Performing Sweatily ~ One of the Avant Garde

In yesterday's post I remarked that a modern movie and TV drama requirement (well, it appears to be almost a requirement - in order to get "bums on seats") is for characters to get into bed naked and perform sweatily for the camera. That reminded me of an archived post from 2009, when I wrote about a star who was one of the avant garde promoting these kinds of scenes (as well as scenes at several levels more questionable!) Here it is, followed by comments received in 2009 and 2012.

Linda Lovelace's claim to fame came from her performance in the 1970s pornographic movie "Deep Throat", a few other porn movies and her three autobiographical books.

Linda, real surname Boreman, was born on 10 January 1949 in Bronxdale, NY, at (according to Astrotheme) 6.23 am. Her father was a policeman, her mother reputedly strict, the family Roman Catholic. Linda attended Roman Catholic schools, and earned the nickname "Miss Holy Holy" - so apparently not a sexpot from an early age! However she was pregnant by age 20. Her mother had the child adopted much to Linda's dismay. She later married a violent a controlling husband who, it seems, led her to make her film debut. Wikipedia states that:

"Boreman was soon performing as Linda Lovelace in hardcore short movies. She starred in a 1971 bestiality film (titled Dogarama), and later denied appearing in the film until several of the original 8 mm "loops" proved otherwise.
In 1972, Boreman starred in Deep Throat, the most financially successful pornographic movie ever made."

She divorced her first husband, married again, had two children, and became a prominent member of the anti-porn movement. In 2002 she died in an accident, after losing control of her car.

"As the first woman to become famous purely for having sex on film, Linda Lovelace was at once a sexual fantasy for millions of men and a social pariah to millions of burgeoning feminists—until she joined their ranks with the publication of her third autobiography, Ordeal, in which she claimed she had been beaten and coerced into a life of pornography and prostitution." (Link)

Sun and Jupiter in Capricorn = sexpot? Unlikely - there's more to it!






What I'm looking for in her chart is the trigger for her pornography success, which was quite probably unsought for by her. I doubt it was her chosen profession, but she must have displayed some natural ability to achieve the success she did.

Sun and Jupiter in Capricorn lay in first house, with Mars and Mercury conjoined in Aquarius. While Capricorn isn't overtly sexy, it has a nose for business, and after her movie success Linda showed her business acumen by making sure she capitalized on her experiences by pedaling three biographies, two pro-porn, and one ("Ordeal") anti-porn.




Mercury and Mars in unconventional Aquarius loosened her strait-laced Catholic background, but cool Aquarius isn't famous for eroticism. There has to be more. Moon in Taurus - ruled by Venus - getting warmer. Venus in Sagittarius at 26 degrees, close to the Galactic Center, with Uranus in opposition to Venus from Gemini. Venus isn't usually thought to relate to pornography, it connects to art and beauty, but with unconventional Uranus opposing, I guess what passes for art and beauty here could be radically different!

Saturn in Virgo is quincunx (irritable aspect) Mars and Mercury in Aquarius - putting something of a damper on her unconventional, though reportedly forced, lifestyle, so much so that once freed from her controlling husband she did a complete about-turn as regards pornography. This reflects Saturn in Virgo coming into his own!

Uranus at 27.40 Gemini is is conjunct two Fixed Stars with unfortunate reputations:

Polaris *
The Pole Star Sickness, trouble, loss, affliction, spiritual powers 28° Gemini 34 Unfortunate Saturn/ Venus
Betelgeuse *
Orion's Right Shoulder Calamities, danger, violence 28° Gemini 45 Unfortunate Mars/ Mercury. (Link)

Millions of people were been born during the time Uranus conjoined these two stars, but not all would have the opposition to Venus and the Galactic Center which appears in Linda's chart. Her life, as recounted, contained violence, trouble and affliction, and, as we know, her relatively short life ended with a calamity.

Comments from 2009 and one from 2012

Wisewebwoman said...I've always felt compassion for such porn stars as Linda as they are virtually always coerced by pimps (who could be husbands or dealers) into such degrading performances either by their own co-dependency or some addiction. There is a distinct line between porn and erotica and none of Linda's performances came close to erotic IMHO.
Years ago I participated in a study for the film "Not a love story" which exploded the myths of the porn film industry and during the process we had to watch many of these films. It took me a long time to let go of the images, I was so sickened and appalled and could not complete the study. I was so glad when Linda set the record straight on her career. Coercion, abuse, rape and degradation.
Twilight said... WWW ~ I can understand how you felt in not completing your study - I had to abandon a couple of sites with sickening detail, (probably falsified for purposes of titillation), about Linda, when researching for this post.
Agreed that erotica and porn are two sides of one coin. Oddly erotica is often more potent the less explicit it is, porn relies on excess and excess of excess, until, for most mortals, it sickens.
In general I think anything two consenting humans decide to do, or one human alone for that matter, is fine - whatever floats their boats. I draw a big black line when it comes to force,

R Phoenix said...I used to know a guy that roomed w/Linda in Paris for a while. A lot of the lurid details surrounding her relationship with Chuck Traynor are real.
Did you run across her exploits w/Sammy Davis Jr. by any chance?
Twilight said... I recall reading something about Sammy Davis Jnr and LL, yes, but I think I was probably sickened and ready to pull down the shutters, at that point and didn't take much note of it. What I cannot understand is how she managed to stay with her 1st husband so long....I'd have been on the next train out of Dodge in short order! I wouldn't care about money or a place to live - heck - you can always get by, she had no kids to worry about. What was she doing putting up with it for so long, I ask myself. It's hard to walk a mile in anybody else's shoes though. I don't want to judge. I'd say she was quite a determined lady though, not a shrinking violet or timid woman who would be inclined to take orders. It's quite strange.

