Nina.com: The Official Nina Hartley Website

About Nina Hartley

This is my bio page, and I will add to it when I get good questions from you, the members. Thank you very much for your interest in my life and me.

• Birthday: March 11, 1959
• Height: 5’ 4”
• Weight: 140 lbs.
• Measurements: 35-26-39
• Bra: 32D
• Shoe: 8M if open toed, 81/2 for pumps
• Sexual orientation: Heterosexual butch dyke. I love men and I love women. I can switch with men, depending on how our energy mingles, but I’m almost always in the driver’s seat with women.
• Marital status: After ending a twenty-year triad marriage, I’ve been married to my second husband, Ernest Greene, since July 7, ‘03, and am finally very happy in the relationship department. He’s in the adult business, behind the camera, and is my favorite director to work with. We have the happy situation of being very much in love, with all the ooey-gooey stuff that implies, as well as being active swingers with our friends who are likewise inclined. It’s a real gift to find a good mate. If I can do it, any one can! He’s also in the adult publishing business, and edits two magazines for Larry Flynt Publications, and has a column in XBiz magazine.

My parents have been married since 1947 I have two older brothers and one older sister. I have 8 nieces and nephews, ages 5-27 I have, now, one great-niece and one great-nephew. Except for one gay cousin and a gay aunt, I seem to be the only queer person in my family

I grew up in Berkeley, California and graduated from Berkeley High School in 1977. I attended the 30th anniversary class reunion last year. I was very active in the drama department there, and am still friends with many I met there. It was fantastic to find out that we’re all still friends after so long. We were the first class to be integrated, starting in 1970, and our friendships still cross class and color barriers.

My mother’s mother and sister lived very near us, and I saw my grandmother at least once a week, and my aunt and cousins regularly. I am the youngest in my generation of kids, going out to third cousins.

I developed an interest in theater and performing arts by high school. I didn’t go onstage much in school, spending my time instead in the costume department of the high school. One claim to fame was that I made Timothy Hutton’s (“Ordinary People”) toga for his role as the god Bacchus in Euripides’ classic, “The Bacchae”. The drama department of my high school was better than most two-year colleges, and as good as many four years’.

My first boyfriend was T., a drama teacher at school. I dated him from the time I graduated in ‘77, to about ‘82. I first started seeing my first husband, Dave, in ‘80. Believe me, there’s a book in there somewhere! I lost my virginity at 18, to a cute boy from school. I’m only sorry I don’t know him now, as we’d have a good time this time around! I was so scared that I was pretty stiff in bed, to say the least.

While searching for meaning in their lives after their political disillusionment (they were members of the Communist Party, and my father lost his job in radio after being blacklisted in ‘57), my parents began studying Zen in ‘69. Needless to say, I have been profoundly affected by their decision. Zen Buddhism is the single most influential philosophy in my life. While my mother is Jewish, and my father, Lutheran, church life was not part of my childhood. My parents were seekers, and Zen is what they found to be useful for them in their search for understanding and meaning. While I am not a practicing Buddhist, I find Zen philosophy the most useful and practical on a day-to-day basis.

Berkeley was, in the 60s and 70s, rather like living on Mars. I had very little in common with others of my age who were raised in more conventional places with more conventional families. I adhere to liberal social and political ideas, though I am not in lock step with any political party or agenda. But Berkeley is a large part of who I am and how I got to be the way I am. Since my fans seem to like what I’m about, it seems fair to let them know where it all came from.

I came of age during the last time sex was considered to be, overall, more positive than negative. The 70’s were not just about lame politics and stupid clothing fashion, but also about thinking in new ways about sex, gender, culture and empowerment. The idea that women could take control over their own pleasure, and should communicate what they needed to their partners, and that the man was not solely responsible for my sexual happiness, were only a few of the important ideas that came out of that time.

