Tera Patrick - Sinner Takes All

I think that porn stars and stand-up comedians have a lot in common. We’re both looking for a physical reaction from our audience—bodies flooding with endorphins and people feeling good in the dark. And laughter, like orgasms, can be faked, but it’s always better if it isn’t. Laughter can feel like short, abbreviated climaxes—orgasms in miniature—and porn, like a good laugh, can make you wet your pants. At least, that is the hope.

Tera Patrick and I have even more in common than the porn/comedy thing. We are both women who decided to go forward and forge our own path, leaving behind a culture that urged women to be silent and subservient. Tera’s story and mine are different in the details, but I love hearing about her journey because essentially we both came from the same place—invisibility.

I remember when I was six years old and I came to the bitter understanding that I was not white. Even though I was too young to have seen The Brady Bunch in its heyday, I never missed the reruns that played on a seemingly continuous loop on TV after school. I was obsessed with Cindy Brady’s blond hair, which glistened like gold ropes on either side of her head. I begged my mother to braid my hair in the same style, but no matter what she did, it never looked the same. I asked my mother why my straight black hair didn’t look like spun gold on the shoulders of an angel. She said simply, “Because you don’t have blond hair. Because we are not white.” This realization was shattering. To know that I didn’t look like the people on TV made me think that I would never be on TV. Never seeing anyone like myself out there made me feel like I didn’t exist.

In this book you’ll learn that when Tera was a little Asian girl, she looked up to a blond goddess of her own: Marilyn Monroe. But what Tera realized even then was that it wasn’t Marilyn’s blond hair that mattered. It was her power, and the fact that the whole world couldn’t stop looking.

When I got older and started doing stand-up comedy, comics and other people in the business warned me about being too sexual: “Don’t be sexy. Be cute.” I never understood that. People always thought I was sexy, and I talked a lot about sex onstage, so why was it wrong to have people want to have sex with me? I am glad for it every time it happens. I came to understand that people viewed women’s sexuality, especially an empowered woman’s sexuality, as a threat. I believe this is what makes Tera Patrick’s contribution to society tremendously important. Tera Patrick—as an Asian-American porn star—has shattered what people expected and demanded from Asian-American women. Because of her, we are seen in our entirety. We are seen as whole. Not only our beautiful faces and bodies but the forbidden things that we were not allowed to show, our sexuality and our desire.

Tera, as a businesswoman, also defies the stereotype of the porn star as victim. She owns and runs a global empire that goes way beyond her work as a porn star. She manages so many careers, it’s hard to keep up. Porn performer, actress, lingerie designer, talk-show host, producer, director, CEO, etc. She’s proof that yes—you can have it all, and then some. Tera Patrick is a true icon of our time, a fantastic example of the power of femininity, sexuality, and intelligence.

I love that she has decided to tell her story in this book, and so honored to be a small part of it. It’s a story that needs to be told because I think that the world would be a better place if we could all grow up to be like Tera Patrick.

I woke up in the psych ward at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan strapped to my bed, confused, disoriented, scared, and thinking, “How did I get here? What have I done?” What went down in the previous hours started coming back to me piecemeal, but to this day the night remains one big, blurred, fucked-up nightmare. My brain filled in the missing parts of the night with hallucinations; I have visions of being bundled into a straightjacket and taken away in an ambulance. But according to people who were there, it didn’t happen that way. That was all in my warped mind. What actually happened might be even worse. The man who loved me and who I loved the most had to duct tape my hands behind my back to stop me from further hurting myself and him. He had to have me committed to a mental ward of a hospital to save my life.

As I scratched and clawed my way through Evan’s Brooklyn loft just hours earlier, the only thought in my mind was to end this. I wanted to end my misery and I wanted to end my life. I couldn’t handle any of it anymore. But Evan stayed strong because he knew I was worth saving. Evan took my punches, dodged the heavy objects I hurled at him, suffered through my relentless scratching, and he did the one thing he knew to do: stop the madness and get me help.

I don’t remember the ride in his Suburban over to the hospital. I don’t remember Dr. Lugo talking Evan through what to do. I don’t remember entering the hospital or being checked into the psychiatric ward. I don’t remember being strapped to a gurney and the cops questioning Evan about the night’s events. I just remember waking up the next morning in lockdown in the place where they keep the most dangerous mental patients. Was I mental? I didn’t believe it. My emotions had taken over my thought process, and I was reduced to questioning everything around me and not being able to make sense of any of it.

The psych ward frightened me. I was just a porn chick going through a rough time trying to get out of my contract. Why was I in a room behind locked doors that doctors had to be buzzed in and out of? Why was I in a room with four beds with a variety of women whom I did not relate to, who were not like me? The girl in the bed next to me was a black girl younger than me who had tried to kill herself. She was obsessed with shrimp parmesan and her sister would bring it to her daily, and every day she’d offer me some and each time I’d say no. To this day, the sight of shrimp parmesan sends chills up my spine. I wasn’t there to make friends. At first, I wanted nothing to do with the place or anyone in it.

In the bed next to her was a Middle Eastern girl with black curly hair and a flashlight she’d shine around the room after the lights went out. She didn’t talk much, but she did mumble her prayers a lot. I would pretend not to hear her. She scared me. I overheard the nurses say that she had delusions about becoming a suicide bomber and that’s why she was in the ward. The bed at the end was host to a revolving array of patients whom I don’t really remember.

The reality of the night before started coming back to me, and bits and pieces were told to me. I realized that I’d had a major meltdown. A psychotic break. A suicide attempt. I was inconsolable. I was out of my mind. There was no talking me off the ledge this time, as Evan had done before.

I was in St. Vincent’s psych ward for fourteen long days, and it was not what you could call time well spent. I just lay there in my hospital bed like a statue. I wanted nothing but out. But I did everything you shouldn’t do if you want to be released from the psych ward. In full denial for the first few days, I acted out in every way imaginable. I figured if they think I’m crazy, I might as well play the part. I talked to myself out loud. I refused medication. I wouldn’t eat anything. I picked fights with other patients. I took it all out on Evan, calling him daily and cursing him out for the entire ward to hear.