The thinking man's porn star
At 78, Veronica Vera reflects on five decades of kink, feminism, art, and rebellion.
“The temple has always been a place of intense eroticism for me,” Veronica Vera says to a slightly trepidatious congregation at Judson Memorial Church’s Sunday Service. This is where I first meet Veronica: the bodacious, 78-year-old former sex worker, activist, and doctor of Human Sexuality.
It’s International Whores’ Day: a day to commemorate the 1975 protest in France, when over 200 sex workers occupied a church in Lyon to demand better working conditions and stand against police harassment.
Sex Worker Sunday, curated by Vera, is now an annual event at Judson—the hip West Village church famous for its radical inclusivity. I attended last year’s SW Sunday at the church and watched my friend Nikki Sweet gyrate on a lubed-up dildo in front of jaw-dropped congregants (some of whom, I’m sure—I hope, really—missed the whore’s takeover memo and were just attending what they assumed was a regular Sunday mass). Whether they knew the program or not, I’m absolutely positive no one was briefed about Sweet’s explicit performance. The idea of unwittingly attending a live sex show in your Sunday best truly tickles me.
Anyway, after last year’s dildo-fucking masterpiece, I vowed to never miss a SW Sunday again.
One of the political aims of the service is to support a bill currently before the New York Assembly that would amend the penal law to decriminalize sex work. Jo Weldon—who read a summary of Assembly Bill A3251—offers a great breakdown of the legislation, along with a much-needed clarification for anyone who 1) confuses decrim with legalization or 2) is “hesitant to support the decriminalization of sex work because you have been socialized to believe that sex work is human trafficking and that lifting the penalties against it will make children vulnerable” (which, spoiler, is not true).
Back to Veronica. Her speech was moving, provocative, holy. You can listen to Veronica’s sermon and the entire service here. Below is just a taste.
From a very early age, God and my sexuality were linked. When I put my fingers into my underpants and heard Mama say, ‘God does not like that.’
In school, the nuns told me that my body was a temple, but I was not allowed to enter my temple. God forbid anyone else enter my temple. Motivated by my natural curiosity, a healthy libido, and the innate belief that I was essentially good, I decided I needed to find my own answers.
I followed a path of pleasure. I redesigned my body temple from frightened girl to uninhibited sex pot— and I found places where I could play.
I desperately needed to hear every story about every place Vera had played. So when she invited me over to her apartment this month to hang out, I brought my recording device.
Let me tell you about Veronica Vera’s insatiably erotic life.
from Catholic girl to New York sex pot 1969-1979
Vera moves to NYC in 1969 to become a writer.
She fails every typing test at the major publishing houses and ends up on Wall Street, working for a trading firm.
In 1977, she moves into a Chelsea apartment—where she’s been now for 48 years.
Her next-door neighbor, Robert Lock, a gay Australian man, becomes her BFF. The building is quirky: every two apartments are connected by a door in the kitchen. Vera and Robert treat theirs (3C + 3D) as one shared home.
She has a series of boyfriends, and the “repressed Catholic girl” finally starts exploring her sexuality.
wall street guys make for good erotica 1979–1982
Vera meets VK McCarty, editor at Penthouse Variations, through the Andy Warhol scene in 1979.
She writes her first story for the magazine—“The Taste of Love”—about a man’s first experiences giving oral sex, inspired by the various men she meets on Wall Street.
The check comes in. And like any properly legitimized writer, she immediately flees to Paris.
writers with whips 1982-1983
Through VK, Vera meets Marco Vassi, the prolific erotic writer.
Vassi invites her to Woodstock to teach her about BDSM—“the perfect thing to step into after Catholicism.” While visiting photographer Charles Gatewood, she meets Annie Sprinkle, the legendary porn star and performance artist.
Their meet-cute is everything you'd hope for: Sprinkle descends the stairs in pink baby-doll pajamas, clutching European fetish porn mags.
Vera and Sprinkle become instant best friends. Sprinkle starts bringing her to fetish parties. Soon, the Sprinkle-Vera Salon is born—an art-and-kink event series hosted in Sprinkle’s apartment.
They run a public access TV show from the apartment, but it keeps getting censored, which is “boring,” so they quit.
Vera plunges headfirst into the New York erotic scene. She models for Robert Mapplethorpe, Charles Gatewood, Joel-Peter Witkin, Eric Kroll. She is tattooed by Spider Webb and celebrates piercing with Fakir Musafar.
She also writes for various B-tier sex mags like Stag, Cheri, and Hustler.
Sprinkle and Vera show up in DIY cut-and-paste zines—early zine culture gold. They launch mail-order fetish products: Annie’s Sprinkle (pee-colored liquid in tiny perfume bottles—Sprinkle was Queen of the Golden Shower at the time), Eau de Veronique, and Pubic Hair Ritual Kits.
