Publisher Description

A celebrity memoir unlike any other, this is an empowering, sex-positive, behind-the-scenes look at both Hollywood and the porn industry. Perfect for fans of Pleasure Activism and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.

Maitland Ward got her start in acting as a teenager when she was cast in The Bold and the Beautiful, but it wasn't until she joined the later seasons of the sitcom Boy Meets World that she got her first taste of fame. As the loveable co-ed Rachel McGuire, Ward soon found herself being typecast as the good girl next door and was repeatedly denied darker, more intriguing roles. So she made a career change—one that required her to turn away from the Disney universe—and eventually established herself as one of the most-respected actresses in the porn industry today.

Now, Ward reveals the ups and downs of her fascinating career, including personal stories from her time on one of the most beloved shows of the 1990s, in this anything but a run-of-the-mill memoir. By showing Hollywood and triple-X stardom in a whole new light, she offers a fresh and stirring perspective on the sex industry and "champions the discovery of freedom in sexuality" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Ultimately a story of hope and triumph, this is a sharp and provocative look at a former Disney princess who found her fairy tale in porn.

Author Biography

Maitland Ward is an award-winning adult film star, actress, model, and cosplay personality. Best known for her role as Rachel McGuire on Boy Meets World, Maitland enjoyed a successful career as a Hollywood actress before making the slow transition into the adult industry. She has been a guest on Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight, and more. Her writing has appeared on The Daily Beast. Rated X is her first book. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @MaitlandWard.

Review

"For open-minded readers, an exceptional narrative that champions the discovery of freedom in sexuality." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Review Quote

"For open-minded readers, an exceptional narrative that champions the discovery of freedom in sexuality." --Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Excerpt from Book

