Surprisingly good and well written. She has an incredible story... Recommend.

Rating - 8.3

Having always wanted to learn more about the porn industry and why people choose it, I flew through this book in four days and was very impressed with the level of depth and emotion from Jenna

Tremendous respect on how Jenna overcomes lifes hard knocks, but one wonders if her family are not involved in her downfall more than she reveals: Inside scoop on any industry always a pleasure

Oddly enough, before reading this I respected Jenna Jameson for her no-holds barred attitude that led her to the top of the porn industry. Unfortunately, after reading this, I lost most of that respect. This book is 600 pages of Jenna Jameson, in no apparent order, with random pictures, sometimes captioned, sometimes not, splashed next to stories of violence, self-destruction, and a person who takes a stand for herself in terms of business but is so insecure that half the book is just about her being in bad relationships of which she is aware but somehow unable to get out of for fear of being alone. Beyond that, the book contains diary entries, directions on how to become a porn star (because that's what the majority of the reading population wants) and interviews, along with the pages of pictures (just in case you forgot whose book you were reading), all of which are just thrown in here and there. I found myself yearning for more pages of diary entries if only for the fact that the book would go by faster. I was looking forward to this read, but it did absolutely nothing for me.

Dont let the 600 page length of this book fool you, a lot of it is pictures, photocopy journal entries, and fluent but childish writing style. Still, story wise this is indeed interesting as hell in my opinion, but I'm in to this kind of thing. If you care not for stripper/porn star stories you should obviously not read this, but that's what's right up my alley so I take it for what it is. It was suggested to me that everything she says in this book is a lie but I have no idea, I take it at face value because that's what is presented.

There are parts that are sad, and parts that are hilarious. But this is not in fact a guide on making love like a porn star, though she does give blow job instructions in one chapter.

Lots of pretty pictures!

I have so often thought of gathering my things and wandering until I have found my correct place.

But I am trying as hard as I possibly can to get through this part of my life, and maybe I will get through without permanent damage, jus scars.

They don't realize that the strength they need has to come from within.

I learned an important thing about dating: The person who wants the least amount of commitment in a relationship is the one who holds the reins.

I decided to DNF this instead of torturing myself further. Review to come.

Tough to carry this book open around openly, but was surprisingly a decent read, given the author. Very intimate and graphic in places, but brutally honest and from the heart. Don't judge the author. Judge the book.

First, a tangent:
Believe it or not, it was for Neil Strauss and not Jenna Jameson that I picked up this book. He's great trashy reading, a real talent for Lifestyles Of The Odious Yet Compelling. The Game was one of the funniest books I read last year – hell, ever - it was a totally bizarre story to live through, and Strauss was the right guy to tell that story. Sure, the veracity is suspect since everybody wants to make themselves look good – and Strauss, being a master pickup artist himself, knows all those tricks - but the anecdotes, the characterizations, the eye for human nature, there were so many details that a lesser voice would have missed. It made me go look up everything else he'd done – and it turned out I'd already read Motley's book, Manson's book, hey, there's Jenna's book – handling the life of a porn star, that should be interesting.

The structure features all of the typical Neil Strauss built-in features: top lists, comic panels, diary entries, loads of pictures, the usual fun and games with the narrative structure. We learn about stripper injuries, suitcase pimps, why guys who think porn is a great way to get laid are deeply deluded, and other facets of the business. The beginning jumped right in with Jenna's biker boyfriend-tattoo parlor-Las Vegas strip club lifestyle, and read fast through her first steps through the sex industry, laced through with the behind-the-scenes drug addiction and relationship misery. But things slowed down towards the middle, where her dad and brother were brought in to recount their family history - amusing at first, but then dragged on and on until it felt like one overlong round of Remember When and I just skipped it. Another problem was that Strauss's style would creep in and obscure Jenna's voice with discordant philosophizing and epiphanies that sounded odd – I've seen too many of the same little metaphors/images/time-outs for reflection in Strauss's other books, as if he thought up some encapsulating lines and had the celebrity look at them and the celebrity said “yeah, exactly!”

Not bad, but not scintillating. This one didn't have as much flavor as Strauss's other books.

BTW, the night that Jenna and Marilyn Manson met each other appears in both their books – and they both have very different memories of that evening.
Marilyn Manson: “She had a whole catalog of different 'I'm a whore, I'm a virgin, I'm your mom, I'm your daughter' lines; she had all kinds of fuck-me-doll looks; she pulled out the entire contents of her seduction bag of tricks.”
Jenna: “Every time we were naked, he'd be going for my butt like a rat to cheese.”

