Tera Patrick has one of the most recognized names, faces - and bodies - in porn. The Asian adult film actress made her first movie in 1999 and has managed to stay at the top of the proverbial pile for over a decade. Over the course of her career she has won numerous industry awards, and was inducted into the elite AVN Hall of Fame earlier this year.
The product of a broken home, as a teenager Tera craved attention. Her ambitions were simple: she wanted to be a model and marry a rock star. She achieved her fist goal early in life when she was discovered by a talent scout at the age of 13. She subsequently signed with a Japanese agency, and moved halfway around the world to fulfill her dreams. Alone. When she was just 14. Though successful at landing assignments, without any parental supervision, Tera's life soon spun out of control.
Back in the U.S. with her legitimate modeling career behind her at 16, Tera knuckled down, passed her GED, went to college, and landed a respectable job at a nursing home. A clash of the worst kind with a bedpan however sent Tera hurtling back into modeling. By now her curvy, 5 foot 9 inch frame weighed in at a healthy 135 pounds. Since fashion was no longer an option, glamour work was the natural choice. With Playboy and Penthouse competing over her, Tera's top shelf magazine career blossomed, catching the attention of softcore movie director Andrew Blake, who produced her first X-rated film.
Tera was a natural on camera, and found immense satisfaction in her new career. Consequently her rise in the porn industry was rapid. Though Tera consistently failed to find balance in her personal life, the one place she was able to exert control was on set. There her star status allowed her to dictate exactly the kinds of scenes she was willing to do, and choose the partners she wanted to do them with.
Her vocation also brought her much closer to her second goal, since rock stars have a tendency to gravitate towards models and porn stars. Tera hooked up with Erik Schrody a.k.a. Everlast after appearing in one of his music videos. When that relationship soured she set her sights on Evan Seinfeld of Biohazard, whom she began dating in 2002.
Drawing on his music business experience, Evan took control of Tera's career as well as her heart, and advised her to end her exclusive agreement with Digital Playground, who served as both her management and production company. This led to an enforced hiatus from porn while Tera fought to be released from the deal. When Tera returned to the industry in 2004, she wanted Evan, who was by now her husband, to be the only man in her life. The pair set up their own production company, Teravision, in association with Vivid, the world's largest adult movie house, and Evan began appearing alongside his wife (using the porn name Spyder Jonez) in all their new product.
At the top of her game with a rock star by her side, having conquered the adult movie industry and taken full control of her business (or so she thought), Tera began to reflect on her career and set new goals in life. Closing the chapter on porn, Tera set about writing her memoir.
Sinner Takes All is the result. Written with
Cherry Bomb author and SG contributor
Carrie Borzillo, and published by Penguin imprint Gotham Books, it chronicles Tera's path to porn stardom and the loneliness, love, and lust she experienced along the way. It's a page-turner of a book, which, like every good story, ends with the kind of twist even Tera couldn't predict.
On the eve of the book's release, SG called up Tera to find out more.
Nicole Powers: Through your work you've consistently bucked the submissive Asian stereotype. In your films and in your career you're very much in control and a master of your destiny and sexuality. What kind of feedback have you had from the Asian community?
Tera Patrick: It's funny because I've done interviews for Asian magazines, and they all say, "You did not have that really reserved, strict Asian upbringing." And I'm like, "Yeah, you're right." My mom, who's Thai, came over here and married my father who's American. She wanted to be American, so she didn't really raise my sister and I to be like these subservient little Asian girls. I grew up very American.
NP: In your book you talk how your mom was absent from your life from a very early age.
TP: Exactly, so I didn't have that influence. Even to this day I don't speak Thai. When I go out to Thai restaurants with my mother, or when I go to Asian places Asian people are like, "You're not Asian." I go, "I know, I'm very American."
NP: Growing up, your mother was out of you life and your father was busy working, so you craved attention. And it's this need that would ultimately lead you to porn. Kids have a very basic need for attention, and any attention, even if it's not the most healthy kind, will fill that void.
TP: I wanted the attention from men, because my mother, I'd had a fight with her and she was absent from my life and my dad didn't give me attention. The only attention that I did get was from men, because of the way I was growing up and the way my body was changing when I was blossoming. And I find that's what's happening with young girls now. They're dating older men. Look at the people in the media that they have to look up to, like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. I'm not saying that they're negative women, but they're not the most positive role models. Everything they sing is about sex. They dress very risqué, so girls are led to believe that if they look kind of slutty then they'll get the right attention, and that's not necessarily true. But then no girl wants to be the good girl. It's so weird. [laughs] Why don't girls want to be the good girl? I'm 33 now and I want to be the good girl.
