. I'm learning more about just showing up, being willing to be here with whatever's going on.
I think I will also learn more about letting go and surrender, which is very hard for me to do. I just want to be able to learn how to let go. I'll never stop learning about sex, I hope because feelings are infinite. And so in terms of behavior, there are up to three orifices, there are five behaviors and six configurations of people. It's been done, you know. And so, what has no depth and no end and no form and no limit are feelings and emotions. So that is where to dig in, for me personally, is just feelings and emotions.
Liz Goldwyn: Heard it here on The Sex Ed. That was Nina Hartley. Thank you for being here.
Nina Hartley: I love coming here. You're awesome.
Liz Goldwyn: You're awesome. This is so cool.
Liz Goldwyn: You can Nina and her new safe-for-work website nina.live and follow her on Twitter where she's @ninaland. To see more Nina, visit thesexed.com, where you can watch a video of a talk we had at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Thanks for listening to The Sex Ed. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And be sure to visit us at thesexed.com. Once again, I'm your host, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was produced by Fanny Co.. Rob Abear is our sound recorder and editor. Lewis Lazar made all of our music including the track you're listening to right now.
As always, The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness. Thanks again for listening.