Journey Without Clothes: Kay Parker on “Taboo”

Kay Parker was a student in an improv class when she met porn actor John Leslie in 1979. "I knew that when he asked me to be in a film with him that it was probably a porno," she said, but she went anyway.

That outing led to a meeting with director Kirdy Stevens. Parker talks about her experience making Stevens' groundbreaking "Taboo" series - each title dealing with a different societal no-no - in terms too rapturous to be believed today.

"There truly were mystical forces at work behind this whole endeavor," she said of her and Stevens' first effort, in 1980, in which she has sex with her son, played by Mike Granger.

Join us after the gap for more of Parker's interview, taken from the re-release of the series. - GP

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Over the course of several movies that eventually substituted incest for gradually less-shocking subjects (and modern-day knockoffs only loosely cling to the original premise, with gonzos about smoking), "Taboo" featured career-highlight performances from the likes of Ginger Lynn, Lisa Lake, Ron Jeremy, Pamela Mann, and Nina Hartley. But it was Parker who seemed most moved by the gig.

"I got panicky at the penetration" she said of her first on-camera sex. "I knew that once it was shot, I was branded with an X forever. (But) I think there was an incredible energy between Mike and myself and God and Spirit."

Parker belongs to a generation that came to porn via a groovier route (it was San Francisco, after all.) Still, she was apprehensive when Stevens offered her the role of an "aging, abandoned woman."

"I was a little idealistic," she said. "But I thought, 'he's gonna make the movie anyway, so I might as well do it.'"

But she admits to having been attracted to Granger, so "I tried to infuse as much love into the scene as I could."

I do the same thing with my work for Gawker Media.

Parker said she was trying to be a "legitimate actress" but her plans got changed for her.

"I had to strip down naked to begin my journey," she said.

· Standard Digital (addictednow.com)

· Buy "Taboo" (gamelink.com)

Previously: Interview Archive