Stoya is an adult performer with 53 credits to date. She is in the process of directing her first film. She has won three AVN Awards, including the 2009 award for Best New Starlet. She is also a freelance writer and has contributed to Vice , Esquire , The Guardian , and the New York Times .

Full transcript Below is an interview that is part of a larger piece on how adult performers talk to their families about their work. Read the full story at Below is an interview that is part of a larger piece on how adult performers talk to their families about their work. Read the full story at Coming out as a porn star

Dylan Matthews: What was your initial attitude toward telling your parents and close friends? How did that evolve as you really got going?

Stoya: When I first started, I was only doing nude photographs, so it’s still the kind of thing that might upset your grandmother, and you don’t want to have a loud conversation about it when there are people with small children around, but it’s so far away from hardcore pornography. And my social group and my friends and acquaintances were all pretty open and pretty artsy and pretty explorative when it came to sex. So it wasn’t really a big deal. It was like, “Hey, what did you do last week? “Oh, I took these pictures with my boobs out!” “You have fun?” “Yeah!”

And my parents, they had different reactions, but the core of it for both of them was, “You’re our child, we love you, typically when you make a decision you have thought about it somewhat, and you consistently deal with the ramifications of whatever you choose to do. Are you on drugs? Are you being forced to do it? No? Then cool.” My mom was unhappy with the whole performance of stereotypical femininity. That was a little hard for her to swallow. She was like, “Really? With the fake eyelashes?”

Dylan Matthews: Did it help that you were doing alt-y stuff early on? Girls and guys with tattoos, not sort of people with lots of implants and what people's perceptions of porn might have been at the time?

Stoya: With my mother, not really at all, because at the time — this was before people found out that the woman who was supposedly running SuicideGirls actually wasn’t in charge of it, and it was owned by a man. There was a common view at the time that porn was especially empowering and I remember my mom sitting there going, "I guess doing things that you want to do can be empowering but there’s nothing inherently empowering about showing up in front of a camera with your nipples out. That’s as empowering as brushing your teeth."

She was concerned that I was drinking the Kool Aid, that I was thinking, "Yeah, because I’m not tan and don’t have big boobs, this must be an act of feminism or something!"

It didn’t really help at all. It led to further conversations. It helped me understand her perspective and I think talking about it helped her understand my perspective, and it was good for our relationship, but it didn't help her feel better about it.

Dylan Matthews: And your dad?

Stoya: First of all, after that one time with the Huffington Post he’s asked me to remember that not everyone has chosen to live their lives in public, so I'll tread very carefully here. No jokes at all here, especially if they might go viral.

My dad’s view is, on the one hand, I’m an adult and he has to trust that he has done his job raising me and that my mom has done her job raising me and I can go navigate the world and make my own mistakes and make my own decisions and just because someone might think it’s a mistake or he might think it’s a mistake does not in any way mean it necessarily is. That’s what you do with children. You raise them, and then you have to take your hands off and go, “Okay, you live your life now.” He does always seem to have this squeamishness about it where he’s genuinely interested in how my life is going and if my career is going well but at the same time doesn’t really don’t want to hear any details or discuss details. It’s like, “Oh, how are you?” “Well, lalalalala …”

Dylan Matthews: Were your parents together when you started doing this, or were they separated? Did that affect things at all?

Stoya: They started getting separated when I was in my early teens, and they took a very long time to actually get separated and then to start the divorce process. By the time I was an adult, I don’t know if they were technically divorced yet, I think they might have been, but they had had separate residences and I had been very independent for a few years. I don't know how to answer your question there.

Dylan Matthews: I was just curious. With the people I've talked to, when there's a uniform reaction it's because the parents are still a unit. It seemed like it was sometimes helpful to have one parent that was cool with it to balance against someone who's more judgey.

Stoya: I wonder if it’s something like, if one partner really likes ketchup and the other one doesn’t like ketchup at all, then that’s not really a thing, but if one partner believes certain intense, important, core things and the other one doesn’t, then I’d guess that would not only inform their later reactions to something like that, but that would probably contribute to a relationship not being permanent. So it's interesting.

Dylan Matthews: Did you have any siblings growing up? Did they have any interesting reactions?