I was highly influenced by this new thinking. The most important books for me as a young teenager were: “Sex For One”, by Betty Dodson (www.bettydodson.com); “The Joy Of Sex”, by Louis Comfort; “The Pearl”, a reprint of a Victorian porn magazine; “The Happy Hooker,” by Xaviera Hollander, and “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.” I loved porn the first time I read any of it. I loved Playboy magazine, too. I especially liked all the full-page, full-color cartoons. My favorites were the ones with the satyrs and nymphs cavorting naked in the meadows. To this day, Ernest calls me a “wood dyke”.

One favorite cartoon in Playboy, from ‘73-75, had a beautiful young bachelorette returning to her fabulous Manhattan apartment. The caption, as she speaks to her equally beautiful roommate: “What a boring party. I would have left sooner but I couldn’t find my clothes.” How I wanted to live a life like that! It held me in good stead for all the orgies I went to as a swinger: bring a sports bag and keep your things together! (Note: I’m actively seeking a copy of that cartoon. Any help will be most appreciated!)

I was very shy, socially, though my mind was full of sexual thoughts. I didn’t date much, though I did enjoy the wrap parties that were held after a play was over, and had lots of hot make-out sessions. I sneaked into my first porn movie when I was a senior in high school and was transfixed. I just KNEW that I wanted to do sex performance, even with no idea on earth how one would go about it. I never did get to be in a big movie (video was taking over when I started), but I did work with several of the men I saw in that first one. The movie was “Autobiography of a Flea”, and the actors I went on to work with were: John Leslie, Paul Thomas, Jamie Gillis and one other whom I can’t recall at this moment. I believe John Holmes was in it, too, but I never did work with him.

I started dancing in ‘83, as a college sophomore, as a way to live out fantasies, perform, meet other bisexual women and a fun way to earn money. It never was about the money as much as it was about the sexual experience. I wanted to live a sexually free life, and to have sex without having to be “in love”, which, at the time, I had no clue as to what it was. Twenty years of marriage did little to increase my understanding of what “love” was.

I made my first video, “Educating Nina” in 1984, after Dave, my ex, met Juliet Anderson in the local supermarket. After my graduation in ‘85, I went into video full time. I loved performing from the first time I did it. My first on-screen partners were Billy Dee and Karen Summers.

I’ve done about 650 videos since then. I’ve won a lot of awards over the years, for both sexual and non-sexual performances. I started the educational series in ‘96 for Adam and Eve, and I like those very much. Since I have been with Ernest, I’ve started doing fetish videos as well, usually as a dominant unless I’m working with Ernest, in which case I am submissive to him.

For me, sex has been my vocation, my meal ticket, my path to happiness and self-understanding. It’s taken me all over the world: Germany, Sweden, Spain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. It is my meditation and communion with Ernest. My interest in sex is unabated by all that I’ve had: I’m always interested in it: watching it, doing it, helping others do it better, listening to others have it, lending a helping hand (quick, more lube!). Since it is a body-based activity, the good that comes from it lasts and lasts and affects other parts of my life. There is always something to learn about oneself through sex, even less-than-satisfying sex.

I don’t have bad sex any more, ever. By making conscious sexuality my mantra, I always get the most out of every sexual experience, whether giving a friendly hand job in Helsinki or getting it up the butt from Ernest.

What is important for both Ernest and me is living a full, authentic life. I have my parents to thank for that example, as my mother quit her job in ‘74 to study Zen full time with my father. Ernest and I both value the life fully lived, and examined carefully. We both needed to live a life where our interest in sexuality was an asset, not a liability.

I’m now a published author, as well. In 2006, Avery Press, a subsidiary of Penguin Group, published, “Nina Hartley’s Guide to Total Sex.” It’s really good, even without photos (they chickened out), and I share a lot of my secrets on how to be an effective, competent and confident lover. I’ve been contributing to magazines for years, now, and it’s nice to have all the information in one place!

That’s it for now. Any questions you have I’ll be happy to answer.