NP: I know, even Miley Cyrus has taken to the pole, so there's no hope for good girls.
TP: [laughs] It's true.
NP: Maybe there's no place in this world for good girls.
TP: That's a good title for a book...For the follow up book. That's a good one.
NP: In your book you're very keen to emphasize that you weren't abused and that you went into porn out of choice. You say that several times in different ways. However your first sexual experience was with a friend's uncle at age 12 and you lost your virginity at 14 while modeling in Japan to a photographer that gave you prescription drugs and alcohol. At the end of the day, that was statutory rape.
TP: Yes...I say that about getting into porn, that I wasn't abused; When I first walked into porn it wasn't like I had somebody forcing me into the business and I had no choice. I went in there with a clear conscious choice but, yeah, my first sexual experiences were not really good. I look back on it now and I just feel like I'm lucky that I got out of it not as hurt as I could have been. Some girls aren't so lucky.
NP: Right, but at 14 you were taking Valium on a daily basis. You must have been taking that on some level to dull the pain.
TP: Oh yes, yes, absolutely. Because every time I thought about it....I knew it was wrong. And I didn't have my dad or my mom to comfort me.
NP: How did that incident affect you long term?
TP: I think that it was very confusing because it was not the most positive thoughts about sex after that happened to me. My relationships after that turned out to be where I only dated dominant men. I only dated men that forced me to have sex with them or forced me to do things that I didn't want to do. Even in my marriage I gravitated towards a man that was completely dominant and alpha male. Now, after my divorce, I'm learning that I'm the one who needs to be in charge of the relationship. I mean it's OK to be with a man who is strong and confident, but I also need to be the one that's in charge of my own body and my own wellbeing.
NP: One of the most interesting chapters in the book is the one you call "The Switch." You talk about how "The Switch" kicked in after that experience at the photo shoot. How you and the photographer just switched back into work mode, acting as if nothing had happened, and continued on with the shoot. You say categorically that that moment "is when it changed forever" and that it sent you "on the path to porn." Despite thinking you could just turn a switch and go on with your life, there's obviously some things that you're still working out to this day.
TP: Yeah, and it's so hard because that switch still exists in me right now. I'm single now, and when I've been dating it's like men expect me to be...like if they know that I'm a porn star or that I was a porn star, they expect me to just revert and be that porn star all the time. And if they don't know I'm a porn star it's even better because they're like, "Oh, she's just an overly sexual girl."
NP: You use the phrase porn star, but the job is being an adult film actress. You were
acting in those movies. With the guys that you date now is there any understanding of that?
TP: Yeah...I always used to go to bed on the first date. I was always like, "OK, I'm going to go to bed on the first date, and I'm going to figure out who they are and be this vivacious porn actress that they want me to be." Now I've got more common sense about me. Now I make them wait. It's not just about my own personal feelings about it's always better to do that, but for me it's about making them wait and making them get to know me, and not judge me on who I was.
NP: You make no secret of the fact you like rough sex. But in the book you talk about how on camera one sex session went too far, and you realized you had to be more specific about what you were and weren't willing to do. That's also something I've learned in life as I've matured, that better sex is about being confident enough to communicate your boundaries and needs.
TP: Well that's my advice for women. Women always say, "What can I do to make my husband do what I want him to do." And I always say, "Just verbalize it. Just tell him what you want him to do." As women it's like we have to give pleasure to the men all the time. We're the ones that men always expect to bow down to them and to do everything for them. But what about our needs? You need to just say "fuck me" or "lick me here" or "touch me here" or "do this to me here." You need to be more assertive and stand up. It's not being a bitch, it's emphasizing and talking about what
you want because your needs are just as important - if not more important.
NP: How do you deal with the guys who don't realize that no means no, and think that they can wheedle their way into getting something you don't want to do if they whine enough?
TP: I just don't do it. I'm telling you, writing my book was really cathartic and it really helped me understand who I was. It helped me really define the type of woman that not only I want to be, but that I am.
