You Really Can Blame It All On Ginger: Our Exclusive Interview With Ginger Lynn

The term legend, while certainly a compliment, doesn't quite do Ginger Lynn justice. She's a survivor. At one time, she was the absolute biggest name in the industry, and the fact that she's not only still working, but making herself relevant and indispensable, is a feat very few other women in the industry have done. Though she doesn't perform as much as she used to, she's got her fingers in so many different pies that she doesn't really have to at this point. 

By far her biggest passion project is her podcast Blame it on Ginger, which is one of the craziest and funniest podcasts on the web, let alone sex-focused podcasts. With a rotating lineup of co-hosts with as much industry cred as Ginger herself—Nina Hartley and Kelly Nichols among them—Ginger has not only found something that sates her creative needs, but that she's actually damn good at. I had a chance to chat with Ginger just before Thanksgiving, and we discussed a number of topics including her longevity, her radio show, and the craziest thing she's ever sold on her auction site GingerLynnAuctions.com

Tucker Bankshot: When did you first become aware of the adult industry and did that coincide with you realizing that it was something you wanted to do for a living, or were those two separate moments?

Ginger Lynn: I first became aware of the adult industry when I was sixteen years old. My boyfriend and I snuck off to a place on the outskirts of town, out past the cow fields and the corn fields, and we would go out there and watch movies. So the very first film I saw had Vanessa Del Rio in it, and she was just amazing. I remember getting turned on and getting excited. I didn’t necessarily think about being in films at all at that point in time, it was just something new and exciting.

In September of 1983, I first posed for Penthouse Magazine, and within a couple of weeks of that, my agent asked me if I would want to be in commercial films, and at that time I thought commercial meant toothpaste (both laugh). So when I found out what it was I was a bit taken aback, it wasn’t something that I thought I wanted to do, and I hadn’t really seen anything else besides the Vanessa Del Rio film at that point, so I didn’t immediately go, yes this is a career I want to get in to! I thought that I was different. I thought that I was that kind of a girl, whatever that kind of a girl was, and it took me posing for magazines for about three months, and I met this beautiful girl one day that was intelligent, and articulate, and she was reading a script, and I was just taken aback by the fact that she didn’t seem like that kind of a girl either.  

So I asked if I could take her to lunch, and I basically picked her brain about what she charged, and what her rules were, and how she felt about it, and all of the things that I wanted to know, because at that point I was curious. So that was the day that I went back into my agent’s office and said, “I’m going to do this. These are the rules, these are the things that I want,” and that was December 9, 1983 that I made my first movie.  

TB: Wow! I recently chatted with Nina Hartley, and you and she both started right around the same time, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask the same question I asked of her… 

GL: Absolutely.

TB: At what point in time did you begin to think about long term viability within the adult industry? Nowadays it seems that a lot of performers are more savvy and begin making plans for longevity a lot sooner, but when did you make a conscious effort to really make this a long term career? 

GL: I’d been making films and been in the industry for about six months when my family found out what I was doing, and I started making bad decisions. I started not showing up to set, I started showing up unprepared, and basically I was fucking up. So, one day I was in my apartment and Suze Randall came over to my home, and she walked into my house, she sat me down, we smoked a joint, and she said to me, “You either need to be in this, or get out of it. If you’re gonna be in this, you need to make this a business, you need to incorporate, you need to make decisions that are appropriate, and when you say you’re gonna be there, you need to suit up and show up. Basically, do it right, or get out.” So, like I said it was about six months after I got into it, late spring or early summer of ’84.

TB: Yeah, it’s interesting to me because there were—and I don’t mean casualties in the sense of people dying—but there were a lot of career casualties from that time period and people that no longer have the visibility that someone such as yourself does, so it’s always interesting to me to find out when people make that decision, and you’ve got a great story there.

GL: Yeah, it was the day Suze walked in and told me to get my shit together (both laugh). So, yeah, I’m eternally grateful to her. I followed her advice and hired an entertainment attorney, and I have every contract from every project I’ve ever done, from my A movies, my adult films, my magazine contracts, my dancing contracts. I’ve got my history in a film cabinet downstairs. I never imagined that I would be 51 years old and still working in the industry in one way or another. 

TB: Yeah, that’s incredible. The thing that interests me the most, though, is that as I was researching you, you’ve managed to adapt and really create your own opportunities to stay relevant. You were proactive, is what I’m trying ineloquently to say, you weren’t sitting around waiting for the next thing to happen.

GL: No, not at all, and I’ve been really fortunate with radio. I got into radio 12 years ago, I went to do an interview on someone else’s show, and in the midst of the interview I said, “I could do this stuff, this would be great for me,” and the producer heard me, and he called me up and said, “I’ll give you a show to do once a week.” So I started doing that show, and then Playboy heard me, I was doing their show as a permanent guest host, I would sit in for people, and I did that for about two years before I got my own contract. And so now I’m on iTunes with “Blame it on Ginger,” and I’ve been doing radio for 12 years now, and in the midst of that I just finished a film up in Canada called The House of Many Sorrows, a mainstream horror film, but I can’t tell you what happens in it, you’ll have to go and see it for yourself (both laugh). 

