Did Jenna Jameson Create Our Pornified Culture?

Summary

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Infamous Podcast: "Did Jenna Jameson Create Our Pornified Culture?"

Released: October 30, 2025
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis & Natalie Robehmed
Guest: Molly Lambert (writer and podcaster, creator of "Jenna World")

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Episode Overview

This episode of Infamous takes a deep dive into the cultural significance of Jenna Jameson, arguably the most famous porn star ever, asking: To what extent did she "pornify" American mainstream culture? Reporters Vanessa Grigoriadis and Natalie Robehmed are joined by writer Molly Lambert to discuss Jenna's transformation into a brand, her role in the rise and mainstreaming of sex work, her real-life story, and her current relevance (or lack thereof) in today's internet age. The episode explores broader questions about exploitation, empowerment, and what the porn business reveals about the American psyche.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jenna Jameson’s Cultural Ubiquity (01:19–03:25)

• Introduction to Jenna Jameson: Her look and persona were iconic in the late '90s and early 2000s—“The porn star that your parents know.”
  • Quote: “You probably remember what she looks like… just two orbs completely isolated from each other in the middle of her chest. But she was also a businesswoman.” (Natalie, 01:31)
• Mainstreaming Porn: Jenna played a pivotal role in the mainstream acceptance of porn, beginning a cultural shift that blurred the lines between adult entertainment and pop culture.
• The Current Landscape: The hosts reflect on today's “pornified culture,” where influencer culture and sexualized aesthetics pervade mainstream social media.
  • Quote: “It’s a more pornified culture than it ever was. There’s more focus on being sexy and attractive for better or worse.” (Vanessa, 01:56)

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2. Inside the San Fernando Valley: The Heart of Porn (03:25–06:36)

• Molly’s Background: Growing up in the Valley, she was aware of the porn industry’s everyday presence.
  • Quote: “You’d see porn stars sometimes out in the Valley… there was a famous karaoke night with porn stars.” (Molly, 04:50)
• Why Porn Flourished There: Post-aerospace industry, the Valley's warehouses and affordable living attracted porn production.
• Legalization & Cultural Shifts: The repeal of the Hays Code in the '70s and “porno chic” era paved the way for Hollywood’s—and later, America’s—ambivalent embrace of porn.

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3. Porn as Entertainment Industry Bellwether (07:59–08:53)

• Porn’s Precursor Status: The panel discusses how porn’s struggles with piracy and changing technology foreshadowed today’s entertainment industry problems.
  • Natalie: “In some ways, porn is kind of the canary in the coal mine for entertainment in general.” (08:45)
  • Molly: “Yeah, absolutely.” (08:53)

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4. Jenna Jameson: From Performer to Brand (09:16–11:50)

• Transitional Figure: Jenna bridged the video, DVD, and early Internet eras. She was among the first adult performers to build a personal brand online with Club Jenna.
  • Quote: "She really understood that you could kind of promote yourself into being a name." (Molly, 09:16)
• “Girl Boss?”: Jenna as a '90s precursor to self-empowerment and third-wave feminist branding.
  • Quote: “She was sort of a girl boss, is what you’re saying.” (Natalie, 09:56)
• Backlash & Raunch Culture: Reflecting on the late ‘90s “raunch culture,” culminating in Jameson’s mainstream fame and subsequent conservative backlash post-9/11.

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5. Jenna’s Origin Story and Personal Drive (13:25–19:17)

• Las Vegas Roots: Daughter of a showgirl and a mafia-cop father; childhood turbulence, including her mother’s early death.
• Early Adult Life: Stripped at Crazy Horse 2 in Vegas; quickly became ambitious and resourceful.
  • Quote: “She was always very driven and, like, knew how to get what she wanted.” (Natalie, 15:46)
• Trauma vs. Agency: The panel complicates the “tragic porn star” trope, exploring how exploitation and personal agency intersect in Jenna’s story.
  • Quote: “[Jenna] would definitely refute the idea that she was getting into porn because she was traumatized or felt exploited in porn.” (Molly, 16:43)

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6. Sex Work, Agency, and American Attitudes (17:34–18:17)

• Sex Work as Labor: The conversation challenges the notion that sex work is uniquely exploitative.
  • Quote: "A good, well run porn shoot is obviously much less exploitative than like an Amazon warehouse where people have to pee in a jar." (Molly, 17:50)

