Bern Porter’s Wild Sexual Life with Anais Nin or
Wild Imaginings?
by Steven Reigns,
www.stevenreigns.com
In
the late 1990s, Bern Porter, a physicist turned avant-garde publisher in the
1940s, did a series of interviews that became books published by Roger Jackson.
These staple-bound, premium paper stock, ink-illustrated editions were
formatted in a Q&A style conducted by one Natasha Bernstein, a presumed
pseudonym for Sheila Holtz, who was Porter’s live-in companion. In these “interviews,”
Porter tells fantastic tales of Nin’s sex life with him and with others.
The
first in this series, My Affair with Anaïs
Nin, starts off with Porter meeting Nin in the fall of 1935 at an open
house conducted by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. He states how Nin made
passes at three men and a female, all of whom declined her advances. Porter writes
that Nin then sat next to him, drinking tea with one hand while the other hand,
under the table, had “a full grip on my penis…very hard and very big.” This
scene ends with Porter and Nin getting up to leave the party. According to
Porter, Toklas had been watching the scene under the table and “made beckoning
signs to me.” As he says goodbye to Toklas, she opens the front of her dress,
unzips his trousers, and rubs him between her legs until he ejaculates on her. Nin
and Porter then walk a couple of blocks quietly, because Nin “knew what she
wanted… It wasn’t necessary to talk,” to a bar with an “hour room.” Porter goes
into great detail about the sex he had with Nin, her washing his penis, and her
overgrown mass of public hair. Most serious Nin readers would see this story as
suspect at best, but those familiar only with the public reputation evoked by her
name may find it fitting. What is the reality?
Gertrude
Stein was known to be jealous. Would she have let such a scene transpire
between Porter and Toklas? Linda Simon, Toklas’s biographer, states, “I have no
evidence that Alice had sexual relationships during the time she lived with Stein,
or ever with a man” (personal communication). Anaïs’s very presence at the open
house is suspect. Looking through the original diaries housed at UCLA, there is
no mention of the event in the journals numbered 36, 48, and 49. These journals
were searched for falls of 1936, 1935, and 1937. Nin chronicled almost all
activities, and it seems nearly impossible that she would not have mentioned
attending one of the well-known Stein and Toklas gatherings. One suspects she
would have at least mentioned Bern Porter, but his name is absent.
Even
the time of this particular story comes into question. According to Porter, the
open house started at 4:00 PM. Porter claimed he walked with Nin to the bar at about
“quarter after five,” and later states that “She’d been playing with my penis for
the better part of an hour” under the table. This means that Nin’s unwanted
advances with the three men and one woman all took place within fifteen minutes
before she sidled up to Porter. The chronology doesn’t add up.
The
second section of this book consists of Porter recounting a meeting with Nin in
New York in the winter of 1937. Once again, there is no record of this in the
original unpublished diary, numbered 49. He mentions her printing press and the
living situation with Hugo. The rest is details about having vaginal and anal
sex with Nin.
The
series of books in which Porter recounts his “affair” range from Nin orally
servicing a line of 40 gay men after a reading in a private home in San
Francisco to Rupert arranging lesbian orgies at their house in Silver Lake.
Margo
Schevill, widower of Porter biographer James Schevill, believes “Porter did
exaggerate details and embellished the truth” (personal communication). Margot
Duxler, author of Seduction: A Portrait
of Anaïs Nin, said, “[It] made me laugh. It certainly wasn’t the Anaïs I
knew. Nor the Rupert I knew!” (personal communication). Tristine Rainer, once a
confidant of Nin and now working on a memoir of their friendship, says, “I
think the story about Anaïs servicing all those guys sounds spurious; she was
too much of a romantic for it to ring true” (personal communication). Duxler
confirms, “Anaïs may have used her sexuality as a means to connect with others
but connection was the main dynamic…orgies just don’t sound like her at all”
(personal communication).
One
has to question why Bern Porter would bother to tell such stories. One theory
could be that the validity of Nin’s diaries were being questioned at the time
of the interview. Maybe Porter saw the unreliability of Nin’s diary narration
as an opportunity to spin his outrageous tales. There is no evidence Nin and
Porter ever actually had sex. To determine this definitively would require a
detailed page-by-page reading of the original diaries. Given the numerous
accounts of affairs, one can’t help but think not all the sexual encounters Porter
clams to have had with Nin could be fabricated. In the book Questions about Henry Miller No One Ever
Asked Me—With Answers, Porter is directly asked about having a sexual
relationship with Nin. He only recounts one incident at the printing press. Maybe
this was true, but why the fisherman’s tales? Porter, lonely and living in
Belfast, Maine, could have wanted to enhance his reputation and desirability to
other women by sharing stories about his sexual connection to Nin. Margo Schevill
states, “Women found Porter charming.” Physically speaking, he was not very fit
or conventionally attractive. By his own account, he was well endowed and
sexually skilled. In the first book, we are given a glimpse of the relationship
between Porter and the interviewer, “Natasha Bernstein,” after she responds to
Porter’s claim that he penetrated Nin anally. “Don’t say ‘mm hmm!’… You see,…it’s
clear that whatever I did to Anaïs I have done to you.” The interviewer could
have omitted this, and yet it was left in, a moment when even she is aligning
herself with Nin’s sexual linage. In an introduction to another book in the
series, she states Porter and she are no longer in a romantic relationship.