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 I USED TO HIDE IN my room and imagine David Hasselhoff and I would one day get married, probably after a fast chase and definitely after we solved some crime with KITT, his talking car. Who knew that KITT was played by Bill Daniels and that he would one day be my teacher? David would wear his leather Knight Rider jacket when we wed, with his curly chest hair exposed, and I would wear a gown with ribbons and hoopskirt, and my dogs would be my flower girls. I thought he might smell like the baking vanilla or maybe gasoline straight from the pump. KITT would marry us, and we would drive off to a place where we could make babies. But the fantasy always abruptly ended there. I knew that in order for any of that to happen, I would have to grow up and leave my parents. And that would disappoint everyone. I was acutely aware that if I could remain around the age of seven for the rest of my life, I would make my family proud. Seven, I thought, would be an age where when you danced around the living room in a Cinderella dress, they''d applaud you, but the glass slippers wouldn''t yet pose any real threat. It''s an odd thing to realize no one wants you to grow up when you''re actively doing that. I was a sheltered only child, raised in Long Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles that people nicknamed Iowa by the Sea because of the simple small-town vibe and also because in the postwar years, it was said that "you couldn''t swing a cat in this town without leaving a patch of fur on a Hawkeye." We weren''t Iowans, though. My people came from Texas and Saskatchewan, somewhat respectively. I walked home from school with the same kids in the first grade as I did in the eighth, and I could smell what was cooking for dinner the second my mother greeted me at the door. In the afternoons, my mother and I would watch soap operas, and then I''d play Star Wars with my dogs and cats in a big yard with a little frog pond that was shaded with avocado trees. Our springer spaniel was always Chewie, and I was always Princess Leia. At dusk, I''d sit at the front window and wait for my father''s car to turn into the driveway. Those headlights and that turn and my dad''s footsteps walking up our porch were predictable. Every girl should take for granted that her dad will always come home. I spent a lot of time alone. I didn''t have any siblings or first cousins or much family at all around, but I was loved--so much so that I felt guilty whenever I played away from home too long. Family consisted of my mom and dad and my grandmother on my father''s side, whose love of gardening and her obsession with the Rapture always had her at odds with the natural elements. "They say Jesus is coming this year," she''d say. "I wonder if my grapefruits will have come in." So much casual planning for the end of the world made me feel at home in a controlled state of chaos. "Don''t give it up to any man who won''t commit to paying your bills," my grandmother once said after giving me the talk about the cows and the mooching pervert who drank all that free milk from the fast titties. She thought this was encouragement for me to uphold my virtue; it turns out it was a solid business model for OnlyFans. My grandmother was always worried about everything, but mostly about God punishing her for doing something wrong. And when she was worried, she cleaned. She was in constant zigzag motion trying to avoid a lightning strike. It all stemmed from her father who took her out of school in the eighth grade. She said he didn''t like the teacher, and she said it like that was a valid reason. "He was a man of God''s word," she would say as she washed each dish by hand in her sink. "And he brought us up right to obey." And she never had a good night''s sleep because of it. Jesus watched over me through my childhood--not from some place of peace on a cloud but from a miniature gold-plated frame that my grandmother one day propped up on my dresser. Like, poof , all of a sudden there was a blond, blue-eyed Jesus right next to my David Hasselhoff lunch box and they were at odds. She said that this picture would bring me comfort. In fact, much like her father did for her, it kept me up at night. "Talk to him," my grandmother said, pointing to the frame. "Just tell him whatever you did bad today, and you''ll be forgiven." I looked away fast from David Hasselhoff. "Unless it''s drugs or premarital sex," she said. "Then you''ll have to be burned at the stake by the Beast because you''ll never get up in the Rapture." "Bad" felt like such a broad-ranging topic. Did she mean bad because I ate too many cookies or bad because I could feel my breasts coming in and I noticed a boy at school looking at my shirt? Bad got more complicated as I grew up. I put an elastic bandage around my breasts at various points in my upbringing (I had gotten the bandage for an ankle sprain), depending on how guilty I felt for growing and how much I thought Jesus''s eyes were following me from inside the frame. I thought that maybe I could stop myself from having to develop boobs--or at least they wouldn''t poke out of my shirt and have that boy looking at me anymore. I was already so tall for my age that I thought if I squished myself down with something heavy on my head every night--like a book or a water jug or anything else I could find that felt satisfactorily oppressive but wouldn''t actually crack my bones--then my spine would get the hint that it had already grown enough. Maybe word would travel down to my breasts and also my vagina, which was now tingling with prepubescence. But every time I measured myself on the inside of my closet door, I found that I was losing my battle at remaining a child. And there was that tingling. My family believed I had a weak constitution--that I was constantly under the threat of sickness and needed to be protected. They never tried to get me diagnosed with strange diseases for attention or put me in a wheelchair like Munchausen by proxy victims, but there was a constant undertone that I couldn''t handle some things--most things--simply because I nearly died at birth. My mother, who had suffered miscarriage after miscarriage, was told I wouldn''t make it. That she would keep bleeding and all of me would eventually flush right out, just like all the others had. She looked for me in the toilet every morning. She was on bed rest for weeks, the doctors amazed that I still had a heartbeat. "You and me, we stuck it out and you came out so beautiful," she said. When my mother was cut open as she lay on a metal slab and I was presented to the world, I was over eight pounds and screamed the moment I breathed air. But my screams or my breath were never proof enough of my strength to survive. And that''s really where it comes from--the feeling that I should never grow up. I felt if I did, then I''d grow away from the story of my weakness and that special connection with my mom. I believed in this fable that I was weak for some time. Though I was never unusually sick as a child and I had a strong throwing arm, I still believed that I was less able than other kids because of some trauma I suffered in the womb. Finally, when I was grown-up, it dawned on me that I hadn''t escaped death by a lottery ticket or a Hail Mary pass. I''d survived because I was determined enough to hold on. When I was about six, I came to the shocking realization that Barbie doesn''t have a vagina. I had run straight from my bath to play with my dollhouse, towel falling off me, when I looked down and saw that I had a slit and Barbie did not. "Grandma," I said, running to her in horror. She was baking something in the kitchen, and I caused her to jump and burn her pinky. "Why doesn''t she have any girl parts?" I asked. I was terrified that Barbie couldn''t pee. When she saw me pointing to her flat, plastic crotch, she stopped what she was doing, kneeled down squarely in front of me, and said, "You don''t need those parts until you''re married." When she saw that I was standing there naked, she said, "And put your towel back on, so nobody sees yours right now." I went back to my room, dropped my towel, and sat in a hunch with my belly rolls looking up at me, and I stared down at my vagina. I wasn''t supposed to have it until I was married, but there it was, like a sickness or something to hide. I wondered if I should sew it, like the doctor did when I cut my chin open after I fell off my gymnastic rings in the yard. Then I thought about how much I didn''t like needles or even sewing at all. Maybe I could just hide it my whole life, get married, and when my husband discovered it, he''d think it just magically appeared because we were so in love. Then I thought how I never wanted a boy to see my vagina at all. "HAVE YOU EVER FELT good funny down there?" my friend Alison asked me as we swam in the aboveground pool my parents had just put up in our yard. "You mean in the deep end?" I asked, pointing to the bottom of the pool. There wasn''t any deep end; it was all just three feet, but perhaps I was being metaphorical. "No, I mean in your panties," Alison said, then dipped her hair back into the water. In my panties? I was nearly twelve and didn''t know anything about my vagina except that I peed from it and one day soon I''d bleed from it too. "I don''t really have any fancy panties," I said, thinking she meant those satin ones from Victoria''s Secret I''d seen in the catalogs. They looked smooth and decadent and like they did something I didn''t know about yet. They looked like the kind of panties the girls on As the World Turns wore. "No," she said, her laugh bubbling the water as she waded. "I me

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