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7. Building the Jenna Jameson Persona and Brand (18:17–24:23)

• Strategic Career Moves: Jenna maneuvered between studios (Vivid, Wicked Pictures), negotiating contracts and leveraging “contract girl” status, akin to old Hollywood star-making.
• Breakthrough to Mainstream: Major appearances on shows like Howard Stern and confrontational mainstream interviews (22:08–23:35).
  • Memorable Moment: Montage of Stern’s crass questions, Jenna’s confident pushbacks.
    • Howard: “You were such a piece of ass… I mean, look at this.”
    • Jenna: “I make over 150.” (22:51, on earning over $150,000/year)
• Control and Image: Noted for “being in charge,” both in her performances and in the way she handled media.

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8. Female Empowerment, Burnout, and the “Raunch Era” (25:25–28:50)

• Meeting Jenna: Vanessa shares her experience meeting an off-duty Jenna, who was candid about being “over” porn star life.
  • Quote: “She was just sort of like, dude, I’m just, like, dealing with life. Like, you pay me, I’ll put the show on. But not until then.” (Vanessa, 25:46)
• From Outcast to Spokesperson: Jenna’s visibility made it possible for subsequent porn stars to claim feminist identities and push for autonomy.
  • Quote: “Before Jenna, the way porn stars were portrayed in the media was just like, they’re idiots… After Jenna, it was sort of a given that porn stars were also sort of feminists.” (Molly, 27:24)

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9. Ongoing Debate: Exploitation, Empowerment, and Social Consequences (28:50–34:01)

• The “Bummer” Argument: Vanessa voices ambivalence about sex work as an economic necessity in a wealthy nation.
  • Quote: "It's a bummer that you have to do this... there is part of me that still feels like it can be psychologically damaging." (Vanessa, 28:50)
• Nuance & Gray Areas: Molly argues that porn is neither inherently empowering nor degrading—it mirrors mainstream pressures and the complexities of modern self-presentation.
  • Quote: “It's not fully that it's always empowering... but it's also not always bad and you're always exploited.” (Molly, 29:39)
• Mainstreaming and Hypersexualization: The group debates if mainstreaming porn led to cultural hypersexualization or merely reflects it.

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10. Jenna’s Legacy, Current Life, and the Changing Internet (34:01–36:29)

• Jenna Now: Multiple marriages, turbulent relationships, public family disputes, and erratic internet presence—currently embedded in “lesbian TikTok drama,” with politics described as “all over the place.”
  • Quote: “She seems like she’s kind of thriving on lesbian drama TikTok… Her politics are all over the place. She was into QAnon for a minute… and [just] posted about finding Jesus.” (Molly, 34:20–35:49)
• Obscurity with Gen Z: Despite her past fame, she is now largely unknown to younger generations—a sign of the internet’s fast-moving cultural cycles.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Agency vs. Victimization:
  • "Women who've been raped work in every industry on earth... there's no job where there aren't people who have tragic stories." — Molly Lambert (16:43)
• On Sexuality as Brand:
  • "She really understood that you could kind of promote yourself into being a name." — Molly Lambert (09:16)
• On the “Girlboss” Phenomenon:
  • "Everyone's gonna be a super hot woman who's in charge of everything, and there will never be any backlash to this." — Molly Lambert (09:59)
• On Porn’s Reflection of Society:
  • "Porn just reflects the culture. It's a mirror to the culture." — Molly Lambert (31:31)
• On Jenna’s Persona:
  • "She has a sort of, like, quality similar to Madonna, where it seems like she's in control." — Molly Lambert (21:21)
  • "She has this kind of like, Elvis. You know, she's staring you down... just this kind of like, 90s bad girl." — Molly Lambert (21:44)
• On the Legacy of Jenna Jameson:
  • “Jenna really was a canary in the coal mine… you could have this kind of parasocial relationship with an audience, and that could be a way for you to enrich yourself.” — Molly Lambert (33:20)
• On Modern Paradoxes:
  • “There is, simultaneously as there's this sort of performance of hypersexuality, there might not actually be an enactment of that hypersexuality.” — Natalie Robehmed (32:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:19–03:25 — Jenna’s mainstream ubiquity and cultural impact
• 03:25–06:36 — Porn’s rise in the San Fernando Valley
• 09:16–11:50 — Jenna as personal brand and “girl boss”
• 13:25–19:17 — Early life, career beginnings, and drive
• 18:17–24:23 — Strategic career moves, contract system, and media breakthrough
• 25:25–28:50 — Meeting Jenna and her influence on the next generation
• 28:50–34:01 — Debates on exploitation and empowerment
• 34:01–36:29 — Jenna’s current life, internet presence, and legacy

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Tone & Episode Style

• Approachable, frank, and occasionally irreverent—the hosts combine journalistic skepticism with cultural critique, spiced with personal anecdotes and unsparing honesty.
• Molly Lambert’s commentary is nuanced and historically informed; Vanessa and Natalie ask probing, sometimes self-reflective questions.