And another thing that I’ve been doing for coming up on six years now is GingerLynnAuctions.com. That came about because I saved everything, as I already told you about with my contracts. I had the dress that I wore to my first XRCO Awards, I have the jacket I wore on my first red carpet, I save everything including my lingerie, which I used to sell on ebay, and they stopped allowing that. So I looked around at other sites and there was nothing out there that was classy, that was done well and professionally run, so I brought this all up when I started GingerLynnAuctions.com

TB: That’s funny because that’s actually one of my questions was if the idea for the site sprang out fully formed or did it evolve over time into what it is now?

GL: Well, my initial thought was that it would be a place for the girls to go to make some money and sell their lingerie, because most folks wear something once or twice and that’s it. So I wanted to give back, and what I realized is that girls are lazy in this business (both laugh). They don’t take the initiative to do anything, so I started shooting the girls, calling up some of my friends and saying, “Bring over what you got and we’ll play around a little bit and have a good time,” and so my first weekend I shot 17 girls and got them all up. So it evolved into me now shooting two to three times per week, and I’ve got over 300 girls up on the site, even though I never intended to be a photographer and an editor, you know? (Both laugh) I thought I would just be posting a few of my things occasionally and it would just sort of run itself, but it’s not working out that way. 

TB: Another question I had about the site is if you’re ever surprised by some of the items that have sold at auction, and if so, which one surprised you the most?

GL: You know, the things that sell on a consistent, daily basis, the things that the guys really love are the girls’ used panties, and there’s nothing bizarre or unusual about that, that’s just what they buy 95% of the time. The other thing that they tend to like a lot are pantyhose, shoes, and used dildos. 

TB: Well, there’s nothing necessarily out of the ordinary in that, I was just thinking more along the lines of you’ll have one or two things that you’ll put on the site and think, this will never sell, but then all of a sudden…

GL: Okay, well, the strangest thing that we’ve ever sold on GingerLynnAuctions.com was… It’s so silly, I don’t even want to tell you (both laugh)… I do this bit on my radio show called, “Can my kitty melt this?” and I have what I call a bionic pussy. It can take anything, and my pH balance is perfect. So this particular day, we decided to see how many gummy bears we could get inside my pussy, and what would happen when they came out, would they melt, what would they do? It turned out that they formed into the shape of my pussy, but we didn’t really think about how we were going to get them back out again. So basically it was like giving birth, and at the end I was left with a five inch gummy bear impression of my twat that came out, and I put it in a baggie and sold it on GingerLynnAuctions.com.

TB: Wow! (Both laugh) You should start your own candy factory doing that… You’d be the Willy Wonka of the adult auction world. 

GL: So yeah, I guess that would be the strangest thing that we sold. Definitely outside the norm. 

TB: To go back to your radio show for a minute, you recently crossed over from satellite radio in the world of multi-media internet radio. Do you find that you have a lot more freedom to do the show that you’ve always wanted to do now, or do you miss the more structured format that came from working in an industry setting?

GL: There’s no doubt that I have much more freedom now to do whatever it is that I want. I love being where I am now in radio, having a podcast where I have the freedom to do whatever I want. It’s my show, I have fantastic co-hosts every day of the week: I have Nina Hartley on Mondays, I have Nancy Monroe on Tuesdays, I have comedian Ro Delagrazie on Wednesdays, and I have Kelly Nichols on Thursdays. So with that team of girls, you know, with Nina and Kelly, we’re all seasoned women that have been in the industry for, the three of us combined it’s scary to say, ninety years (both laugh). So there’s an element of camaraderie and we grew up together, these women and I. Our shows are always very intimate and we know each other very, very well which lends itself to fantastic radio. 

TB: Yeah, it’s great. My next question was about a specific episode, the one that I listened to, which was your recent episode with Shayla LaVeaux which was pretty crazy. Do you think that was one of the craziest shows you’ve done to date, or is that just sort of par for the course?

GL: You know, it goes in spurts. The day before we had full on fisting, where Nina Hartley fisted Daisy Ducati in the studio and it was amazing, and beautiful, and hot. She laid on my lap as Nina fisted her and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life, and such a turn-on. We’ve had pegging in the studio, and you know, some days we have nothing but comedy. One of the games I play when we have comedians in, because I like to bust their balls literally, is called “Shock the Monkey,” and I’ve got electrodes that I hook up to the testicles and I ask them some sort of sexual quiz-type question, and if they get it right, their comedic partner gets their balls shocked, and if they get it wrong, they get their balls shocked (both laugh).

