Book Review: Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood by Maitland Ward

A compelling and sex-positive tale of female empowerment!

When I heard Maitland Ward was writing a book, I was super excited and couldn’t wait to read it. I’ve always been in awe of Maitland Ward. If you’ve not heard of her or seen her adult work, you should remedy that post haste. At age 42 in 2019, the statuesque ginger goddess entered the adult industry, not just as a cash grab or a lark or to appease the fanboys (and girls!) who always wanted to see her naked, but because it really spoke to her and she loved it. It turns out having acting experience as well as being hot and loving sex are a great recipe for a pornstar. This story is fundamentally a story of someone leaving a job they hated with a toxic workplace culture and starting a career that they loved where they could thrive. These things happen fairly often, but not in the way they happened to Ward. Her first big porn credit was Kayden Kross’s star-studded Drive, released in September of 2019 by Deeper. Entering the porn industry at that age and going right to a high profile studio was unheard of, but she did it anyway, and got tons of awards too, because fuck yeah Maitland Ward, that’s why. Since then she's still been steadily making some awesome work, even having to work around the pandemic, and she's written this memoir too, which has already earned a Kirkus Star. See my earlier statement.

Ward’s mainstream acting career began at 17 when she was cast as Jessica Forrester on the soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful and she was cast at 21 as Rachel McGuire, whose character was introduced during the sixth season of Boy Meets World, part of ABC’s famous TGIF sitcom lineup. While not precisely a “child star”, Ward certainly had her share of creepy groomer types sniffing around and the rest of the cast of Boy Meets World has also been in the news lately talking about the really fucking stressful atmosphere on the show.

Ward’s discussion of her experiences filming Boy Meets World inspired me to actually watch a few episodes (it’s on Disney+ if you’re also curious or just nostalgic) because I’d never seen it. Rachel’s character existed to be fought over by two male characters. Some of the plots are really bizarre like a prank Rachel pulled involving the cast being coated in honey and also involving a live bear. The episode totally takes a weird left turn into “revenge porn” territory (the PG-13 version) with the prank victims exacting their revenge by sharing intimate pics of Rachel. Creepy, right? Some things do not age well. After Boy Meets World wrapped up, she was in the 2004 cinematic masterpiece White Chicks, which is somewhat of a guilty pleasure film that I share with my 74 year old mother who is weirdly obsessed with it. Ward had a few other roles after that, but Hollywood had basically jettisoned her after “a certain age” which seems to creep lower and lower all the time, and because she was unwilling to accept the kind of roles she was being relegated to.  Also in play was the fact that Ward was determined not to hide the fact that she is a human being who openly and enthusiastically enjoys sex and rejected the whole Hollywood madonna-whore complex. She was being told, mostly by men, that she was tanking her acting career with the things she did before entering porn fully-- nude and cosplay photo shoots for Instagram and Snapchat, and appearing in public in provocative clothes. She was gaining tons of nerd cred and a strong fan base with her cosplay choices and having a ball with it. She was being told that to knock off the things that made her feel happy and confident, and if she behaved and toed the line again, she could be on a Disney Channel show as someone’s Mom or star in Hallmark Christmas movies because her hair was so festively red. Yikes! So it was down to a choice of aging madonna playing characters that were boring and cookie cutter, or become a well-paid whore with way more opportunities. I know what I would have chosen!

Ward and I are almost the same age so I really saw some of myself in her early 20s where she discovered kink and even more of myself in her family background. Like Ward, it wasn’t one of those gross purity promise Evangelical households, but definitely not sex positive or a place I could talk about my sexuality openly. I’m glad that her parents were ultimately supportive of her move to porn, by and large. It’s a breezy, fast-moving read that focuses as a memoir should, on the subject’s experiences and not large bloated swaths of trash talk and gossip about others. If you’re looking for a story that will inspire you to go after your dream, no matter how crazy it seems, pick this up!

You can find Rated X in print, ebook, or audiobook formats wherever books are sold on September 6, which is soon, so go mash that pre-order button! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, Ward and Kross will be appearing at a book signing on the release day, so go check that out too! Be sure to check out our Interview with Maitland here where she also discusses her book and other topics.