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Final Thoughts

The episode argues that Jenna Jameson didn’t singlehandedly create the “pornified” culture of today, but she was a figure at the crossroads of technological change, shifting gender politics, and the mainstreaming of sexualized self-presentation. Her story illustrates both the potential and the pitfalls of commodified sexuality, mirroring broader American anxieties and ambitions.

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Transcript

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[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Campsite media.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

From Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media. This is Infamous. I'm Natalie Rubbermaid.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Today we're talking about Jenna Jameson, one of the most famous porn stars, if not just the most famous porn star of all time.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

The porn star that your parents know.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

You probably remember what she looks like, at least from her kind of early 2000s peak sort of blonde hair, dark eyeliner, Pamela Anderson, big Melanie boobs type thing. Just two orbs completely isolated from each other in the middle of her chest. But she was also a businesswoman and sort of at the very turning point of culture and porn as it rose and also descended.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah, and I think today, you know, we all agree that 13 year olds are sort of looking like onlyfans ladies. It's a more pornified culture than it ever was. There's more focus on being sexy and attractive for better or worse. Obviously very hard to become an influencer unless you are both of those things as a woman. But the mainstreaming trend really started with Jenna Jamison. So we're going to talk to Molly Lambert, who's a wonderful writer and podcaster who previously made a series on Heidi Flice called Heidi World. And she is out with a new podcast about Jenna Jamison.

[Molly Lambert]

What does pornography reveal about the American sexual psyche? Critics say that porn degrades and disposes of its workers. So what's the difference between that and any other gender job? And what are we to make of performers who transcended their alleged disposability and created profitable brands around their screen Personas? Like the porn star Jenna Jameson did in the 90s and 2000s when she made herself into a brand and became queen of all media.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And she's going to explain to us in this interview how it all happened, how Jenna rose to the top. If you've been following Jenna Jameson, she is also fallen off a bit some things recently. Her social media is very strange. So we are going to get into all of that with Molly.

[Molly Lambert]

Hi.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Hi.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Welcome to the show.

[Molly Lambert]

Thanks for having me.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

So you are from the San Fernando Valley, the capital of porn, right?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. Exactly.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

When did you first become aware of Jenna Jameson?

[Molly Lambert]

I think she was so much in the culture in the 90s, it was impossible not to be aware of her because she was on television constantly.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

And I mean, what was she known for? Because she obviously wasn't doing porn on. On tv.

[Molly Lambert]

Well, she crossed over. Like, you mentioned Pam Anderson, but it was this, yeah, glamour girl, sex symbol thing. But she also was very funny. And so she was often just being, like, funny on stuff, like. Yeah. Type shows. But she also did a lot of interviews with people like Jerry Springer and Bill O'Reilly where she basically defended pornography and defended her decision to do pornography in a way that I thought was cool.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

You thought that even when you were. Even when you were younger?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, because I don't know, I just had a real, like, well, what's wrong with it? You know, why can't you sell your body if you want to?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Wait, did you. Does that come from growing up in the Valley? Like, did you have a sense that the porn industry was there? It was just like dirty jokes people made in sixth grade or.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's the main thing people know about the San Fernando Valley. But, yeah, you'd also just, you know, you'd see porn stars sometimes just out in the Valley, there was a famous karaoke night with porn stars. Porn star, karaoke.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Oh, my God.

[Molly Lambert]

But also just like, you'd be aware of porn shoot houses because people would always be like, oh, that's a house where they shoot porn. You know, they black out the windows. Which I just thought was funny that they shoot porn in the suburbs for.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

People not from la. Can you describe a little bit what the San Fernando Valley is like?