It's funny, I'm dating and guys will say, "Oh, I bet you'll just be freaky." And now I'm like, "Well in ten dates you'll find out." And they're like, "Oh God! Do I want to go through
ten dates?" So I can tell right then and there if they're going to last ten dates. If they're going to last ten dates, well then they're worth it. If they're not, then
fuck off.
NP: I guess that's one of the problems with porn, it doesn't just distort men's view of what they expect from you as a performer, it has distorted society's expectations of what we all should be doing in bed. For example, the classic cum shot, with women writhing in ecstasy as a man shoots over her face. That was never about sexual enjoyment for women - although obviously there are women that enjoy it - but it was mainly done as a cinematic device that got around the fact that coming inside a woman didn't look very dramatic on camera. But these days men really seem genuinely surprised when you're not utterly delighted about getting an eyeful of spunk. Porn conventions such as that have really perverted what guys expect from sex in the real life.
TP: Right.
NP: Do you get a sense of that first hand?
TP: I do and I don't in a way. I think that each woman is different. What led me to porn was partly I think the excitement of the nastiness of the sex, because my taste was always a little to the left. So I think the difference with me is, because I've been in porn and done movies and these men have seen me in porn, they almost say, "Oh! I know what she likes so I'm going to do that." But what gets left out is there are things I don't like about porn, and guys will try it on me and I'm like, "Woa! Wait a minute."
But I do think that there's negative aspects to porn and there's positive aspects. There's a lot of porn out there that I just don't agree with. I think that it does degrade women and I think it makes women look like they should like something that, whether it's their personal preference or not, is just not positive. [In] my porn for example, I don't do anything against my will and I try to look good doing it.
NP: What specifically makes you feel uncomfortable?
TP: Well, I don't like women being stomped on or stepped on. I just don't like it when they're talked down to or it looks like they're obviously being abused. I mean, to each his own, I know there's a lot of girls out there that like it really, really rough. I feel like if you're going to have rough sex it should be something done in the comfort of your lair with someone that you trust. That's one of the reasons why I've never done some of the extra rough stuff that I like, I've never done it on camera. Because I think it would probably give men the wrong idea -- or people the wrong idea -- in that sense to where they're like, "Oh, she likes that all the time." That's something that I would only do with someone I trust.
NP: Because the porn industry is so male-orientated it tends to focus on one very distinct area of human sexuality. It's so much about the bump and grind, but the things that turn me on as a woman are so much more esoteric. The way someone turns their head, they way they look at you, the right word or phrase spoken at the right time, the feeling that someone "gets me." That's the stuff that really turns me on, and none of that is conveyed by porn. What in that vein truly turns you on?
TP: Well I like the keys. For me it's all about the kissing and the touching. For me it's about being in lingerie, and then having a man caress my thigh or touch my nipples, or touch the back of my neck, and then slowly run his hands up my hair and pull it back. I'm getting turned on right now.
For me it's about the tease. It's about making me get wet inside and making me feel extra tingly and good before you put yourself inside me, because I have to trust you...If you're going to just throw me down and fuck me, well that's not what I want. I need to be wet first. So it's about the tease. I like the slowness and the sweetness.
One thing that's different about me today, I'm not into the one-night stands. I think that sometimes when you're, I hate to say "younger" because it makes me sound like I'm so old, but if I'm going to open my legs for a guy and take my clothes off for a guy you are damn straight that you're going to be worthy and deserve it. I'm not going to take off my clothes for just anybody, and that's why I love to tease so much. Because when you're with somebody new for the first time, you've built up all this anticipation. That's why I'm waiting ten dates with you, or five dates with you, because I want to build up all that anticipation.
NP: Right, the sexual tension.
TP: Yeah, rather than just giving it all away the first night, which is what I used to do.
NP: And that's what people see on screen.
TP: Right. They see a girl who's easy, who's just going to lay back. It's like a lion chasing a gazelle. If the gazelle just lays there there's no chase. It's like, "Ew! She was easy. Fucked her. Ate her. She was yummy."
NP: One of my favorite writers Neil Strauss, who wrote a dating book called
The Game, calls it "cat string theory." The moment you put the string down the cat will lose interest in it.
TP: Right. It's true, it's true.
NP: So it doesn't do favors for either sex having that easy representation out there.