Wink Lady said... Very interesting post. I actually remember knowing many girls who admired Linda Lovelace for her "courage" and "free will." By the time Lovelace wrote her book, many of those girls had matured and left those thoughts behind. It's too bad she didn't have the "courage" and "free will" to come out and expressly admit how her pornography career began while she was still relevant in popular culture.
Twilight: Hello! Thanks for commenting, and you're so right!

anthonynorth said...It seems to be often the case that, the stricter the upbringing, the more liberal the values that come from the rebellion.
Twilight: Yes, that's something I almost wrote myself in the post.It has become almost a cliche that Roman Catholic schoolgirls were (are?) the wildest of all. :-) It's as though the tighter they are held in check, the farther the trajectory when they are freed!

Dunyazade said...You know, when I saw the chart, I thought:Ah, that explains it! Scorpio (sex) South Node ruled by Pluto (sex) in the 8th (and some more sex); plus North Node in Taurus (sex), ruled by 12th house Venus. I also noticed that voluptuos (sp) Taurus Moon in the 5th...Anyway, I'm still learning.
Twilight said...Yes, there's the Taurus/Scorpio element there alright. She had to have a natural ability, or inclination to do what she did, otherwise she just could not have done it at all, let alone done it with the success she experienced. It's her complete turn-around which I find so interesting. :-)

Anonymous said...(in 2012)
I'm a fan of astrological analysis..
I'd like to thank the original author for his summary of Linda's early life, though.
Her catholic background (where sex is ritually forbidden), strict parents (a policeman is known for discipline) must be the root of her explosive sexuality.
Sexual repression leads to explosive sexual reactions.
Her claims were serious after she left the porn industry, but from memory were discounted in court due to the films themselves. No physical cohersion is evident.
She appears to suffer from nymphomania, which despite popular myth, is a frightening combination of cloying emotional need and the use of sex as a manipulative act.
Regards, NB.
Twilight said...
Anonymous/NB: Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I agree with all the points you've made. Sexual repression must be at root of a lot of later problems, some similar to LL's and some quite different.

There's a post mentioning the movie about Linda Lovelace too.

Lovelace

The reason I chose to rent a DVD of the 2013 movie Lovelace was curiosity - and because a 2009 post I wrote about Linda Lovelace and her natal chart continues to gather many hits daily. Total hits, according to Blogger stats today = 70,202. A continued surge of interest has no doubt been aided by the movie and DVD, but even before the film was released the post had continued to receive a much higher than average number of hits. Porn upstages astrology and politics - that's for sure!

Link to the post: LINDA LOVELACE ~ A Star is Porn
Comments there are worth a look too.

The real Linda Lovelace

The film Lovelace wasn't bad, but it was lacking in...I dunno...depth. I didn't learn anything from it, didn't acquire any insight into what made Linda tick. Amanda Seyfried was too pretty-pretty for the starring part, but she turned in a creditable performance. The film was clearly sympathetic to her plight, quite rightly so too. There could could have been more focus on what came after Linda's pornography days though. This part of the story was rushed through at a far faster pace than all the audience-titillating scenes. Perhaps the producers were trying to limit the film to a 90-minute run-time; an extra 20 or 30 minutes wouldn't have gone amiss, and could have resulted in a much classier movie. As it is, the film seemed like just another excuse to offer titillation to the masses.

IMMODEST MONDAY ~ 3 Porn Stars Born 16 July

As I glanced down Wiki's list of births for 16 July, I spotted three female porn stars, two of them even born in the same year, same country! What was it in the astro-atmosphere on 16 July that might reflect this?

Any additional thoughts from passing readers will be gratefully received - I suspect there could be something useful I haven't spotted.

The three women:
Jesse Jane ~ 16 July 1980, Fort Worth, Texas.
Justine Joli ~ 16 July 1980, St. Louis Missouri.
Tina Tyler ~ 16 July 1965, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.

I can only trust that these dates from Wikipedia are accurate, Astrodatabank hasn't dipped its toes into the 16 July porn star crop's data as yet.

The two 1980 births stood out, so I searched for other 16 July 1980 births and found no other porn stars, but several male sporting types: Australian golfer, Canadian cricketer, Jaspanese skeleton racer (whatever that is), female weightlifter, Turkish, Kazakhstani and Australian footballers - oh, and on that date a derecho (word I learned very recently due to one of these having occurred this month) in Michigan caused a lot of damage.