[Molly Lambert]

Sure. So the San Fernando Valley is like a big, sprawling suburban valley. It is to the north of the city of Los Angeles proper, but it's part of the city of Los Angeles. It sort of gets a bad rap sometimes for various reasons.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Well, like the Valley girl stereotype and like the vocal Fry voice.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Right.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

A lot of that is attributed to the Valley.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, it boomed really big in the mid century, mid 20th century because of aerospace. Aircraft manufacturing was there. And then when aircraft manufacturing evacuated the Valley, it created a space for porn to come in because there was just a lot of warehouses and office parks and stuff like that and a lot.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Of out of work film people who are camera people or whatever else and have these skills.

[Molly Lambert]

Right. The Valley was much cheaper than the rest of la and it settled there for the reasons you said, which is basically proximity to stuff used by the film industry, the mainstream film industry, including just like a pool of talent, people that want to work in film.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Was there a time when porn was totally illegal?

[Molly Lambert]

It was totally illegal until the 70s. And basically it became legal with the repealing of the Hays Code, which was the film censorship code. And then you had new Hollywood movies, you know, where they showed nudity for the first time, but also some of the first big porn movies like behind the Green Door, where they would test the limits of if you could show it in a theater and sort of as a publicity stunt too, because they would get busted by the cops and then getting busted would make people interested in seeing it.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Got it. And were you allowed to do anything or you were only allowed to have certain kinds of sex?

[Molly Lambert]

Well, you. It was very contentious. There were a lot of legal challenges to it. So after there was this kind of like porno chic period in the 70s where people were going to see porn movies and they were sort of in the zeitgeist, right.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Like Deep Throat and stuff like that from 1970s.

[Molly Lambert]

And there was a trial that a lot of Hollywood stars like Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty like, attended to defend the pornographers, basically. But then in the 80s, in the Reagan years, they just mounted a lot of challenges to it being legal. But, you know, basically it became a free speech issue very early on.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

That's really interesting because it strikes me how little has changed. Like right now, I mean, porn and sexually adventurous material is under attack once again.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, it's really. It's been legal since the 70s now. It's never not been under attack in some way. And I would say sort of the Jenna era, the 90s and early 2000s, that was kind of like the second wave of porno chic of people Being like, oh, yeah, porn stars are people, and porn is funny. And then in the 2000s, when YouTube was invented, the whole business collapsed because of piracy. So it also kind of just predicted what's happening now in the entertainment industry, the mainstream entertainment industry.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

I'm sure your series probably argues this. Like, in some ways, it's. Porn as an industry is kind of a canary in the coal mine for entertainment in general.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So what you were saying, Molly, is the continuum of porn, which always leads to everybody having to sell their bodies for, like, 2 cents, which just seems to be the AI future, when the AI bots, you know, will do it more cheaply. The AI future we're all hurtling towards. But where does Janet Jameson fall in that continuum?

[Molly Lambert]

Well, Jenna is a transitional figure between the video age and the DVD and Internet age. And so she's important because she really predicted the Internet. And she got online very early and started a website, a personal brand website called Club Jenna. And so I also think she's very ahead on this kind of personal branding thing that has now become mandatory for everybody. She really understood that you could kind of promote yourself into being a name. And then the more people saw that name, the more they would want to buy things from you, maybe 100%.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

So, you know, she was sort of a girl boss is what you're saying.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. And I think what's interesting to me is, like, growing up in that era, I did not see the backlash coming at all. I was just like, okay, great. Everyone's gonna be a super hot woman who's in charge of everything, and there will never be any backlash to this. Like, the. Maybe the analog is like Madonna, you know, that this kind of third wave feminism that was very popular in the 90s, which was, you know, this idea that you could capitalize on your sexuality in a way that was empowering.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And it was true to a certain degree, although not completely. I mean, I first figured out who she was not from porn, but from the Neil Strauss book, which was her biography that people were obsessed with. I thought it was awesome. I mean, I'm a big fan of his biographies, like the Dirt, the one about Motley Crue. And as I'm saying all this, I'm like, is it awesome? I don't know. Cause he also wrote that pickup book. But I remember at the time, back in the early 2000s, I love that book.

[Molly Lambert]

Well, yeah, there was kind of this, like, raunch culture thing happening in the late 90s that in retrospect feels like Weimar Germany, like, leading up into 9 11. And then after 9 11, there was like this huge conservative clampdown. But yeah, I just think it's like a really interesting time and hasn't been delved into that much as a historical thing. You know, Boogie Nights is about the transition in porn from film to video and general. This podcast is really about sort of the transition from video to DVD and DVD to the Internet leading into now.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

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[Natalie Rubbermaid]

So let's. Let's go back. Who is Jenna Jamison? Where was she born? When was she born?

