Stoya
Stoya on the Importance of Accurately Writing About Sex Work
On-camera sex scenes are often edited and stitched together to create a final product that barely resembles what happened on set. Similarly, accounts of sex work can be altered through writing and editing to give people the wrong idea about the...
Stoya on Ovarian Cysts and Dressing for Porn Awards
Modern medicine can offer me the ability to have my eggs frozen with a decent chance of turning one into a baby 20 years from now, but it can't help me stop the pain from ovarian cysts. With no happy ending in sight, I'm going to babble about the porn...
Stoya: Feminism and Me
Shirking the F-word feels like turning my back on the women who fought to give me many of the advantages I have. So here goes: Hi, I’m Stoya. My politics and I are feminist... But my job is not.
Stoya on Ethics, Porn, and Workers' Rights
I got screwed on my first porn contract. I was naive enough to sign a stock agreement, and what I've learned from my early dealings is that a fair deal in porn means making sure that the exploitation is mutual and balanced. But for other workers in...
Stoya in Praise of the Posterior, AKA the Butt
On Tuesday I was in Las Vegas again, and my trip had me thinking about butts. The vast majority of the butts I see in person belong to people who work in pornography or are involved in other sorts of work in front of cameras or on stages. Which is why...
Stoya on Starvation Economies and Getting New Cats
I've only encountered the concept of starvation economy in BDSM-practicing and polyamorous communities. How it is possible to have enough love for more than one partner? With lovers, jobs, and with cats love is not so much a problem of vanishing...
Natural Beauty Is Just a Marketing Tool
In porn, one of the things I'm marketed as is "all natural." This phrase basically indicates that I have not had breast implants or other obvious plastic surgery. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether I've dyed the hair on my head, what...
So You Want to Perform in Porn
If you read that and thought, 'Why yes, I do want to perform in porn,' this is for you. If not, please feel free to read along for potential entertainment value. Or put the computer down, and go do whatever it is that people do on Fridays. For those of...
Stoya on Peeking Behind the Porn Curtain
As a culture, we are fascinated by what entertainers and public personalities do when they aren't at work and how they became who they are. This is why demand for biographies, interviews, and backstage/on-set photographs exists. The superficiality in...
Art Is Just as Powerful as Protest
Getting people to care and want to learn about things that they don't see as directly impacting their lives can be difficult. Which is why I believe that wrapping points and ideas up in pretty or exciting packages is just as valid a tactic as...
Stoya on How to Perform a Meathook
There's a frequently repeated anecdote about 20th century ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky from one of his early shows in Paris. Someone asked him if it was hard to perform one of his celebrated leaps—to stay suspended in the air in a way that appeared...