Porn superstar Kayden Kross recently left pornography in order to marry fellow porn star and father of her child Manuel Ferrara. Looking back on her career, she said of her decision to get into porn: “Growing up, I was the child of a single parent family. We had always been financially insecure and my range of experiences had always been limited. We’d felt trapped. [As an] adult, I had found the job that gave me a sense of absolute freedom.”
Other porn stars remark on how and why they got into the porn industry:
“Like some of the other girls in the porn business, there was an adult who violated my innocence at a pretty young age. I think when that happens, you either go frigid or experimental. We all know which way I choose…” From an interview with legendary porn actress Celeste.
“My parents split up when I was really young. And my dad -- I don't think that -- that my dad was a bad man necessarily. I think that he was someone that lost his dream, somebody that, you know, really took to the bottle. You know, he drank a lot. And he was somebody that was very angry, that had a really violent temper. So as a child growing up, I had this, you know, sexual abuse that was really violent. I had these thoughts in my head of, you know, This is what girls are for, this is what this is about. And then I had my mother's boyfriend, who I loved and trusted, you know, really betray me and start molesting me in my sleep and made me think I was even crazier. And ultimately, he was the one who took me to the nude modeling agency and said, Everybody starts out as a model this way. It was incredibly naive. It was really stupid...” From an interview with Traci Lords.
“…By his own telling he was an ‘angry, angsty child,’ immensely stubborn and prone to violent tantrums, one of which left his school principal with a broken hip. Where his anger came from, however, is a mystery…It started at Jewish day camp when he was 12, and a 16-year-old girl took his [virginity.] Then, it accelerated. This was his career choice after all, a position he’d held since kindergarten with characteristic resolve. When his teachers asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said ‘porn star.’ And when they sent him to the principal’s office, he said ‘porn star’ there, too…Certainly, his relationship with his parents is unusual. They divorced when he was 15, and he responded by leaving home to join a community of local punks for two years, dossing in warehouses and so on.” From an article and interview with male porn star James Deen.