Stoya: I’m an only child and then my dad’s wife has two children: a son who’s a year younger than I am and a daughter who’s a year older. I was like 20 and she was 21 and he was 19 and I feel like boys at that age are just generally pretty awkward anyway. And I at 20 was just self-absorbed and obtuse and myopic like most 20-year-olds are — at least I’d like to think they are. And I didn’t even pay enough attention to see how much discomfort was because he knew I’m naked on the internet and how much was that I’m a strange female.

My stepsister, at one point I lived on 18th and Lexington in Manhattan and she lived two blocks either north or south on Park. We were right in the same neighborhood, we both live in New York, we’re the same age, and we like never crossed paths. We’d be like, “How’s it going?" “Oh, I’m doing this in Brooklyn.” “Oh, what part of Brooklyn?” And I’m going to Bushwick and she’s going to Park Slope. We’re just so different. She was an English major and I’m like, “Oh, you’re an English major! I do porn. And I wear stilettos. And run around in one end of Brooklyn and you wear ballet flats and neutral sweater sets.” There’s just a sense of being animals at the zoo. “You’re so interesting! In a way that is completely alien to me!” Two completely different worlds. I'm sure the fact that I was an adult performer added an interesting new layer but it's two step-siblings, with nothing in common, thrown together by the love of their parents, which is a completely normal story.

Dylan Matthews: You mentioned you had an artsy group around you when you started taking photos. Did the reaction change at all as you moved from photo shoots to more hardcore stuff? Did that transition effect your relationship with your parents? Was doing that stuff a significant move the way doing modeling was in the first place?

Stoya: I kind of tip-toed into it. It was, “Oh I posed nude and then there’s this offer for this shoot and they want to see spread shots. Well how do I feel about spread shots? I’m cool with spread shots. How do I feel about putting things inside of myself on camera? For still photographs? And then it turned into a very softcore scene on video with a girl, and there was pussy eating and maybe a finger or two, but nothing really aggressive or acrobatic or theatrical or anything like that.

And then it was the contract with the couples-oriented hardcore studio, but the content of the scenes, as compared to the broad spectrum of adult material out there, was very romantic and the performances get edited down to make sure that they’re not going to ruffle too many feathers. It’s this slow, “Well how do I feel about this? I think I feel okay about this” or “How do I feel about that? I am not ready for that.” Or “No way in hell ever!” Because of the process it was less jarring than, “Hey, guess what I’m doing for a living now! In the butt!”

Dylan Matthews: Is there anything you still think is beyond what you'd consider? You've done some pretty intense stuff. Are there still things that are beyond what you'd consider?

Stoya: I would never consider doing scenes where the people involved can’t consent. Consent is a huge thing for me. I’m almost afraid to say this because I feel like it’s going to be one of those moments where I say something and then it indicates just how weird I am, but bestiality, I am not okay with. I am 100 percent not okay with that, nor will I ever be. But for most of the world, there is never even a question that a video involving sex with a frog or something would possibly be offered. Stuff like that is where my line is.

Then there’s things like a gang bang. A couple of years ago Bruce LaBruce asked me in an interview how I felt about gang bangs and I’m like, “Ugh, ew, I really don’t think so. First of all, it just seems like asking for gonorrhea in your throat.” Sometime this week I saw on Twitter that Jiz Lee was having a conversation about how we need a variety of words for “gang bang” because like, “service orgy” — that sounds exciting! “Pleasure pile”? Yeah, I’m down for that! It’s just something about, and I can’t quite put my finger on why, but something about calling it a gangbang has this connotation when I’m like “ick.” But for the exact same thing, which is one person having sex with a bunch of other people while they’re the focus or the center of it, calling it a “pleasure pile” sounds awesome.

Dylan Matthews: Right, and "gang bang" also implies, if not a lack of consent, then a scenario of a lack of consent, which gives it a different connotation.

Stoya: I love to play with fire, metaphorically. When I started performing, after a couple of months I was already like, “What are DPs about? That sounds like fun! Maybe I want to do one!” And my significant other and I, we have a certain level of trust where we can get up to all sorts of wacky crazy stuff, but there’s something about all of the factors — the connotation of non-consent, and performance of a scenario in which there is no consent, even though there actually is and limits are addressed beforehand. Maybe it's just the people. Maybe it’s just that I can’t imagine finding eight people or something where I would be comfortable in a scenario like that.