[Molly Lambert]

She's from Las Vegas, which I think is very important to understanding who she is. And her mother was a Las Vegas showgirl at the Tropicana. And her father was a Mafia steward originally, who then became a cop.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

That's quite the turn.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, I think the Mafia was not thrilled with him when he turned to the law enforcement side. But yeah, she grew up in Nevada and moved around a lot. Her father was chasing various cop Jobs in different cities. And so she, you know, had a tumultuous childhood. And then also her mother died when she was very young, like 2 years old. But she kind of got into adult stuff because she had a shitty boyfriend, as people do when she was a teenager. And she was hanging with this kind of, like, very Nevada biker gang kind of crowd, and they were all really into tattoo parlors and strip clubs and stuff like that. And so she started working at a strip club off the Vegas strip called the Crazy Horse 2. That's, like, in an industrial zone in Vegas. And through working there, she got scouted by a photo agent named Julia Parton, who's cousin of Dolly Parton. And she went to LA to do hardcore pictorials, you know, shoot for, like, Penthouse and Hustler and stuff like that. And from there, she got drafted into porn.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

There's this great little story. I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but from her memoir, where she talks about the kind of drive she had to become a stripper at 16, when she kind of the guy running the strip club tells her something like, oh, you know, you can't. You can't work here. You still have your braces on. And she apparently goes home and plies the braces off herself just so that she can make it happen. And it sort of seems as though this picture is painted, that she was always very driven and, like, knew how to get what she wanted.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, that's what makes her an interesting person, I think, is this incredible drive to succeed at all costs, sometimes at her own peril, you know, And I think that's just what is very kind of American about it as well.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

I mean, you make the point in. In your podcast that the mainstream media paints all these female porn stars as having had really tragic backstories that maybe drove them to getting exploited in. In porn. But she did actually have a tragic backstory, right? Like, she's alleged that she was sexually assaulted as a teen. I think, twice. At least one of the people she alleged sexually assaulted her has denied it. She had a very close friend die by suicide. So, like, there was really bad stuff that happened very, very early on in her life. Like, she'd lived a lot of life by the time she went to LA to kind of make it important, right?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, I mean, I think that she would definitely refute the idea that she was getting into porn because she was traumatized or that she felt exploited in porn. And, you know, a lot of people in porn will tell you women who've been raped work in every industry on earth. Like people. There's no job where there aren't people who have tragic stories. And assault, you know, happens to everybody. But in porn, it's kind of used as this. Like, well, you know, this happened because of this. Like they're, you know, doing this because something bad happened to them. And the only reason you would ever do this is because something bad happened to you. When I think a lot of them just, you know, were interested in making porn and were interested in kind of bringing a female perspective to sex movies.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Right. You also make the point in your podcast that we've like, long degraded sex workers for selling their bodies for money, but you kind of argue that it's like we're all sort of doing that to an extent.

[Molly Lambert]

Right?

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

We're all, we all have to have jobs. We're all having to sell our, our time.

[Molly Lambert]

Well, yeah, people seem to think that with porn there's like, no way to do it without it being exploitative. But it's like, no. Any job can be exploitative or not exploitative depending on, you know, who's in charge and how it's run. And I think many people would say a good, well run porn shoot is obviously much less exploitative than like an Amazon warehouse where people have to pee in a jar. You know, so to get back to.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Jenna, I mean, so. So she worked at this club, Crazy Horse 2, and she's, she's dancing there. And I think really early on she learned the kind of currency and power that came from using her sexuality. I mean, and also, like, she was having her first brush with fame and famous people like Nicolas Cage was a regular and Jack Nicholson and Toole, all those kinds of people were, were there around that time. And then she kind of gets to LA and starts working and. Oh, is, is this when she changes her name?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, she changes her name when she's still in Vegas. She allegedly sees Jamison Whiskey and has the idea and changed her name to Jenna Jameson.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

Right.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Because we should say she was born Jenna Mazzoli. And yeah, I read a quote that she said it was the name of a whiskey and Whiskey was rock and roll. And that's how she got started. So. Yeah, what were kind of those first shoots and videos like, and how did she kind of rise to fame for them?