TP: No. It doesn't. And in porn, you don't see a lot of the tease. Like in mainstream movies, in some of the hot love scenes that you can remember, you see a lot of the kissing and the touching, and the slowness that drives you crazy. Too me that's the best part, and in porn that gets left out -- especially in porn that they're making today. It's just like,
Wham! Bam! NP: And what people see in porn becomes perceived as standard in the real world because that's often people's only experience of what other people do in bed. It's interesting to think about that in the context of how porn has changed over the years. You must have a sense of that having been in the industry for over a decade, how sex in the real world has changed because of the changing trends in porn.
TP: Yeah.
NP: I mean, when you first started anal sex wasn't as obligatory as it is today.
TP: Not just anal, but like double and triple anal and all this crazy stuff that they have now.
NP: Right. You were able to start off in the porn industry doing just girl on girl, and then you moved on to what now would be seen as very straight male/female sex.
TP: Vanilla. [laughs]
NP: But girls getting into porn today almost have to do anal.
TP: Yeah. And it's a numbers game. It's like, "How many girl can we get in and shoot movies of?" I mean some girls shoot twenty movies a week, whereas before you shot one to two movies a week. Now, just to make the money they're shooting twenty movies a week, and I'm like, "
Ow!"
NP: Extrapolating into the real world, I feel like I come from that last generation of women who had a choice about anal sex. For kids today, anal is perceived in a similar way to oral. Anal is something you're pressured into consenting to because the perception is that
everyone else does it.
TP: Right, yeah, it's true. It's true. I mean anal sex to me, I did it on camera with my husband and it was something that we both mutually consented to do together. But I don't think that anal sex should be done on camera -- it shouldn't be done with someone you don't know. There's no trust there. It's such a violating act.
NP: Also, when you're doing it in a porn situation, you have the advantage of knowing about it upfront and being able to prepare for it. But guys often have very unrealistic expectations when it comes to anal because it's so ubiquitous in films. They see it in every porn movie now, and they perceive it as something every woman should be able to perform at the drop of a hat.
TP: Oh absolutely. And I disagree with that. I absolutely disagree with that.
NP: Can you perhaps explain the preparations you undertake to make anal sex a comfortable experience?
TP: Well I don't think it should ever be done by a stranger because to me anal sex is something that you have to have trust with someone [to do]. I mean the anal area - the vaginal area too - but the anal area even more is such a sensitive and delicate area and you can tear somebody and you can hurt somebody really bad.
In our industry we do enemas before to prepare. I usually do my anal scenes in the morning and I don't eat before I do my anal scenes for obvious reasons. I think most girls are pretty much the same way. But to me the biggest issue is that it's a very sensitive area, and you have to get into a comfortable position, you have to use a lot of lube, and you have to go very slow. And in porn they don't show that.
NP: Ultimately you chose to get out of the industry. Why did you choose to stop having sex in front of the camera?
TP: I wanted to move on and pursue other things. I didn't want to be in my thirties and still doing porn. I had set a time limit for myself. I had set a goal, and it was to be out of porn and to be moving on to, I guess mainstream people call it, doing a book, doing a show, starting a clothing line, still running my company. I wanted to do other things. I thought there's a certain amount of time that you dedicate to performing on camera and then you move on.
NP: I understand that the book was part of that process, and that while you were writing it you were able to reconcile with your mother. How did that come about?
TP: Well we didn't speak for about 17 years. I was living in Los Angeles, and my sister called me out of the blue one day and said, "Mom would like to speak with you. She wants to talk with you and start building a relationship with you."
I was so happy. It was like I had been waiting for this phone call for years. So I went to Vegas and met my mother. And we looked identical. We looked exactly alike. It was like looking into a mirror. I gave her a great big hug and I said it's time for us to move on and forgive each other. I'd been through a lot of experiences in life that my mother had, with boyfriends and being married, and all sorts of things. And now, especially as I'm going through my divorce, she's been there for me. She's my number one fan and my number one supporter. We live together and we're like two high school girls. I mean she cooks for me, she cleans, she does my laundry, we take care of each other. We're here for each other.
Forgiveness is more for the other person than I think for yourself, meaning when I forgave my mother for what had happened to me when I was young, I allowed her to forgive herself, and not be hurt anymore over the guilt she had carried over the years for what she had done to me.
NP: Writing the book had a dramatic effect on your relationship with your then husband, Evan too. You began to see the man you'd cast as your savior in a different light.
