Pamela turns into crusader against porn
After Baywatch, Playboy and THAT sex tape...
SHE starred in the world’s first celebrity sex tape, appeared on numerous Playboy covers and entranced an army of teenage boys in her skimpy Baywatch swimsuit.
But now Pamela Anderson is reinventing herself as an anti-pornography crusader.
The 49-year-old actress and model blames the widespread availability of pornography for marriage breakdown and a generation of socially dysfunctional young men who have been desensitised to love and sex.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday from her home in Los Angeles, she said: ‘Through my own experiences I have seen how damaging it can be when you have a living, breathing, wonderful woman in lingerie and a husband locked away with his computer.
‘We are not looking for new laws to be implemented, we are not looking for any kind of dictatorship here, we just want to bring it up, and I have had some really interesting conversations with people.’
She said porn was a ‘dead-end outlet for people too lazy to reap the rewards of healthy sexuality’.
Despite her obvious discomfort at some of the things she has been asked to do over her career, appearing in Playboy – 14 times as its cover star – remains a positive memory.
She said: ‘I don’t regret any of my Playboy days, they have given me some of my fondest memories.
‘Playboy was my university, I learned everything at the Playboy mansion and it included meeting people who were intellectuals, who were artists. It was a very free-spirited wonderful time of my life.’
Playboy still exists but its circulation is now around 700,000-a-month- compared to 7.2 million in its heyday and earlier this year it took the decision to drop photographs of naked women from its pages.
Miss Anderson said: ‘Porn killed Playboy. It was somewhat innocent and titillating and girl-next-door, it wasn’t very explicit.
‘As we get more access via technology and the internet people have become desensitised. It takes more and more for people to get aroused and, even in romantic relationships, it is really taking its toll.
‘I don’t want the world to forget how to make love.’
Virtually every episode of Baywatch Miss Anderson appeared in featured scenes of her running along a Los Angeles beach in slow motion, wearing a skin-tight red swim suit which accentuated her voluptuous figure.
Asked if the obvious titillation could have sparked an interest in pornography she said: ‘Baywatch was very innocent, with very simple sweet story lines.’
Currently single, Miss Anderson has had three husbands and has two sons.
The infamous sex tape of her and first husband, rock star Tommy Lee, was stolen from their home in 1995 and copies soon appeared on screens and on video store shelves worldwide.
She said: ‘That started a terrible trend of showing celebrities.’
Next Saturday Miss Anderson will be arguing against porn in the debating chamber at the Oxford Union.
A new Baywatch movie with exwrestler Dwayne Johnson – The Rock – in the David Hasselhoff role is due for release early next year and Miss Anderson will appear.