[Molly Lambert]

Well, she didn't rise to fame immediately. That's what's also kind of interesting, is that she had her first kind of whack at the porn business. She made some movies and then she got Kind of burnt out. And, you know, she was like, I'm not becoming the household name I imagined myself being. And so she really researched kind of the business, and she went to Vivid Video, which was one of the biggest porn studios of all time. And they offered her a contract that she wasn't crazy about. And so she went to another studio called Wicked Pictures that was more of like a new upstart studio. And then she kind of pitted Vivid and Wicked against each other in a bidding war to get a contract that she thought was good with Wicked. And then she was promoted through Wicked in this system from the 90s that was called Contract Girls.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

What is that?

[Molly Lambert]

Contract Girls were a thing that kind of was popularized by Vivid Video, where they would find a starlet and build her brand through a series of movies. The different sex acts would kind of get more intense over the course of the movies. But basically it was like the old Hollywood star system, which was to kind of turn them into a brand and get people interested in the brand and then slowly trickle out releases so that people would, you know, not get too flooded with content from one person. So, you know, it just seems like very old school now because it was like, people were making, like, eight movies a year, and that was your contract.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Rather than every day having to, like, put out content.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, exactly.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

And so when does her break into the mainstream really happen? How does she get out of this almost old school studio system into mainstream, owning her own stuff?

[Molly Lambert]

Well, first she gets very famous in porn. She just is, you know, a great porn star, and everybody likes her as a porn star.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

What's good about her?

[Molly Lambert]

She has a sort of, like, quality similar to Madonna, where it seems like she's in control. You know, it seems like she's in charge in her scenes. It doesn't seem like she's being coerced. You know, it's like she's very in her sexuality in a way that people liked.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

She also has this weird snarl thing. She does that, like, little, like, baby lion.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, she has this kind of like, Elvis. You know, she's staring you down and. Yeah, just this kind of like, 90s bad girl. You know, she's horny and she's in charge. And then she just was very smart about marketing herself. Just spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get her on mainstream media, and eventually they were able to get her on Howard Stern.

[Howard Stern]

Listen, I have a lot of porno stars in here, but a lot of them I reject because it's like, you know, how many times can you have a porno star in. But then when I saw your pictures, you were such a piece of ass. I mean, look at this. Is that a modeling ad or what?

[Molly Lambert]

And so that was kind of the big breakthrough when she went on Howard Stern. And Howard Stern obviously had a lot of porn stars on a lot of, you know, sexy girls and trying to make them feel humiliated on the radio.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I'm very well taken care of.

[Howard Stern]

Yeah, but it doesn't sound like you are.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

I am.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I was just.

[Molly Lambert]

I just got a Corvette.

[Howard Stern]

So what do you make, like a year? But a Corvette? I mean, no, I mean for.

[Molly Lambert]

As a gift.

[Howard Stern]

But what do you make, like a year? Like, if you're under contract, what do you get?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I make over 150.

[Howard Stern]

Over 150 thou?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. But she just was very good at holding her own in interviews with these types of men who were like, you must feel disgusting. And she'd be like, no, I don't like. I like what I do, and I don't feel degraded and I get paid well.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

It's a really easy job. I work once a month.

[Howard Stern]

I see you do one porno and.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Then like nine movies a year.

[Howard Stern]

And then you just do like, that's.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

How much money I make.

[Molly Lambert]

And so she. You can see her kind of over the course of her appearances on these different shows and different interviews, gain the confidence to talk back to these, you know, men who are always really condescending even though they're also professional entertainers.

[Howard Stern]

Your body looks tight. You're rubbing your ass. You keep rubbing your ass over and give it to you. Finally remove your pants. We're on satellite. What's the matter with you?

[Molly Lambert]

Are you serious?

[Howard Stern]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Oh, stop.

[Howard Stern]

You see, you're an elder statesman now, right?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Right.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but porn seems to be, at least back in this time, one of the very few industries in which women were making more money than men.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, it was porn and modeling in the 90s, where in tandem with supermodels, it was just like, yeah, women are making all the money here. And one of the things I thought was interesting about porn is that so many women cross over into directing. And when they have the best directors at the AVN Awards, it's like, often majority women.

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[Molly Lambert]

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[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

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[Molly Lambert]

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[Howard Stern]

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[Molly Lambert]

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[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Do you know how many there are?