Here is one weird thing about this book: It's about six hundred pages long, but about a third of that is pictures.

Here's another thing about this book: during intense passages about things like rape, there will be pictures of porny-ass ol' Jenna with a gallon of lipstick on showing up her butt, or something. Which could totally work in two ways: either as total, 'you are reading this for the porniness' exploitive cash-in, or in a meta, 'here is the reality, looks how different it is from the way it's portrayed' kind of commentary way. But instead I honestly couldn't figure out which it was supposed to be, and ultimately, I kinda feel like it was just to make Jenna's autobiography an Event Tome instead of, y'know, a porn star memoir. Which works- it is huge and cinderblocky.

Another weird thing is how ghost-written it feels. Alex said that Jenna Jameson is hella smart and articulate and all the things we say when we mean 'the assumption that comes with her background is that she's stupid, but the reality is that she's not,' and I totally believe her. But that doesn't always translate to writing, right? I know absolute conversational intelligent geniuses whose e-mails and letters are strings of cliches and stiff phrases. So I've got nothing against Neil Strauss as her, uh, co-author. It's just weird how, like, the prose slightly has character and slightly doesn't. Not to resort to one of the hackneyedest metaphors about writing in the world, but it's like potato soup where the only spice is a little bit of salt. I wish that her voice had come through more, because the sentences themselves read like they could have been written by literally anybody in the world, if they were co-writing a book with a professional paragraph-churner.

Pretentious.

I guess the only other weird thing I want to mention is how, like, if you take out the specifics- the fame, the porn, that kinda stuff- her life is just pretty much everybody else's life. Like, a few fucked up relationships, a little overboard on the substances, the amount of money she has is none and then a lot and then not much and then ultimately enough. Which I'm sure, also, is the point- it's just weird to get to the end of six hundred pages and read that somebody in their, what, late twenties? Is at the same point emotionally that I am in my late twenties. What am I supposed to do with that, if I already knew that sex workers were real people with real lives? I just felt like I didn't take much away from it.

Um, so whatever. It was fine. It's probably not worth thirty bucks though. Is it in paperback? I'd wait for the paperback, if it's not.

Sex work is such a fascinating cultural phenomenon! Which is why I’ll warn you now that this may be a relatively lengthy and tangential rant-slash-book review. I’ll also warn you, in case it wasn’t 100% obvious from the title and topic of How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, this book is quite pornographic in nature and should be purchased with caution by those of more delicate sensibilities.

Sex work is frequently identified as the oldest profession in the world, and society has gone through a whole host of views about those who participate in, create, and consume it. Today, the negative stigma associated with sex work is overwhelming and, I think, detrimental to all involved.

If I could stand on my soap box for a moment (or several)…

In case you didn’t know, sex is a natural, fundamental part of the human experience. But in the United States we’ve adopted this strange and dysfunctional hypersexual-meets-sex-phobic culture which exposes us to constant images of sex (particularly from a harmful patriarchal standpoint which objectifies both men and women) while simultaneously shaming us for our human impulses and desires.

Unfortunately, this plays out in our beliefs about sex-work, in addition to our own sexual identities. Despite the near universal need for sexual stimulation and interaction, pornography and prostitution are consistently demonized and pathologized to an extreme degree. This has led to and exacerbated the emergence of unhealthy and unacceptable trends within the adult entertainment industry (and within society in general) such as coercion, abuse, sex trafficking, shaming, etc.

Without condoning or dismissing these concerning developments, I am of the belief that it doesn’t have to be this way, nor has it always been. Courtesans, for instance, were consenting adult women who provided both sexual and social companionship in exchange for money and other types of compensation (similar to today’s escorts). These were educated, highly respected women who independently chose and enjoyed their line of work.

Today, however, we have engrained within our belief system a number of stereotypes and misunderstandings about sex work including 1) any person who chooses sex work must be fundamentally flawed, broken by former traumas, or coerced into such a situation, 2) sex work is inherently degrading to women, and 3) sex work is destroying the morals and healthy functioning of the world for all time and eternity.

First, while it is true that there are people in sex work that have experienced trauma, there are a bazillion people NOT in sex work that have been exposed to similar trauma. There are also plenty of people who choose sex work voluntarily who have no such history. This stereotype is a sweeping generalization that benefits no one. Further, many of the traumas experienced by men and women while they are working in the industry itself could be prevented by de-criminalization and regulation of sex-work. Maybe if we focused less on prosecuting sex work and more on prosecuting rape and sexual assault we might get somewhere. Food for thought.