“the thinking man’s porn star” 1983-1984
Vera stars in her first X-rated movie. She’s interviewed by Jared Rutter, editor of ADAM magazine, who dubs her “the thinking man’s porn star.”
She’s then given a monthly column—Veronica Vera’s New York—which she writes for over a decade. In it, she explores BDSM dungeons, Plato’s Retreat, fetish parties, Time Square sex emporiums such as Show World, and the city’s underground sex scene.
In 1984, she testifies before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee as part of the Reagan administration’s crusade against obscenity. She reads erotica aloud and displays bondage photos as visual aids. Her testimony is later immortalized in the infamous Meese Report—a moral panic document masquerading as federal policy.
club 90 1984–1989
In 1984, at a baby shower for porn star Veronica Hart, a cluster of porn and porn-adjacent professionals realize how valuable it would be to gather regularly and talk about their struggles, goals, and experiences in the industry. Club 90 is born.
They begin meeting every two weeks in the city. Founding members include Veronica Vera, Annie Sprinkle, Gloria Leonard, Candida Royalle, Veronica Hart, Kelly Nichols, and Susan Nero. One day, Royalle brings in a flyer for an art festival called Carnival Knowledge. It’s asking the question: Is there a feminist pornography?—and putting out a call for proposals. Club 90 pitches a show based on their meetings: Deep Inside Porn Stars. The performance is a hit. They even get an Off-Broadway offer.
In 1986, Vera’s best friend Robert Lock is diagnosed with AIDS. They get married in their Chelsea courtyard. The Season 3 finale of HBO’s The Deuce was based on that wedding (Vera consulted on all three seasons). After Lock dies, she hires a lawyer and secures the lease to his apartment. She keeps both units for the next ten years.
Sprinkle debuts The Post Porn Modernist Show—a radical one-woman performance blending sex, art, and autobiography to explore feminist porn, spirituality, and the politics of pleasure. Vera contributes a sex-positive manifesto for the program, which is printed and circulated globally.
miss vera’s finishing school for boys who want to be girls 1986–1997
Vera begins working with cross-dressers as a coach.
Word spreads. She gets more and more clients. She brings in a friend to help with makeup, another to teach walking in high heels. Eventually, she throws a party for the academy, with some of her students showing up in French maid outfits.
When New York Magazine hears there might be “a couple of guys in cute little dresses,” they ask if they can send a photographer. It turns into a full-page color spread.
The official launch of Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls happens in 1992—a full-blown gender revolution that predates the mainstreaming of the term “transgender.”
The academy becomes an international media sensation, featured in New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, LA Times, PAPER, New York Post, and People.
In 1997, she publishes Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls. And in 2003, she follows it with Miss Vera’s Cross-Dress for Success.
grief and glamour 2002–2010
In 2007, Vera meets Stuart Cottingham at a neighbor’s party. She’s announcing a new class she’s planning: a “how to walk in heels” workshop for all women.
A woman pipes up: “Oh, so you're going to have guys in dresses in class with us women?” Vera replies, “Well, it's really not accurate to call them ‘guys in dresses,’ because they feel very strongly that they're women.” A voice behind her chimes in: “Right on.” It’s Stu—a bisexual cross-dresser. “He was so open about it,” Vera says. “I found it very refreshing, and that was what I found attractive about him.”
They fall in love and get married in 2012 at Judson Memorial Church (home of Sex Worker Sunday Service). Stu passes away the following year from a glioblastoma. He is the third man Vera has cared for at the end of their life.
archiving the revolution 2010s–present
Harvard’s Schlesinger Library acquires Vera’s personal archive—along with Club 90 materials.
She and Sprinkle are featured in the HBO documentary Dear Ms.
In 2016, she publishes Miss Vera’s Cross Gender Fun for All. She’s currently at work on a memoir.
There’s even talk of officially relaunching Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls—and if it happens, I’ll be the first to tell you.
What struck me most about our conversation—the hilarious, tender, and titillating vignettes of Vera’s life aside—was the feeling that, in the ’80s, any art project, even the freakiest little seed of an idea, felt possible to bring to life. I found myself incredibly envious of the breadth of Vera’s creative output. But I won’t waste that envy. I’ll harness it and let it feed me.
I think that’s why Substack feels so appealing right now: free rein to publish, to explore thoughts (even the unsellable ones), to connect with others who are hungry like me.
Speaking of which, should Veronica Vera come to Substack? I think she should. In the meantime, here’s where you can find her early columns.
Wow, I absolutely loved this! Thanks for introducing her to us. And I especially love meeting women who've lived passionate, deeply fulfilled lives apart from motherhood.
officially obsessed now with her, literally searching for the HBO documentary as we speak