Marilyn Chambers Slept Here

An Early Start

I started taking guitar lessons when I was eleven-years-old. Around that time, my parents took me to a party at their best friends’ house. I knew my father’s friend played guitar, and upon hearing that I had taken a couple of lessons, he brought out his guitar and played some songs. He even taught me a few simple ones, classic rock songs, ones I still know to this day. Then he made a face and began sniffing around. Finally, he put his nose into the hole of the acoustic guitar, sniffed, and then said, “Woooooo! It smells like Marilyn Chambers slept here.” The room broke into laughter, so I joined in. My mother, of course, had to embarrass me.

“How would YOU know?” she said, which made everyone laugh harder and made me want to crawl into a hole in the ground.

My mother could not have conceived of her prepubescent son having any knowledge of Marilyn Chambers. What my mother didn’t know was that I had started watching pornography two years earlier. I had already seen Marilyn Chambers deepthroating John Holmes’ cock.

My first exposure to pornography was in print form. It happened by accident. My friend and I came upon a weathered and torn Hustler magazine in the woods behind his house. It only had two intact pages, but we could clearly see a man with his large, erect penis stuffed between a naked woman’s colossal tits. The other page showed his penis in her mouth.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but I liked it. A lot. I was fascinated by the mix of mysterious imagery and a physical sensation that griped certain parts of my body. We brought the pages into school the next day and shared them with the other boys in our fourth-grade class . My friend and I were kings for a day, explorers who had returned with treasure for all. From that moment on, our fourth-grade lexicon was dominated by one word: boner. “Did you see the size of that guy’s boner?” “Wow, that was a big boner.“ “Boner!“ One day around Halloween our teacher brought in a cardboard cut-out of a skeleton with the words “Pull a boner!” written at the top. She was an older lady, and I know now what I didn't know then, that “pull a boner” is archaic slang for “make a joke” or “pull a prank.” We all nearly died. I don’t know if I have ever experienced such joy like I did that day; at most, I’ve gotten a fleeting glimpse, a distant ship’s smoke on the horizon. In our incredulous, unsophisticated way, we had passed harsh judgment on our teacher for being so far out of touch. She finally figured out what had made us so giddy and took the skeleton home, which made us laugh, even more, imagining what she was planning to do with the skeleton later that night.

Those two water-stained and moldy pages of porn were more than just smut. They were a unifying device, something just us. They transcended social status and interests. Not everyone was into sports, not everyone was into music, not everyone was into getting good grades. But everyone was into that.

Marilyn Chambers: How does she Compare to Today’s Porn Stars?

I know, I know, comparing porn stars across the decades is like doing a similar comparison with athletes. Who’s better, Jordan or LeBron? Ty Cobb or Pete Rose? Nadia Comăneci or Gabby Douglas? Is it fair to compare Marilyn to Alexis Texas or Nicole Aniston or Asa Akira? Maybe, maybe not. Do such comparisons mean anything? I don’t know, but it deserves a closer look.

The Good, the Bad, and the Bumpin’ Uglies

Let’s start in reverse order so we can end on a nice, positive note.

The Ugly

Hair, hair, hair. You can’t complain about it enough. Sure, some guys say they like it. Fuck them, they are mutants. Either that, or they’ve never had sex, never watched porn, or both. In today’s world of shaved beavers and waxed poles, the acres of bush you’ll see in any porn that has a “19” in the beginning of the year is harrowing. You forgot human beings could grow so much pubic hair, didn’t you? It looks like a hemp sweater that had a pot of coffee spilled on it. How can you compare a video with a totally shaved starlet to one with a woman who looks like she went into Seth Brundle’s “The Fly” teleporter with a gorilla? You can’t, and it’s not fair to do so.

But let’s not forget the hair on top. Yes, hairstyle is important. Marilyn Chambers made Behind the Green Door in 1972. Her hair looked like this.

She looks adorable and sexy.
But this is her hair ten years later while she’s blowing Tom Byron.

Her hair sucks. It’s almost a boner-killer, as my eleven-year-old self would say. It’s not her fault. These people were on so much coke they did crazy stuff like feather their hair, golden eagle-style.

The Bad

Body Sculpting. It is unfair to compare porn stars of the 60’s and 70’s with the ones of today because there are so many more things a starlet can do to make her body look otherworldly, like something from the top of Mount Olympus (other than with plastic surgery). We know so much more about nutrition, including how to lose fat and build muscle. We know more about how to exercise and ways to do it (Stairmasters, hot yoga, cold yoga, kickboxing).

Considering only the body, I would rather watch Bella French. Just make sure to mute the sound.

The Good

Skill is the great equalizer. Always was, always will be. If you compare the skill Marilyn possesses, she surpasses many of the porn stars of today. Take this example of the blowjob she gives John Holmes, the original Sir Lots-a-Cock.

https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1281980866

It’s pretty hot. Chambers and other porn stars of her generation were pioneers of doing this in front of the camera.

Speaking of mad skills, one of the most famous scenes from Behind the Green Door shows Marilyn servicing four guys at the same time. They are all suspended in air and Marilyn is being fucked by one, is blowing another, and is jerking off two more. It looks like something out of Cirque du Soleil. She possesses an athleticism and coordination that makes her the HoseBeast-est with the Most-est.

What Have We Learned?

So how does Marilyn Chambers rate when compared to porn starlets of today? I still have trouble getting past the hair, but if I try really hard and imagine her with a sexy haircut with maybe some pink streaks in it, she delivers the goods.

I think the Behind the Green Door version of Marilyn Chambers, the nineteen-year-old version, holds her own against today’s starlets and then some. Unfortunately, Marilyn didn’t age well. You can see it even in her films from her mid-twenties when she started making goofy faces while fucking.

A more interesting question is would she be the legend she is today if she were starting out today? I’m not so sure. I’m reminded of what scientists say about physics at the turn of the 20th century. They said during that time it was possible for a second-rate physicist to perform first-rate work because the field was so open and new. Forty years later, and it was difficult for a first-rate scientist to perform second-rate work. I think the same is true of porn. In the late 60s and early 70s, not many women were doing it. If you were a reasonably attractive woman who was willing to fuck in front of the camera, you were golden. Not so anymore. The industry is saturated with men and women who are lining up to fuck for peanuts. Fortunately for them, there is still an ever-increasing demand for it. Still—and this is basic natural selection—the porn stars have to be gorgeous and highly skilled because there is increased competition. How would Marilyn Chambers have fared? The romantic in me likes to think she would fare well. However, when I’m online and feeling a little frisky, do I watch Marilyn Chambers movies? Sometimes, but mostly it’s for the sake of curiosity and a sense of nostalgia.

And yet, I’m still searching for something. It seems there are fewer and fewer serendipitous discoveries waiting for me in life, fewer walks in the woods with explorations and resulting treasure. I haven’t read print pornography in a decade at least, everything is online now. It is great, but it can be overwhelming. Sometimes I do long for the old times. That’s when I seek out old Marilyn. And there she is, sucking fat cock like a champ. She is so singular of purpose. She’s taking it in the ass and the snatch at the same time, and she’s fucking owning it. There is no doubt who is in charge. Marilyn Chambers is in charge.