Secondly, women, like men, are sexual creatures. (Crazy, right?!?) Despite all the messages we’re sent in our society, women can and should own their sexuality, engage in and enjoy sexual activity as an individual, and, if so desired, choose to participate in or consume on-camera/on-stage adult entertainment. Reveling in one’s sexuality does not equal loss of self-respect. In fact, freeing people (particularly women) to start exploring and reclaiming their sexuality in a healthy and genuine way is a fundamentally feminist concept.

And finally, your church may tell you that XXX is the enemy of morality and health, but that’s really kind of a load of crap if you ask me. And it’s also not the first thing religion has gotten wrong about the human experience! As mentioned above, there are undeniably unhealthy components that should absolutely be eliminated from the industry, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. As a sex-positive therapist and human being, I can tell you that porn can save and enliven marriages in a number of ways, strip clubs can be a whole lot of fun and often fund important endeavors (college, parenting, etc.), and regulated prostitution can prevent rape, decrease rates of STDs, and help folks learn about their own sexuality.

And if you’re concerned about THE CHILDREN WATCHING PORN (*dun dun dun*), how about we work on improving sex-education in schools, eliminating abusive practices in porn (and elsewhere!), shifting away from a sex-negative/patriarchal culture, and empowering kiddos with the knowledge they need to identify their own sexual selves in a safe, healthy way.

I’m by no means saying that sex work, or the consumption of said work, is for everyone, nor am I arguing that the way in which sex work has evolved is healthy or okay. I AM saying that we have the power to de-stigmatize, re-make, and re-define it into a healthy, fun, and empowering form of entertainment. In fact, there are some killer people out there that are already starting to do so!

And, if you still aren’t into it when all is said and done, don’t engage! No one is forcing you to download porn or hang out in a strip club, just like no one is forcing you to take up knitting or drink alcohol. Chillax!

Okay. Now that that’s out of the way… The book.

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star is Jenna Jameson’s autobiography. If you’re not familiar, she’s arguably the most famous porn star of all time and has spent most of her life establishing herself in the field of adult entertainment. Since the 1990′s, she has climbed the ladder from stripper to porn star to director/producer and owner of her own adult entertainment company. All the while setting her own boundaries, maintaining and continually building a sense of self, and bringing a feminist, sex-positive attitude to the world.

Has she had hard times? Yes. Has she made mistakes? Absolutely. Lots of them, by her own admission. But who hasn’t? It’s pretty damn hard to argue that she’s not a successful, empowered lady in the grand scheme of things. Especially considering the obstacles she’s overcome to get where she is today.

With the help of Neil Strauss (also ghost writer for that super awesome Motley Crue book I just read), Jenna shares her life story; childhood, family relationships, romance, drugs, porn… All is exposed– literally and figuratively!

Okay, I’m done now. Go read a book. :)

Quite possibly the least sexy book ever written, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale by Jenna Jameson and Neil Strauss gives an unflinching look at woman born without roots, a woman who made it to the top of a very, very dark world.

I picked this book up because I wanted to analyze Neil Strauss and his work, and in particular how he makes ghostwriting / non-fiction / biography so darn fun. I am still in the middle of figuring that out, but I'll say this one is compelling, but not fun. There is so much brutal truth on every page that by the time you get to the sex scenes, you've lost whatever appetite for such things you may have had in the first place.

Putting a positive spin on things - this tale makes me want to be a better person to others, and makes me want to think twice before judging another person. Jenna Jameson ostensibly chose a life in pornography, but she didn't really choose it. She had absolutely no guidance growing up, and when life presented her with a set of bad decisions, she had absolutely no one to prod her in the right direction.

Take-home lesson? Be kind to others, and when you see someone who has a lifestyle you might not approve of - especially if it is a self-defeating but otherwise-victimless lifestyle like Jameson's - think twice before thumbing your nose at them.

As far as Neil Strauss - yeah I still can't figure out why he's so good, but he is, and I look forward to exploring this question further.

I didn't really know what to expect with this but I'd heard some good things about it and wanted to try it. I'm not a huge Jenna fan but I do like the woman and find her very attractive and interesting. This reads like a memoir which is what I was hoping for so I'm happy. I was wondering at first how she had so much to write about because it's not a thin book by any means, almost 600 pages with some pictures included. She did it though, she kept me wanting to know more the entire time. She told about her childhood, her family and friends, her career, everything with enough detail for it to be interesting and not so much that it gets boring. I just found out that this isn't her only book and I do plan on looking at what else she has written.