[Molly Lambert]

Up to you to find out.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Vanessa, you actually met Jenna Jameson, right?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Indeed I did. I wrote a story about her for Rolling Stone back in the raunch era days. I mean, I think it was like 2004, maybe 2005.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

What was she like?

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I mean, she was at this point living in Scottsdale and she was with. I think they got married, right? Jay. Amanda.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. Jay Gradina.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah, Gardina. Very strange name. Gr. And he was running the show. She was over it. She was like, why do I have to do this? I do not want to be this porn star again. Can we just like, run Club Jenna off of all the stuff I've already shot, why do I have to keep doing this? You know, she was trying to get pregnant. You know, I don't know. I think you could say the fact that she was empowered enough to basically just be like, okay, so here's the reality. Like, I just want to smoke cigarettes in, like, my back patio and not do any of this. Like, so she didn't have to put on a show. She didn't have to, like, pretend for me, she was accepted. That's probably a pretty good indicator of how much power she had at that time. I think she's. I mean, I think we talked about it. Like, she was definitely bisexual. She was definitely like, I'm married to this guy, but I still really like women. That I think has been a through line through her life. I liked her. I mean, I. I felt like she was very real and relatable, but I didn't feel like I was meeting this incredibly sexy porn star who was gonna, like, set the world on fire. She was just sort of like, dude, I'm just, like, dealing with life. Like, you pay me, I'll put the show on. But not until then. Was very much her vibe at that time.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. Vanessa, I love that profile you did.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Thank you.

[Molly Lambert]

It comes up in the podcast. Part of what makes her interesting is that she was not like, the perfect role model for this industry in any. In a lot of ways. You know, I think she became sort of the spokesperson for the industry and then started to just not be that interested in being the spokesperson. I think she got burned out on work a bunch of different times and maybe just didn't even really want to work at all, which, you know, relatable. But it's also like, she sort of paved the way for all these porn stars that came after her. Who. It was like, before Jenna, there was really this. The way they were portrayed in the media was just like, they're idiots, and they don't know that they're being degraded, you know, and like, this is gonna ruin their lives. And they don't even seem to know. And then after Jenna, it's like everybody who came after Jenna, like Sasha gray, you know, Asa Akira, all these kind of 2000s Internet porn stars, it's like, it just was sort of a given that porn stars were also sort of feminists and knew how to talk about sex work in a way that, you know, was about what it's really about, which is bodily autonomy, just like the right to do whatever you want with your own body, which I think relates to, you know, trans rights and abortion rights and all these fundamental things in America that are now very much under attack again.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

But do you wholeheartedly feel that? Because I have to say, like, I'm of two minds of it. I have spent time in Vegas reporting with escorts, and like, yes, I want to believe that everybody should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies. And I definitely don't want the sex workers to be punished and the johns not to be punished. But there is part of me that's like, it's a bummer that you have to do this. We live in the richest country in the world. Sam Altman will probably be a trillionaire. And then people can't make ends meet and they have to sell their bodies. And I know that's like sort of a conservative way of looking at it, but there is part of me that still feels like it can be psychologically damaging.

[Molly Lambert]

I mean, I think it's complicated. Even if we didn't have to make a living, there would still be people who would want to make pornography, because pornography is just a. An art form. You know, it's about movies that depict sex and attempt to depict intimacy and sex. And the issue that people have with porn now, you know, they. They think it's like making people sexually dead end because they watch too much porn or whatever. But, you know, it's also, there's like no sex in mainstream movies anymore. And so porn becomes kind of the only place people are seeing sex. I think it's just a wide range of things and I think, you know, it's very much. There's a lot of gray area. It's not fully that. It's like, it's always empowering and it's always great, you know, when you're a girl boss with your tits out. But it's also not. It's always bad and you're always exploited if something bad's gonna happen to you. I think there's just a very wide range. And that's also how I feel like it kind of relates to culture now is that a lot of people have sort of a screen image of themselves that is separate from the person that they really are, which is, I think again, where Jenna was really ahead. It's like people would meet Jenna in real life and be like, oh, she's just this little kind of like biker babe, you know.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I guess it's a cool question is like, if we would be in the same place where. With what? I started at the beginning saying, like, would we still be in the same place where you have 13 year olds who have gel nails and fake eyelashes and are on TikTok making like provocative videos. If. I don't want to say if, if not for Jenna Jameson, would they be doing that? But I do wonder if the mainstreaming of porn led to a greater sexualization throughout the culture, which is debatable if that's a good thing.

