Let’s talk about sex, baby. I remember the great joy I felt when reading wrestler Mick Foley’s first book, Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks. Not only I learned a lot about my favorite sport and one amazing performer, I was also amused by Mick’s teenage infatuation with adult star Kay Parker, star of the classic genre film Taboo. It made me reminisce about my own favorite porn actress, a person that will be our subject for today, not Mick Foley. Yes, Mick himself would probably shudder at the idea of talking at length about both him and pornography. Wait a minute. Isn’t he a friend of Christy Canyon? But I digress…

As early as yesterday, I blabbered about Cult Sirens’s policy of “no nudity, no vulgarity”, which will be respected for this post. That doesn’t mean that I can’t talk about the adult film industry and it surely implies the use of Photoshop to crop many vital body parts. But as you’ll learn, it’s not like I was a dedicated watcher. In fact, the truth is that I learned about porn by simply reading about it. Remember the old joke: “I buy Playboy for the articles”? Well since I was a movie nut, it was with great delight that I used to read X-rated movie reviews, mainly in Hustler magazine, which contained the best ones (at that time illustrated by a flat to an erect penis to know the degree of satisfaction). The history of porn still remains a fascinating topic for me. So from around 1978 to 1988, let’s say, well before the magic of the web, I used to purchase men’s magazines, not straying away from the basic three, namely Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler.

Playboy for me was a bit on the boring and monotonous side, but I was attracted by the female celebrities invited to pose. The first issue that I nervously bought was one with a stunning Farrah Fawcett cover (December 1978 issue). But I still realized that this publication was the classiest one, even when the many blonde Playmates weren’t to my taste; I appreciated Penthouse for the photography and the models, but the printed word material never caught my interest and all its mystique seemed a bit pretentious; as for Hustler, it was the funniest and most provocative to read, with sometimes outrageous pictorials (can’t forget that hermaphrodite person or the three-breasted cutie) and an amazing sense of joy in sharing pure vulgarity. Like I mentioned, I read all the film reviews and began to know everything about most popular adult performers, while enjoying Larry Flint’s hilarious editorials.

I viewed my first real porn film around 1983 or so, a VHS rental of Café Flesh. I aimed high and was not disappointed, as this movie is considered one of the best of all times, and how could I have known that a potential future Siren was in its cast, mainly Michelle Bauer, then known as Pia Snow? But for some reasons, it was more important for me to view spaghetti westerns, low-budget cannibal films or Santo adventures, so that kind of rental remained quite rare. Now at the age of 43, I sincerely admit that if I have seen more than 20 pure hardcore flicks in my life, I would be very surprised indeed. European softcore of the seventies remains more appealing to my tastes, films starring Laura Gemser, Edwige Fenech or Sylvia Kristel, to name but a few favorites. I still love my imagination doing a lot of work, the brain being our most important sexual organ.

Just once in my life, I got the nerve to enter an adult movie theater, sticky floors and all. I didn’t dare go to the bathroom and I was mainly amazed that there was a hot-dog stand inside (this war around 1985-86)! A fat guy of at least 450 pounds was happily snoring away and I was treated to a triple bill of Sean Penn’s Bad Boys, Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama and John Holmes’s Taxi Girls, our main XXX attraction. This theater (the Crystal) was situated in Montreal’s red-light district (St. Laurent/Ste. Catherine) and has been converted as a musical shows venue. This was a close as a 42nd Street grindhouse movie experience that I will ever get, I presume, with guys yelling at the screen in full misogynistic mode and pimps talking to themselves.

Anyway in all this, there was this adult performer that fascinated me and you guessed it, she was Vanessa Del Rio. I have never even seen a single movie starring her, but even not, I could appreciate that she seemed a raunchy and dedicated performer, who had no problem in doing what she did and most of all loving it. She posed for pictorials with calculated abandon, with this twinkle in her eyes that suggested a sincere will to copulate with the viewer. Believe it or not, a good majority of adult stars working before the video boom of the early eighties could actually act, portraying convincingly real characters among the kinky stuff. Miss Del Rio was one of them.

Vanessa was born on March 31, 1952 in Harlem, New York, a daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rico with African and Spanish roots. She began work around 1974 in adult films, being active on screen for the next twelve years or so. The AIDS scare in the industry convinced her to retire gradually, but she still can be seen on her own website, pleasantly plump and still horny. Along the way, she won some Best Supporting Actress awards for Dracula Exotica and The Dancers and is a many times Hall of Fame honoree. Last October, a big and outrageously overpriced book about her career and life was published, with the charming title Vanessa del Rio: Fifty Years of Slightly Slutty Behavior. I can’t wait to ever get my hands on it, because its luxurious kitsch allure and over the top format goes so well with its immortal subject.

A couple of years back on my last trip to Manhattan, I finally saw a glimpse of Vanessa Del Rio on a movie screen, this one during a visit at the Museum of Sex on 5th Avenue, where it showed some key segments from classic movies. There was beautiful Vanessa in all her glory, taking expert care of Jamie Gillis, if I remember well. This unexpected encounter pleased me to no end.

The only current performer that I feel is on Vanessa’s sexual level of enjoying her job is succulent Ava Devine… even if I’ve never seen an entire film of her, either! What’s wrong with me? Like Vanessa, the old enthusiasm shines through when Ava decides to take things well in hands… hum, wasn’t I supposed to keep things vulgar-friendly around here?

Now I’m outta here. Make your own research on the subject, I can’t be held responsible! I hope Vanessa won’t get after me because I appropriated some of her pictures… but then again, would I really mind being “get”?

This month marks the fifth year of creation of the Cult Sirens website. My, has it grown!

I actually created the main site for two reasons: mainly to test some web standards HTML and CSS coding and secondly to translate some of my own French articles that were available on my previous site, AstroneF Magazine (which can now be called “late, lamented” I suppose, but not by me). These writings were included in a Scream Queens section that was the main attraction in a very copious menu dedicated to horror, fantasy and science-fiction. Confirmation was made to the person writing these lines that web pages with pictures of attractive women were a big hit, even when fully clothed. So that decided me to actually cough up some bucks and create my own site, knowing that my passion for cult actresses would be shared with fellow enthusiasts… and I could make some money with it.

After unsuccessful associations with Amazon and Gorilla Nation, I decided to go with Google Ads, which has proven quite satisfactory to this day. I deeply know that if I could devote my full time to Cult Sirens, it success could surprise even me. But alas time is precious, as we all know. With my day job being also concerned with web matters, sometimes when I go home I’m still haunted by HTML code (I know that my Avengers site still suffers from negligence).

So yes I became sluggish and the key to revitalize the Cult Sirens brand was the creation of this blog, which is alive since September 2007. I’m satisfied with the always growing number of visitors and most of all my own output. Writing short articles, little essays or simple birthday wishes has kept the interest very high and made me realize that the subject is virtually without limits.

So for 2008, I’ll do my best to keep on being regular, mainly on the blog. I have other projects concerning nice, smiling and healthy-looking women, but these should be more spicier/kinkier and will be of no concern here, as I still try to keep a “no nudity, no vulgarity” policy in these pages. Still, I’ll very soon share a post with you on the subject of pornography that may be surprising…

As for why I keep the Comment option closed, it’s mainly because I don’t care wasting precious hours in handling and moderating all kind of spam and garbage. Simple as that. If you ever want to share information with me, your own views and observations, please see the About page and write me. Interesting feedback could be discussed in a regular post.

So I’ll keep ‘em comin’ if you keep readin’!

It’s the big 4+0+1 for one of the very first guest that ever graced the Cult Sirens site! Tia brought me good luck and I hope the day is as special as the person herself!