In
the only biography on Porter, Where To
Go, What To Do, When You Are Bern Porter, by James Schevill, Porter talks of always being in love with Anaïs
Nin but does not mention anything about a sexual relationship with her. Schevill
records Nin’s inscriptions written to Porter in her books: “I am learning from
your books now” to “With admiration for the way you fuse science and
literature” and “Your dual activities, poetry and science are the future
synthesis.” These could be seen as evidence of closeness, although in the UCLA
special collection is an undated letter on Bern Porter’s stationery giving an
address in Alabama. He writes, “Not sure if you still provide autographed
copies of your books now direct from you. If so, I’ll buy if autographed to me
personally.” He then lists the new titles he’d like.
Porter,
though once a scientist by trade, had an interesting concept of the female
anatomy and seemed a bit fixated on Anaïs’s in particular.
In
a letter postmarked August 29, 1990 to Henry Miller biographer Mary Dearborn,
Porter writes that Nin had “an examination by a Russian doctor early—that her
anatomy would never allow pregnancy or pills, diaphragms, salves never needed. Resulting
in an incredible sex life—4-6 lovers a week at some periods male and female.”
Porter
states in The Silver Lake book that Nin had her first orgasm with him. This is
a claim that Rupert Pole, Nin’s second husband, once made. Perhaps this was a
line Nin had given to more than one lover. Porter states e.e. cummings had sex
with Nin and was concerned about her inability to orgasm.
In
A Sex Oriented Woman, Porter claims that
“Three separate medical authorities stated from the evidence men penetrated Nin
from 12 to 16 and as many as 20 times a week for a period of 3-8 months.” One
questions how an authority would make such a determination, and if so, why they
would release medical records to Bern Porter. In this volume he states Nin
never had a natural orgasm, a direct contradiction to his earlier statement in
the Silver Lake book. This isn’t the only alarming contradiction, since he also
states that “I was not in Paris in the 1930s,” though he “visited later.” The
basis of the first book is on his meeting Nin at Stein’s and Toklas’s house in
1935.
In
Part IV, the book describing the Silver Lake days, Porter conveniently states
how he cannot recall the names of the people he knew attending the parties at
Nin’s house. He also mentions that Nin stated, “We will not be going into my
bedroom…” This is curious since the floor plan of the house is open and the bed
is visible from the kitchen table. The only thing separating it is a folding
partition that was usually kept open.
These
editions were published by Roger Jackson of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jackson’s
primary interest was in Henry Miller, and he respected Porter’s “publishing and
promoting Henry Miller with small, unique editions.” This led to the
publication of the interview series and other volumes written by Porter ranging
in topics such as food, O.J. Simpson, and Monica Lewinski. Even at the time of
publication, Jackson had doubts about the validity of Porter’s stories, but he
had also questioned the veracity of both Nin and Miller. Jackson told me that “[Porter]
wrote what he wanted, I printed it as received” (personal communication). He
published the interviews as a series over a two-year period, publishing them as
they came in and does not know why Sheila Holtz used a pseudonym. Though inside
each book is a listed number of copies printed of each edition, Jackson states
that was the maximum number he’d print, but he never reached that number. “There
were never more than 100 copies actually printed/published of the Affair with
Nin books and as a result my books are rarer than one would expect reading the
colophons” (personal communication). These books were sold to collectors and a
few universities. He does not have plans to publish them in a single volume.
As
one ages, memory recall, always a slippery element, becomes less reliable. Details
become vague. Sometimes with memory, stories are exaggerated to produce
interesting “facts.” Repeated retelling sometimes causes the spinner to believe
their own tales. Natasha Bernstein writes in the introduction of My Affair with Anaïs Nin: San Francisco Days
that although Nin is “the luminary in this relationship…it is really Bern who
surfaces as the personality—or—personage—in these chronicles.” This is one fact
we can be sure of.
Works cited
Porter, Bern. I Pursue Her Still: Bern Porter on Anaïs Nin.
Ann Arbor: Roger Jackson (1997).
Porter, Bern, and Bernstein, Natasha. My
Affair with Anaïs Nin (Part I: Paris-New York Days). Ann Arbor:
Roger Jackson (1996).
----. My Affair with Anaïs Nin (Part II: San Francisco
Days). Ann Arbor: Roger Jackson (1997).
----. My Affair with Anaïs Nin (Part III: Berkley
Days). Ann Arbor: Roger Jackson (1997).
----. My Affair with Anaïs Nin (Part IV: Silver
Lake Days). Ann Arbor: Roger Jackson (1998).
----A
Sex Oriented, Woman Connected Guy Doing His Own Thing:
Bern
Porter on Henry Miller, a Manuscript Sampler. Ann Arbor: Roger
Jackson (1996).
http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/porter.jpg
This article was
originally published in A Café in Space
titled Bern Porter’s “Affair” With Anaïs
Nin Fact or fancy?
