Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

FOREWORD By Margaret Cho

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.