Nina Hartley on San Francisco

This week’s Chronicle/Gate column is a quick interview with Nina Hartley; she was in town last weekend and I caught her for a few minutes to ask her about her porn history and feelings about San Francisco, her terrific new book, being a porn sex educator, and even what her favorite restaurants are here. Snip:

“VB: Any crazy anecdotes about doing porn in the Bay Area?

NH: I actually have too many to recount, as I made about 250 movies in the Bay Area between 1984 and 1988, when production moved to Los Angeles. The reason porn was being shot up here, when the majority of the crew and cast, as well as the production offices, were in Los Angeles, was to avoid the police harassment taking place on sets in the Southland. There, cops were busting naked people and scaring the bejeezus out of them with threats of prostitution charges, etc., if they didn’t ‘roll over’ on the producers. Here, it was more a case of ‘just don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.’ Mayor Feinstein was pretty anti-adult entertainment, but she didn’t make much of a dent in it.” Link.

* Image of Nina and Randy Spears from the super-hot Nina Hartley’s Guide to Erotic Bondage; in this instance, Randy represents San Francisco.

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