Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Prologue

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.

I pulled the diva act and tried to own that pay phone. My cell phone had been confiscated, so the pay phone was my only connection to the outside world. So, when anyone else tried to use the phone, I unleashed a shit-storm of anger, screaming, “I’m on the fucking phone! You wait your fucking turn! I’m on the phone! I’ll be done when I’m done! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Making death threats in the psych ward is not exactly the way to prove that you’re not crazy and get released. One day, I even tried to escape. When those buzz-in, locked doors opened, I made a run for it, forcing the orderly to wrestle me to the ground.

When I realized there was no way out unless I played by the rules, I threw the rules in their face. They had been asking me to shower for days and I refused. I was defiant and angry and anti- authority. After days of nagging me to shower, I finally said, “Fuck it. You want me to shower? OK, I’ll shower.” So I stripped off all of my clothes, walked out of my room into the hallway completely naked, and looked at the first nurse who came my way and said, “OK. You want me to shower? Here I am. Where’s the fucking shower?”

As much as this experience was the lowest point of my life, I’m grateful for it. Sometimes you need to go off the rails of the crazy train to get on the right track of your life. And that’s exactly what I did.

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Chapter 1
Idol Worship

How bad do you want what you want? I wanted to be famous and adored so bad it nearly killed me. Well, in all honestly, I nearly killed me.

But before we get to that, let me start at the beginning… In 1986 I was ten years old and my mother had already left us. It was just me, Linda Ann Hopkins, and my dad, David Hopkins, a carefree hippie of English, Dutch, and Irish descent. I was born in Great Falls, Montana, but was living with my dad in Fresno. On a rare father-daughter day out, he took me to a thrift store in town to do some shopping. We were on a budget. As we made our way though the tiny, cramped shop, I saw her hanging on the dusty wall behind some cracked vases and rusty candelabras. It was a beautiful black-and-white photograph of Marilyn Monroe from the Korean USO tour she did in 1954. She was beaming as she posed for hundreds of handsome men in uniform, who in turn were ogling her in all her blond-haired, blue-eyed glory.

Something lit up inside me when I saw that photograph. I thought, "Someday, men are going to look at me that way." I couldn't stop staring at this photo, thinking how much I wanted to be that girl. The girl everyone adores. The girl whom fame made so happy (little did I know what a sad wreck she really was). All I knew about Marilyn at the time was how much I wanted to exude the power that she did. I wanted to be famous like that. I just didn't know what for yet. I never thought it would be for porn.

Around the same time the Marilyn Monroe photo was burned into my brain, I stumbled across another piece of inspiration. I was home alone one day after school. Dad was still at work. I was usually a good girl; I learned manners and respect for others very early on from both of my parents. Although I had never looked through my father's things, on this one day my curiosity got the best of me. I had seen my dad hide a stack of Playboy magazines once and was anxious to...