Club 90—and a whole movement—was born at an adult actress’ baby shower.
Gloria came to a realization, which she later recalled in an interview for the book. “Women in this business have problems that are truly unique unto this occupation,” she thought.
While new age music played in the background, the women sipped Annie’s homemade miso soup and gabbed about their cats. Jane rocked her new baby on her lap. An outsider could’ve mistaken the scene for a bridge club. That is, until they got down to business, which involved sharing stories about their time in the industry and warning each other about dangerous people. “I didn’t get paid from this guy—what should I do?” one woman asked. Others proffered advice.
“I was really studying Tantra and different sex techniques from ancient cultures,” Annie said. “And I got to where I could have huge full-body energy orgasms, and I was really into yoga and sex for hours without intercourse. And I got real spiritual. That was my way of coping with AIDS. I had to adjust the kind of sex I was having.”
On January 26, 1984, less than a year after founding Club 90, the members took the stage as part of “The Second Coming,” a month-long program at Franklin Furnace, the avant-garde art world hotbed. It was organized by the Carnival Knowledge group, which was created by feminists in response to the Christian right Moral Majority movement. Other nights featured an erotic puppet show inspired by Anais Nin’s writing, a mud wrestling event and a “street hassling” dance performance.
Later they talked shop. Gloria and Candida stared raptly at porn star Kelly Nichols, who was also starring in the show. “I went on set and a producer told me because I was having sex with a girl, I wasn’t gonna get paid that day for a sex scene,” Kelly said. Candida and Gloria sighed knowingly. “And I made the choice. Sometimes I feel very bitter and I feel like I gave up a lot of my dreams to do porn,” she continued. “And I feel like just running away and never having anything to do with our film industry ever again. … But at times, I’m able to be more objective and I see myself as a revolutionary of sorts, maybe one day making women’s films to replace the tired old men’s films that still exploit women and promote archaic sexuality.
The response to the show was overwhelming. Soon they had an agent at International Creative Management and two top producers interested in expanding the show and taking it off Broadway. At times, Candida glimpsed Jane playing with Christopher and had deep pangs of sadness. “I look at Jane and Christopher and I know she’d fight to her dieing [sic] day to keeping him safe and at her side,” she wrote in her diary. “How come my mother was able to just never look for me again?”Their husbands and partners all briefly visited, but Candida was happy when they left. “It’s nice not to have the men around. They were a terrible disruption,” she wrote on June 18 at 2 a.m.
Their script took that shared knowledge of what was wrong with the industry and imagined a brighter future: one in which female empowerment—and female orgasms—were front and center. In reality, Veronica had already prepared her testimony: a philosophical treatise on the dangers of censorship. She showed it to an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who was also working on the case. “Forget all this philosophy,” Veronica recalled him saying. What they want to hear from you is what your experiences have been.” So she rewrote the testimony.
After discussing her various roles in the industry, Veronica described the first porn movie she appeared in,. “At first, I was not going to perform sex in the film. I would just co-host the film with Ms. Annie Sprinkle. But one day I just decided to jump into one of the sex scenes. It was a tremendously exciting experience… There is a feeling of camaraderie and pride.”
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