Chance Ryder

As the saying goes, bad news travels fast, but, in the situation of Chance Ryder, it took the slow boat to China. Ryder who was billed as the world's only true hermaphrodite, passed away this past November but the news is only catching up to us now. From what we can gather, Ryder, who was repped by agent Gino Gultier, was severly depressed and had been taking various forms of medication. There may have been an overdose involved. Ryder, a counselor on human sexuality, whose first adult feature, was Bi and Beyond 6 for Paul Norman, was a friend of AVN's Ellen Thompson. But Thompson, like the rest of us, was stunned only to hear about the news in the last day or so.

"I'm incredibly saddened," says Thompson. "He was a sweet person, generous to a fault."

Ironically, the last time I saw Ryder alive was the last time I saw Bruce Seven alive - at Seven's July 4th bash almost five years ago.

Ryder, twice married, was interviewed by Thompson about the same time - when he first got into the business. "Of course I elicit shock in people," Ryder said in the interview. "I'm a man with a pussy!" Ryder felt that his being one-of-a-kind would spell success in the adult industry for him. It didn't exactly tuen out that way for him. A small town boy, Ryder was quick to realize the limitations set upon him to succeed in small town life. He moved to Los Angeles to break into the adult business. Ryder in the interview recalled that he had had the chance to work with Jeanna Fine. "She was great," he said. "Our scene was shot after nearly 14 hours of shooting that day and, ouch, was I sore! But she can suck my clit any time she wants."

Ryder at the time also made mention of the fact that his paycheck bounced and thus took issue with Paul Norman on that and another point dealing with d.p. rates. Ryder swore he would never work with Norman again. Ryder also had a small part in Greg Dark's Sex Freaks and was the lead in Pleasure Productions' Exxxtra Parts. Ryder had also voiced a desire to work with Janine, realizing that her women-only stipulations might not exclude him, at least on a technicality.

"I'm 100% male, 100% female and believe me, I have the insight to know what both sexes go through," Ryder often said. "And yes I do have a menstrual period every month, just in case you were all wondering. I've even had a miscarriage as well."

Ryder often voiced a desire of doing the comedy circuit, using himself for prime material. During the course of his adult industry career, Ryder also gave a lengthy interview with Mickey Skee and we've included some quotes from that.

"People react to me in a variety of ways," Ryder told Skee. "Mainly, they react in one of three ways. One, they can't be around me. They can't have nothing to do with me because they're totally intimidated. They become weird. Those are the homophobics, usually. I make them face themselves. I really make people face themselves. The homophobics can't hardly stand it. Straight men - they either wanna be like me, beat me, or fuck me. It comes down in that order. Gay men are very critical of me, very judgemental toward me. They're like "Why do you gotta tell people? Why do you gotta do this and that? You know. Why'd you come out of the closet?" Hello. No different now than it was then. Plus, like I was telling you, I wanna educate people and I can't do it in the closet. Women, it's the same thing. I run into women who because of their own doubts about their own sexuality, get scared around me. Homophobe. And then you have straight women, who are so turned on it pisses them off, because they don't know why. They just love to __________ at me. Basically I fit in everywhere but I fit in nowhere. I'm male and female, but yet I'm neither. I hate it. Lesbians, like I was telling you, you know, they like me to pork them."

[Ryder during the course of the interview talks about a book he wanted to write, a movie he'd like to see about his life and the difficulty of making headway in the business.]

Ryder: "If I can get someone to back me and do things right, in the order I want, by the time I get done with the book, it'll sell like hotcakes, and then when they do a movie, like about my life, boom! That's what I'm trying to set things up, and then after that, then it's all about touring and lecturing and taking it easy. You know, if I happen to do a fuck-flick later on down the line, at least it's my choice and because it's got an impact to it. You know? And that's something important to me. Whatever I do then, it's because it's my choice. Right now, it's just, you know, getting that first step in the door. I didn't think these people were that stupid. I didn't think it was going to be this hard.

Skee: "You have a vagina, you have a penis." Ryder: "I have a rudimentary penis. I'll show you this one picture. If you look, it's like an enlarged clit, but -

Skee: "It's more of an appendage, you don't urinate out of it. Ryder: "No, you can see where the hole is forming, but it never completely developed. But you'll see, it's got the corona, it's got the ridge, it's got the foreskin. It gets hard, it's about two and a half inches. It can move around. It can wiggle. And it has a vagina underneath it. Sometimes when it's hard enough and I'm horny enough I can fuck myself.

Skdee: "You're like a functional hermaphrodite."

Ryder: "Yeah. No, I have two ovaries and excess chromosomes with - see, I'm a combination physically and emotionally of both male and female. Most hermaphrodites have one ovary and one testicle. That makes them legally in the eyes of the United States a hermaphrodite whereas I am a combination and doctors don't know why I am what I am.

Skee: "You are promoting yourself."

Ryder: "Trying to. It's hard as hell. You'd think it would go over hotcakes, but I'm being -- and it's not the public that's holding back, it's the producers and the backers.

Skee: "What is the main reason they hold you back?

Ryder: "I don't know. They're scared. They never worked with anything like this, and therefore they ain't got enough foresight or intelligence to figure out how to. I scare them. And I'm telling them what to do, and they won't listen.

Ryder: "I had alcoholic parents, that's all I seen. As I got older I went to a church, and they put me on my knees cause I was sinning because I was a Lesbian, and I had to wear a dress and what-not, and they were freaked out because of the way I looked, and when I went to a Southern Baptist Church in my early twenties, I came this close to being a musical minister, and me and my wife would be baptized on Easter Sunday, and he found out a month prior what I was and three days before the baptism, he refused to baptize me and my wife, couldn't righteously call me "My brother," and needless to say that took me out of the church for a long time, actually, completely, I've never been able to get back with the churches.

"My spirituality wavered pretty bad for a while, but now it's back full force. I'm very spiritual. I don't believe in religion, I don't truly believe in churches, but I'm very spiritual in communion, and I believe in sharing, and working with the positive note that if I turn it over to God it's going to go. If I try to take control of my reins, I'm a lousy driver. I just have to turn it over to God and trust in him and say, "Here, GO FOR IT, BABY!." It took me a long time to realize it's okay to get angry with God. I've cursed God. I've been so angry someimes that IF I COULD HAVE GOTTEN MY HANDS ON HIM I'D HAVE WRUNG HIS NECK!