Dylan Matthews: Especially eight dudes.

Stoya: Yeah, eight dudes off the top of my head where I’d be like, “Yeah, let’s get rough and violent!” Maybe it’s just all those factors together. It's just not my thing.

Dylan Matthews: You're obviously in a really high-profile relationship [with fellow porn star James Deen] at the moment, but when you got into modeling, were you seeing someone? Did it affect that? I've gotten 50-50 responses of "Yes, dating in the industry makes all the sense in the world because you have this common understanding" versus "No, it's the worst idea in the world, I can't imagine why anyone does it." I know where you come down on that, but I'd be interested to hear about the reasons and how you thought about it in your time in the industry.

Stoya: When I was like 17/18/19, it was one of those out of the mouths of babes moments of brilliance, where in retrospect I was obviously full of shit and wasn’t consciously thinking about it, but I happened to do a thing accidentally that I think was a very good thing. I just wasn’t interested in cultivating long-term romantic relationships at the time. I was like, “I’m not done! I’ve just started! I’ve just begun being an adult and running around! I don’t have time!”

And then when I started doing nude modeling, I also had a regular job. It wasn’t like a desk job — I was someone’s personal assistant — but I had a solid 35-45 hours of work every week that had to get done and then the nude modeling that had to be put in there. I was just juggling so much stuff that I was like, “I'm not going to make time to go meet your parents when we’re, like, 19 and we don’t even know who we’re going to be as people yet.”

And then I was just so freaking busy. Even before we bring the layers of natural human jealousy and insecurity and the cultural structures of monogamy as default, and masculinity being threatened by the idea of “sharing your woman” or whatever, how are you supposed to have a relationship when you live in, say, Philadelphia or New York and once a month you go out to Los Angeles for four days to two weeks to film and then you’re getting shipped to to Berlin and Australia and Alaska and Texas and just ping ponging all over the place?

If you really want it, and you’re really going to put in work, you can do it, but it’s difficult to maintain a relationship when you’re not on the same schedule at all, you don’t get weekends and you’re constantly ping ponging around all over the place out of town. So I just didn’t really do that. And then I had, I guess you could call them boyfriends, and I had people that I would have sex with that were also friends, and there were varying degrees of that sort of relationship, but it was always like, “This isn’t permanent, you’re not my priority.” And because I was young and awkward and kind of a bitch and very blunt at times, I probably did a very poor job at points of maintaining the balance and letting people know, “Hey, I like you, I just can’t commit to being around regularly and stuff.” I probably bruised some hearts, which I feel bad about, possibly damaged some egos.

And then when you find that one person who’s absolutely freaking incredible and they match and they work and you’re already good friends and all of a sudden both of you are pretty much single and you ask, “Hey, do you want to start hanging out more seriously?” — you go for it! And then suddenly he has all of your shoes in his house in Los Angeles and you have four cats and you keep saying you’re a New Yorker but you’re not in New York very often.

Dylan Matthews: One response I've been sort of surprised by in talking to people about the Belle Knox thing is that at least a few performers were saying, "The minute you go in you have to assume that everyone you know is going to see everything you're going to do; why was this girl not prepared for that?" Just as advice, what would you say to someone who's getting in about that? Would it be that harsh?

Stoya: For someone who is thinking about getting into the adult industry, what you need to understand is no matter how wrong or closed-minded it is, the reality is that there are parts of the world that think that sex workers, or specifically adult performers, are horrible people that are not even worth the same as normal people. They literally believe that we are worth less, or that we are not actually real people.

And unfortunately that section of the world tends to be one of the more vocal, especially in anonymous comment sections, and they’re not going to be nice at all. You have to come to terms with that, because it might just be a couple people once a month or two dropping by your Twitter where they’re easily blocked to say, “Jesus hates you and you should burn in hell!” Or it could be a giant storm of media where people go after your family and physically threaten you and all that, and you can’t know which way it’s going to go and you have to be prepared for that.