From Wikipedia's biographical information on this trio of porn stars it would seem that, apart from their gravitation to become porn stars, their earliest backgrounds have little in common, but later on in life the two born 1980 have described themselves as bisexual.

Jesse Jane: military "brat", cheerleader. In 2000, she gave birth to a boy. Has
described herself as bisexual. In 2004, she stated on the Howard Stern Show that she had a hysterectomy due to now dormant cervical cancer. Married to fellow porn star Rick Patrick 2007-2012.




Justine Joli: In her young days summers were spent between a farm in Hannibal, Missouri and Crested Butte, Colorado. She did ballet from age 3 to age 15.
She revealed on the Howard Stern Show and the Fox News program, Geraldo at Large, that she was molested from age 3 to 10 by three men, one of whom was her grandmother's ex-husband. Two of the three men were prosecuted and incarcerated. Justine has been in therapy since the age of 13. In her late teens, she moved to the Los Angeles area with her mother............................Joli describes herself as bisexual (being "60/40" in her preference toward men and women, respectively).
She is a self described geek with a love of anime, science fiction, Macs and cartoons. She is also into nude sports, naked bungee jumping and naked whitewater rafting. She was romantically involved with porn director D. Cypher for several years.

Looking at the natal charts of Jesse Jane and Justine Joli, without knowledge of their birth times can tell us only some basics.







Apart from zodiac sign Scorpio, 8th house, and Pluto, Black Moon Lilith is what springs to mind when seeking indication of anything related to sex and eroticism in a chart. Black Moon Lilith is a sensitive point in the natal chart, the point of the Moon's apogee (greatest distance from Earth). Two earlier posts on Black Moon Lilith are here and here.

In one of those posts I wrote: "Astrologers who choose to use BML seem to consider its significance to be somewhat negative, based purely on the mythical name it bears. "Lilith": a storm demon, prostitute goddess.... name anything female and negative, and Lilith is it! I'm sticking to my theory that Black Moon Lilith is, if anything at all, another sensitive point in the chart."

I cranked up my astro software to again show Black Moon Lilith's position in these charts. The BML glyph is a thick crescent atop a cross (obtusely, and because I've forgotten how to adjust colours, it came up in red.) I think my software shows the "true" rather than the "mean" position of BML, by the way.

If considering BML as a sensitive point, then any planet conjoining it could take on additional flavours and emphasis - as when a planet falls on one of the angles of a natal chart, or a Moon's node.

In Jesse's and Justine's charts BML falls close to Pluto (planet of passion, darkness, eroticism). Unfortunately, without times of birth we can't say exactly where the conjunction lies, house-wise, angle-wise.

At first glance, without BML, and with times of birth unknown, the charts don't offer much to account for the fact that two women born the same day, same year, same country would channel their energies into what is, after all, a fairly unusual occupation. The Moon's exact degree will not be exactly as shown, but would be in Virgo between 9 and 21 degrees.

Mars is conjunct Fixed Star Zaniah. Eric Morse in The Living Stars says about (Zaniah) a Mercury-Venus-type star:

"The name must bring a smile to astrologers who often associate Mercury with money and Venus with love, and Ptolemy having put the money first for Zaniyah means "Adulteress" or "Harlot". We have seen how Virgo has had such a reputation in past times, having been Lilith and Ashtoreth as much as more honored ladies like Mary. A little amusement is permitted in reading older books in which the word is either not translated at all, or the authors digress into a learned discussion on whether or not this star belongs to a group once known as the "Kennels", along with the title "little mosque" [for Zavijava], Victorian avoidance of the unmentionable does have its comic side!"

Not sure what to make of that!

Born in 1965, 15 years earlier than Jesse and Justine, Tina's chart is quite different, planets more widely spread across the chart - more versatile, wider interests than porn?

Tina Tyler created her stage name by combining the first name of actress Tina Louise and the last name of Aerosmith's lead singer Steven Tyler (LOL!) She grew up with her mother's family in Germany for the first three years of her life. She has said she was "painfully shy" and a bookworm in her childhood. She worked as a shoe salesperson and a receptionist at a modelling agency before becoming a stripper at age 19. She graduated to working as a feature dancer for eight years before entering the adult film industry.

She was married to fellow porn star Tony Tedeschi from 1993 to 1994 another marriage 1984 to 1985 and a third in 1999 . Tyler was diagnosed with skin and breast cancer in the late 2000s. In 2009, after a brief return to the porn industry, Tyler returned to her native Canada to undergo treatments for the cancer, and has said that the prognosis is excellent.




In her case my eye went straight to Saturn opposing the conjunction of Uranus/Pluto, with Neptune in Scorpio linked to Saturn and Sun via trine aspects and Neptune and Sun linked to Uranus/Pluto by sextile. The Grand Trine in Water signs, includes Neptune (illusion) in sexy Scorpio hooked up to Pluto/Uranus (sexy/experimentation) kind of says it all.



NOTE ~~~ Among my archives there's a post on another porn star and her astrology: Linda Lovelace. That post tends to receive "gluts" of hits from time to time, for some unfathomable reason.
Here's a link for anyone interested:
Linda Lovelace - A Star is Porn (groan!)