Source: Letters to the Editor
By: Stevi Secret
“MaHen”- December 6, 1946-September 20, 2004
I’ve always found writing easy. I guess I should. In my career, I’ve written over 400 magazine columns for many national & local publications. It’s always been easy, always been fun. What am I writing today is neither easy nor fun. In fact, it is the hardest magazine column I will ever write.
It was early in the morning (11 am is early on Stripper Standard Time) on September 20. On my cell phone messages, was one from one of the guys at the club telling me I must call ASAP. Although the call sounded urgent, I wasn’t particularly worried. I’ve gotten such calls for problems that usually turned out to be for eminently solvable situations. Still this one sounded different. Just how different, I would soon find out, when I was given the awful news that my mother had been found dead in her house behind the club. As when anyone loses a parent, especially in a sudden unforeseen way, it was the most difficult moment of my life. Someone who had always been with me was gone.
Being gone was not something I was used to with my Mom. You see, she has always been there raising me from a child, through a divorce, a move out west. While caring for your children may be standard mother stuff, it was not what she did for me as a child but rather as an adult that made my Mom so special.
I remember very well the day I told her I was going to be a pornstar. She never blinked, never wavered, never said don’t. It was from that moment that a different kind of mother daughter relationship was born.
Just as my adult career was different so was my relationship with my Mom. After a brief time in Los Angeles, I decided the best thing for me was not being an LA pornstress, but rather a new kind of porn girl, one who makes and sells her own videos. All the way in that largely successful endeavor my Mom was there. She started out doing little things, like designing my logos, helping me with my box covers. Before long my business had grown so much that I hired her! She became my right hand mother, stuffing envelopes, licking stamps, sending out tapes. She really helped me make Stevi Secret’s Amateur Videos successful. When I got the club in Phoenix, there was only one choice for manager, my mother.
Working in a strip club, my mom’s life took a new twist. She was no longer just my mother but mother to a strip club. She even picked up an affectionate new nickname. Dubbed by the girls MA Hen, she worked harder than ever to make Stevi Secret’s Nude Cabaret a success. At the club, MA Hen was willing to do it all. She placed orders, did the cleaning, set up the schedules, worked with the girls even became a DJ! I can’t tell you how funny it was seeing my mother spinning the latest hits from hip hop artists and rock and roll stars. It all was so good for her. In the last few years she seemed younger than she had in years (making all this even more difficult).
Just a few weeks before her passing, I was mentioning (for some reason) that I had been in the adult business for over 13 years. Mom said, I’ve been in the business for a long time too. Yes, I said you have Mom. When I said that, her whole body puffed up in a way I had never seen before. She was so proud of that. This is why the loss is so deep. I may have lost my mother but the adult industry lost a true professional, a committed activist, a unique person. As I have gone through the literal hundreds of emails, messages, posts on my Yahoo group and condolences from friends in the industry, who knew her and loved her, its given me a great sense of strength, a great sense that I must go on. Its something I will do despite of its new found difficulty, despite of its new found loneliness. It is something all of us will have to deal with.
To My Mom- From your Daughter, the DJ, the Strippers, the Pornstars, the Staff, the Customers, the Industry and all your friends. Thank you for what you’ve given us. “MaHen”- December 6, 1946-September 20, 2004, May you Rest in Peace.
About Stevi Secret
Stevi Secret is a nationally known adult magazine columnist and the owner of Stevi Secret’s Nude Cabaret, 3420 S Central Phoenix 602-305-8365. Stevi’s is the only club in Arizona featuring adult stars weekly! Visit Stevi’s Website SteviSecret.com linked in the box to the right.