But it’s kind of horrible to say that. The idea of sitting down an 18-year-old person, who’s still curious and wide-eyed and has big dreams and believes the best in people and saying, “Okay sunshine, I just want to make sure you understand that the world is shit. Yes, there are some really great people but you’re going to have to struggle hard to find them. You’re going to get judged, you’re going to be threatened, you’re going to be called horrible things, and you will be looked at as though you are subhuman.”

That’s horrible! I don’t want to say that to a person who’s essentially a kid! It’s the worst thing ever! “Oh, are you full of hope? Let me just pee all over it and then leave it in a dark corner to mold and mildew.”

Dylan Matthews: Yeah. There was a storytelling thing I was listening to the other day where a dad was explaining how he talked to his kid, who's like 12, when he found him watching porn for the first time. And the first thing he says is, "I'm not going to tell you to not do anything, just remember that the internet hates women." Which I thought was a great way of phrasing it. "You can do this, but understand there are parts of the internet that really despise women and think of them as less than human, and in particular think of these women as less than human."

Stoya: Yeah. It also gets tricky because unlike people of color or homosexuals we’ve opted into publicly displaying things that are going to upset people. We’re not technically marginalized. So from the trying-not-to-be-an-asshole perspective, well, I don’t agree that she was asking for it. I don’t agree with the victim-blaming. But at the same time, you can’t compare it to the marginalization of people based on things that they can’t hide. But then it’s also horrible to say, "You don’t want people to hate you, then you should hide these things about yourself." It’s very complex. I don't know what to think.

Dylan Matthews: Yeah, I don't think anyone does, which is why we're talking about it still.

Stoya: I'm part of the conversation! Yay!

Dylan Matthews: We're relevant! That touches on most of what I wanted to get at, but is there anything else you want to add?

Stoya: I have a funny anecdote about my grandma, whose name I used.

My grandma’s maiden name is Stojadinović, and she used to use “Stoya” to sign her paintings in college, and I decided to use it as my stage name. Eventually it got to the point where it was like, "Aw, I just did a media-heavy convention, and I was in front of the G4 cameras, and I gave a quote to the Wall Street Journal about whether I’m concerned about high-definition video, so this is now becoming a thing where I kind of have to tell my grandma because of Murphy’s Law of Inappropriate Behavior. If I don’t tell her, she’s going to stumble on it."

So I called her:

Stoya: Hey grandma! How are you?

Grandma: Good, how are you? What are you doing for a living? Because your mother says you’re "kind of like a model," and she wouldn’t say "kind of" if you were, and, no offense honey, but you’re a bit short.

Stoya: You know like Bettie Page, right?

Grandma: Yes!

Stoya: I do stuff like that except, because everybody runs around in skimpy clothing now, I do the modern version, where I have sex with people on video.

Grandma: Oh, you’re a nudie girl in the moving pictures!

Stoya: Yes I am.

So I'm thinking, "Sweet, we’re doing good."

Grandma: Do you enjoy it?

Stoya: Yes!

Grandma: Lovely!

Stoya: Okay, I’ve got to tell you another thing.

Grandma: Okay.

Stoya: Well, I’m using your name.

Grandma: Oooh. Vera? That’s not very sexy.

Stoya: Well actually, if I was going for pin-up, that would actually be a fantastic name, but I’m using "Stoya."

Grandma: Ooooh no.

And I’m like, "Fuck, we were going so well!"

Stoya: What’s wrong?

Grandma: I hope that no one at the nursing home gets us confused and tries to put my feet behind my head, because I don’t bend that way anymore.

Which says so many things. She was completely aware of what adult entertainment is. Otherwise how would she know that we end up contorted in these bizarre open-to-the-camera, keep-your-face-in-the-light yoga positions?

She has a goatee because she’s Serbian. And I know that that’s in my future. I said to her one time, "I don’t mean to presume that you want to remove the hair on your face but if you did, I’m kind of an expert in hair-removal tactics." And she doesn’t care, because she says the boys at the home are so blind that they don’t even know she has a goatee until it’s too late, because they’re already kissing her. She’s so badass. I want to be her when I grow up.