Inside Seka - The Platinum Princess of Porn (24 page)

When people look for bad news about adult cinema, they try to make a case that the girls are all doing it against their will. I can’t speak on behalf of everyone; I can only speak for me. Some people thought Ken was forcing me to do things, since he was always on the set. Believe me, Ken never made me do anything, nor could he if he even wanted to. The only thing that came close to that with us was the swinging, and even then, it wasn’t like he was forcing me at gunpoint. That was more a case of the person you’re in a relationship with nudging you and nudging you about something until you said, “Fine, now get off my case!” If I’d have said no and stood my ground, there would have been no repercussions.

But other girls; who knows? For the ones I knew, it was never the situation, or else they never told me it was. Still, you have all these girls who do tell-alls later in life and they talk about people making them get into the business when they didn’t want to. Whatever makes you sleep at night.

The other thing are the girls who later claim they got into the business because Uncle Normy raped them when they were eight and it screwed them up in the head. If those tales are true, my heart goes out to them; it truly does. But again, I heard little to none of that first-hand when we were doing films together, so perhaps I’m a little cynical. I’m sure it definitely happened to some women because things like that happen to women all the time, sad to say, and we all cope with it in different ways. Again, I’m sympathetic. But there are definitely girls who leave the business and have to tell some tale in order to live with themselves and their neighbors. Whatever gets you through the night.

Which leads to the mob. I’m told a lot of the companies involved in our industry have or had mob ties. What did I know about it? Nothing at all. I’m not saying that because I’m watching my back. I sincerely never met someone I knew to be in organized crime
when
I was in the business. I’d read later that this one or that one was alleged to be mobbed up, but it was always years and years later, and at that point it meant nothing at all to me. My end of the porn business never seemed that “organized” to begin with. It was a job. I did my thing, I got paid, I went home.

Did anyone ever threaten me if I refused to do something? Hell no! I turned down films when I wanted to, for whatever reason I chose, and no one tried to muscle me. No one got scary with me on the set if I didn’t want to do something. A few times, some director would blow his stack and yell, “You’ll never work in this town again,” but everyone in Hollywood has heard that at one time or another, and just like Hollywood — which has almost as many mob rumors — it is rarely if ever carried out mob-style, if at all.

We weren’t paid much, certainly considering how much money we were bringing in. But again, that never came off as a mobster thing — more like a cheap, greedy bastard thing. I’d bellow for more money and either I got it or I didn’t. I never woke up to any horse heads in my bed. The business knew better than to treat me that way because I made them money, and in the end that’s the only thing that matters.

All in all, the adult film business is a lot like mainstream Hollywood. Some of what you see is real and some less than real. It does what it sets out to do: make people hot. If it fails at that, it will be a hell of a lot less popular and lucrative.

One of my early glamour shots, wrapped in fur.

With Arsenio Hall and Alan Thicke on
Thicke of the Night,
1984.

Interviewing me gets a young Oprah Winfrey in trouble.

On Al Goldstein’s
Midnight Blue
in the 1980’s.

With Redd Foxx: ‘I’m Cummin’, Elizabeth!’

Nice shot by photographer Cass Paley.

26.
Goodbye Ken

Ken and I were arguing all the time. It was particularly disturbing when I found a picture of a woman with a baby who coincidentally shared Ken’s last name.

Things started to click in my head. When we were in Maryland one time, he disappeared for hours, claiming he had to pick up mail. He would also make trips there every month.

Ken never admitted to being married and I didn’t put this all together at first because things were so hectic in our lives. But I probably suspected deep down and didn’t want to think about it. Maybe he was divorced. Maybe he was legally separated. What did I know? But the idea of his leading a clandestine life grated on me, especially if I was helping pay for it.

I also found a ton of pictures of him on 35mm slides having sex with a variety of women. It couldn’t be any more obvious he was fooling around on me. But considering my line of work and the fact we both swung, the lines of what was acceptable and not had become blurred for me. The difference was, I never “dated” without him. When I did films, he was on the set and I was a professional adult actress getting paid. He knew all the actors I was with. When we swung, we were both there together. There were certain moral and ethical lines I did not cross. Not so with him. What I did know for sure, though, was just how unhappy I had become with this man.

I also wanted to stop going to swing parties. It wasn’t really something I enjoyed. Ken wasn’t using it for the purpose for which it was intended — to meet new people and get to know them first before fooling around. He just wanted to get a free piece of ass and it was getting to the point where it was disgusting me. I looked the other way while Ken got his jollies, relieved because it got him off and I wouldn’t have to do him later. I may have been the only person to ever go to swing clubs for the purpose of avoiding sex. But now even that got tired.

We were even at a hotel one night when he said he was going to get ice and disappeared for a while. I caught him coming out of another room and said, “What are you doing in there?”

“The door was open so I wanted to peek in and see if everyone was okay.”

“Yeah, sure.” I didn’t really care. And yet, on at least some level, I did.

Ken also got off on peeking in windows. He was a pervert. But as fed up as I was with him, we were living in California and I didn’t really know anybody I could turn to or trust for help. Breaking up with a guy is often ugly for a woman. Men sometimes get violent or destructive. I had no real support system in place.

As my relationship was collapsing, my career was skyrocketing. I was given the moniker “The Marilyn Monroe of Porn,” and since she was one of my idols I found it very flattering. It still says that on the cover of
Inside Seka.
High Society
magazine wanted me to do a photo shoot in a tribute to Marilyn, so I asked for a particularly good make-up artist who they agreed to fly in: Fred. The shoot was in New Jersey. Ken came along, too, but didn’t want to spring for another room, so Fred stayed with us. They paid me a decent amount of money under the condition that Ken was not allowed to be on the set during the shoot.

It was tense at best between us. One of the reasons for his being banned was I heard he was hitting on other girls. Besides, he was shooting pictures at the same time the pros were, which was throwing off all the lighting. It would take them twice as long to shoot because he was in the way. Unlike when I first began, I found I was much more relaxed without him there and the shoot went off without a hitch. But when the work was over we went back to the room and all hell broke loose.

Ken was really pissed off. I had just spent the day with this guy he didn’t know — Fred. He insinuated Fred and I had been fooling around.

“Are you that dumb you don’t know he’s gay?” Meanwhile, poor Fred was standing there uncomfortably through the entire screaming match.

Ken knew he was slowly but surely losing control of me and was freaking out. That was the first time I told him he couldn’t come on the set, and I was also starting to make my own friends. But he just kept screaming and yelling. I got fed up and told him I was leaving and he could do whatever he wanted. I started to get my clothes together. Ken and I always drove everywhere because we traveled with our dogs. That was another big joke throughout the business, because we never went anywhere without our three dogs.