TP: It's really weird...I wanted the book to end happily. I knew there were problems with our marriage obviously, and the decision to leave him came about quite suddenly...Carrie was asking me all these questions because she was interviewing me for the book, and I was able to look deep inside myself and say, "Wait, there's cracks here. It's not perfect." My husband was shocked that I left him, but I realized I need to grow, and I need to be on another journey, and that journey wasn't with him.
NP: What were the questions Carrie asked that particularly got to you?
TP: Just like, "Where do you see yourself in the future?" And the big one was, "Are you happy? Do you feel saved? Do you feel like you have everything in life? Have you made any sacrifices?"
I was realizing, yeah I'm happy, but I've made a lot of sacrifices, and I want to grow into a different person. I didn't want to be married and living in this house with a husband that was doing porn. I realized that I'd outgrown porn. I didn't want to be a part of it anymore, you know.
NP: After you broke out of your Digital Playground contract you set up Teravision with Evan. So moving forward you still have the company together, which, in a way is more binding than a marriage. That must be really tough to deal with.
TP: It is, and that's one of the things that we're trying to sort out right now. That's what's made my divorce so difficult. I'm working through it. It's hard, but, yeah, one of the things I've realized is the next time I get married -- because I know I'll get married -- is to not own a company with my future husband.
[Now] I have a good team of people around me and I learned to take my business to another level. I've learned to be more of a strong independent woman and I've learned to not rely so much on men and let my emotion completely take over who I am.
NP: What are your goals moving forward?
TP: Just to continue working. I've got my Vegas show coming up.
NP: Any details?
TP: It's a burlesque show. It's basically like Pussycat Dolls meets Cirque du Soleil.
NP: Is there a venue you can announce yet?
TP: No, not yet, 'cause we're still doing the contracts. It's exciting. I've always wanted to be a Vegas showgirl and a dancer, and so I'm really proud of it. We're hoping for a Valentine's Day launch. And I'm writing a couple more books.
NP: What on?
TP: Basically the next one is going to be a survival guide. How to survive divorce, and how to survive being in a break up...And I'm going on a book tour, which is exciting. I can't wait for that.
NP: When people read the book and turn over the last page on the final chapter, what do you hope they'll take away from it?
TP: I hope that people can see here was someone that wasn't dealt the easiest deck of cards and got a royal flush. I mean, I've managed to conquer the industry -- in a industry that was all men -- and I've managed to open my own company. I managed to free myself from some negative experiences in the industry and I've managed to do well for myself. There's a lot of positive in the book. I overcame a lot, and I'm really happy today, and I hope I'm a positive influence on women in this world. And women that are coming into the industry, I hope they'll read this book and avoid some of the pitfalls that I managed to get into.
NP: I'm used to reading about women in business who very much fall into the Sharon Osbourne bitch stereotype, so one of the things I take away from reading this book is how you've managed to be successful as a business woman
and retain your sweetness. I think was one of the reasons you were so successful as a porn star too, because in that very extreme world you always retained your sweetness.
TP: Oh, thank you.
NP: Is that something you consciously tried to convey, or is that just Tera?
TP: No. That's just me. Really. Like I remember, I told myself no more rock stars, and I started dating this rock star a couple of months ago. He was the rebound guy from my marriage, and he said, "You have a sweetness about you that I've never seen in any person in this life before." And he's like, "I just think that's amazing." And then he hurt me so bad.
NP: Ah, the rock star thing. I wanted to get to that. Because when you were a teenager your goal was to be a model and marry a rock star. But that was when you were 14. You've got the model thing out of your system, so get the rock star thing out of your system too. They're just guys that have never grown up.
TP: I know. I know. They're my weakness. They are. When I see them on stage in all their glory...But it sucks because they're not monogamous, and they're babies and I just can't deal with that...They are beautiful though - especially this last one I was with. He would look at me and I would be like, "I'm yours."
Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn, written by Tera Patrick with Carrie Borzillo, is available from Amazon.com and all fine booksellers. Tera Patrick will be appearing live on the main stage at the AVN convention in Las Vegas on Jan 8th and 9th (2-3 PM). She'll also be making appearances in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, San Antonio, among other cities, as part of her book signing tour (Jan 5-22). Check Tera's website and MySpace for more details. 
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