We’re always changing it up, you know? We’ve done fanny facials, the episode with Shayla is one of my favorites of all time, but it’s by no means one of the most extreme. I don’t think there’s any other radio out there like it.

TB: Absolutely. I listen mostly to comedy podcasts, but that’s because I hadn’t found anything that was industry focused or sex focused that I enjoyed listening to, and just after the one I listened to this morning I thought, yeah, I’m on board for this. Changing gears again, you wear a lot of hats: Actress, model, radio personality, and artist. If you could only pick one of those to pursue for the rest of your life, which one would you choose, which is the most edifying?

GL: If I only get one, I’m gonna go with radio. I’m definitely gonna go with radio. They’re all passions of mine, and I would hate to have to choose, but that is by far what gets me most excited every day. It’s two hours a day where I get to go in and I do nothing but play. I get to be 18 again, and make silly decisions, and be goofy and silly and sexy and naughty, and all of the things that you think when you listen to it, I wanna go there, I wanna be like that, I wanna do that, and it gives other people permission to feel and do and be accepted feeling the way that they do about things. It’s okay, whoever you are and wherever your sexuality may be.

TB: No, that’s great, and such a perfect outlet for that. I’m glad that this question is just a hypothetical and you don’t literally have to choose.

GL: Yeah, and that is great because whenever I have the urge to paint, and again it comes in spurts—I keep using that word today, but it seems to be my word of the day—and it’s been about three months, so I’m starting to get the itch again. I can only paint when I feel something emotionally whether it be joy or happiness or anger. One of my latest pieces that I love is called “Mad Love” and my boyfriend and I have been together coming up on seven years, and we’ve had two fights. One of those two was about six months ago and I couldn’t sleep, and my heart was beating fast, and I was so mad, but I tried to be cool about it so I went downstairs and I painted this giant 72 inches by 48 inches painting and it’s amazing. So thank god I don’t have to give any of them up because I’m getting that urge back. 

TB: Well, that was the impetus for that question was that you said, and I’m paraphrasing, that you could express more through your art than you ever could with words, and so I wondered if you had to pick your voice through radio or your emotions through painting… I’m rambling. 

GL: Well, I get to be creative every day on the radio, and as much as I would love to be creative every day as an artist, I don’t find that I am. Now, I do other things as well, I design jewelry, so if I’m not feeling into painting, I can switch over and work on my jewelry. I’m a geek in a lot of ways, I knit and I sew. 

TB: Going back to your work in adult, you took a very brief detour into directing in the early 2000s. What made you decide that you wanted to go behind the camera, and what made you decide that it maybe just wasn’t a good fit?

GL: VCX, a company that handles a lot of older films, stuff from the 70s and 80s, they approached me with this idea for new films, and they said, “We want you to direct.” So they gave me a budget, and I found a way to shoot six films in three days (both laugh), guerrilla filmmaking at its best, and I had a blast. It was called Ginger’s Picks, and I put a site up on the internet where civilians could go post their photos and a little bio about why they should be one of Ginger’s Picks, why they thought they should be in the film, and people could go and vote for them. So we chose the ten most voted for women and the ten most voted for men, flew them out to Los Angeles, put them up in a hotel near my house, and I just had everything down to the minute as far as how we were going to film it, who was on break, I had it all worked out, and it was an amazing experience.

But I found that I didn’t want to do it again because I call it wrangling kittens. Wrangling kittens is a challenge, and here I had 20 civilians and they were fucking in between shooting and they were off doing this and that. I had them stay at my house just so that they’d behave themselves, and so I thought I really didn’t want to be a babysitter, and in this industry, part of keeping you set running smoothly is keeping everybody happy and by doing that it takes a lot of energy, and it is a lot like being a den mother, you know, mother hen maybe. It was just too much work for me, I put too much of it on myself.

But… I just went into a partnership with a company called PanoPorn and their motto is “Revolutionizing the Fucking Industry” (both laugh). So they have this camera called “The Ladybug,” and it’s a cylinder that hangs from the ceiling, and there are five cameras on it, so it shoots everything in 360 degrees. So we had five different setups all over the room and the camera could see all five of them at the same time, and while viewing it, you have the ability to control the camera. You can zoom in, you can focus here or there, it’s like you’re in the room. It’s the coolest thing ever and we just did our first live show and I took on the role of den mother again (both laugh).

TB: Well, that sounds like fun, or at least not as intense as what you were doing before. That brings me to my last question which is just if there’s anything else you’d like your fans to know? 

GL: I want to thank them all for being there and sticking with me, and all of the new fans, too. I do it all for them, and I couldn’t do it without them.

Listen to & download Ginger's podcast Blame it on Ginger at SkidRowStudios.com or subscribe on iTunes

Follow Ginger on Twitter @BlameitonGinger

Visit her auction site GingerLynnAuctions.com

Visit her art site GingerLynnArt.com