[Molly Lambert]

I don't know. I don't think so. Personally. I think that porn just reflects the culture. It's a mirror to the culture. I mean, Obviously in the 2000s, there was a lot of panic about, you know, it's causing, you know, making girls want to like, wear thongs and get bikini waxes or whatever. But I think those things trend in and out. Like now bikini waxes are out and really big boobs, really big fake boobs were in and then they completely went out in the 2000s and people were into sort of natural again. But I think the pressure on women to conform to a standard of femininity, like, that doesn't come from porn. And I think what's sort of subversive about porn is a lot of those women who play this role of sort of like the. The ultimate woman, you know, as we were saying about Jenna, a lot of them are queer. And Jenna herself is now a lesbian and says that she has always been a lesbian. So I think, you know, there's something kind of camp almost about the cartoonish display of. Of womanhood that porn stars like Jenna do.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Well, and also in this, at the same time, as we have these, like, very, very sexualized influencers and just butts jiggling on algorithms everywhere, our culture has also gotten, like, very, very conservative in a lot of ways.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Right.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Think about trad wives and, like, just the. All of these sort of prairie dresses that I see popping. There is also, you know, there have been all these stats about how Gen Z, like, aren't doing drugs and having sex and so. Or they're, like, having less sex than. Than previous generations. So it kind of is, like, simultaneously as there's this sort of, like, performance of hypersexuality, there might not actually be an enactment of that hypersexuality.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. And I think that is sort of the thing people are really worried about, is that people are, like, living their lives for the screens and. And doing the performance, you know, and I think that extends beyond sexuality to every aspect of people's lives. You know, people post their weddings on Instagram to fulfill a certain expectation about how your life should be. Everything everyone does now is for an audience, which is very new. And I think Jenna really was a canary in the coal mine in that way of sort of understanding that you could have this kind of parasocial relationship with an audience, and that could be a way for you to enrich yourself.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Yeah. So where is she now? Because I've done a couple drive bys, I've done a little check in on her social media. You know, she's having quote, unquote body transformations. She's doing some very erratic things. Where is she and what's she doing?

[Molly Lambert]

Well, she. She was married to Jay Gardena, who was. Who she was dating when Vanessa met her. And then she left Jay Gerdina for a UFC fighter named Tito Ortiz, who was one of the first big superstars of ufc. He's a guy from Orange county, and she had kids with Tito Ortiz, and then they had a bad breakup where she accused him of abuse, and he accused her of relapsing. She then married a different guy who was a Israeli guy, and she converted to Judaism for him, had a daughter with him, and then she married a woman named Jesse Lawless, and then they had a big breakup. And so now she has a girlfriend who I believe is a Marine, and I think they live in Florida.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Okay.

[Molly Lambert]

And she posts on TikTok all the time, and she's, like, involved in, like, Lesbian TikTok drama. And she seems like very like she's kind of thriving on lesbian drama TikTok. Her politics are all over the place. She was like into Qanon for a minute and then when she was married to the Israeli guy, she converted to Judaism. But then she, in the past couple weeks has been posting about finding Jesus. And so I also think that is very, like, everything is so libertarian now.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

Yes, they're very Internet politics. They're just sort of like pulling from here or there.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. Or just like things that don't. You wouldn't think would go together. I think Jenna being a lesbian ex porn star with sort of right wing politics, but also, you know, an out lesbian, it just feels very of the moment. And also she is completely unknown to people in like, Gen Z. They weren't here for any of this and they don't know anything about. About Jenna, which I also thought was interesting that somebody could be so famous and then completely just like fall out of public discourse.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah, I mean, look, this has been a really interesting conversation. I mean, I have definitely learned a bunch of things about Jenna and you have brought up viewpoints that I think are really valid and, you know, worth me thinking about. So everybody go listen to Jenna World. It is awesome. And please read Molly Lambert. You can read all of the amazing writing she's been doing over so many years. Thank you so much, Molly, for coming.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. This was a really fun conversation.

[Natalie Rubbermaid]

That's it for Infamous. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review and tell your friends. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at natrob. That's N A T R O B E. And if you want to support Vanessa's work, you can buy her book, Blurred Lines. Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus. See you next week.

[Molly Lambert]

Sam.