Stoya
Stoya Twitter : @stoya Mile High : Sex Scenes
Image Sourced from Wikimedia, Attribution : Michael Dorausch, michaeldorausch.com
Stoya – Personal Info
Name : Stoya
Alias : Stoya Doll
Hometown : Wilmington, North Carolina (US)
Date of Birth: June 15th
Measurements : 34B – 25 – 34
Bra Cup/ Size : 34B
Boobs : Natural
Height : 5’7 (1.70m)
Hair Colour : Brunette / Black / Auburn
Eye Colour : Green
Tattoos : Design under right breast
Piercings : Both nipples
Years Active : 2007 – 2016 (as a performer) , 2015 – present (as a director)
Number of Scenes : 60+ (as a performer) , 2+ (as a director)
Whether you know her from her award-winning Digital Playground DVD titles, her TRENCHCOATx directorial projects or from her sexual advice columns that she has written for The Verge and Refinery 29, there’s no disputing that Stoya is one of the most influential adult film stars of recent years. Regarded by many as Digital Playground‘s first ever alternative porn contract girl, Stoya has garnered a massive international fan following since she first began taking the adult film industry by storm in 2007.
Stoya in Pirates II – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
Born and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, Stoya has mixed Serbian and Scottish heritage. A natural born performer who had taken dance lessons since she was three years old, Stoya is also a highly intelligent individual who was homeschooled and acquire her high school diploma before she turned sixteen. During this time Stoya also developed an interest in technology due to the fact that she had plenty of access to her father’s electronic and gaming equipment. As Stoya herself explained within her May 2009 Technically Philly interview;
“I was three when I was using DOS…My mom taught me how to read, and my dad taught me how to navigate DOS… I’m not even that nerdy. I was just raised that nerdy. My dad worked in IT, I had everything early”.
Before she began working in the adult entertainment industry Stoya moved to Delaware whereupon she studied for a semester at the Delaware College of Art & Design. Upon relocating to Philadelphia Stoya undertook a summer program at University of the Arts (Philadelphia) whilst also working several part-time jobs as a promoter, server and go-go dancer. After posing for erotic pictures for a friend, Stoya gradually progressed to nude modelling and posing for alternative erotic websites. Stoya discussed how posing for these erotic modelling shoots eventually progressed to shooting soft-core porn productions during her April 2014 Oyster Mag interview. As Stoya puts it in her own words;
“I think it was in 2006 I was already doing nude photographs, and then one of the websites that I posed nude for decided they wanted to make a hardcore film and they wanted me to do a girl-on-girl scene. I’m sitting there and I’m like, “I don’t really… Like, I knooow what porn is but not really, so perhaps I should research this.” I went to a DVD rental place and rented Pirates by [director] Joone at Digital Playground and Fashionistas by John Stagliano, who was going to be directing the thing they wanted me for. I realise now that it was just about the widest array of content I could have gotten at the time. My roommates and I were watching them and Fashionistas was extremely rough — they were just so athletic! Belladonna, who was the lead, just has the most incredible control over her anus. I was like, “I can’t do anything like that!” and so the deal was I would come out and do as much of the scene as I felt comfortable with. It was fine, It just wasn’t very… I don’t know — it just didn’t really appeal to me. So I guess technically I’ve been doing films since 2006, but I didn’t really get into hardcore films until 2007″.
Stoya in Stoya’s Yearbook – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
Stoya further elaborated on her adult film career beginnings during her September 2014 Crave Online interview when she mentioned that;
“It started out with me slowing dipping my toe in the water and taking pictures. I had a friend that was a photographer for a number of alt websites. [His photos] were of girls that, at the time, were a fairly non-standard body type, or pale, or had crazy hair colors before Katy Perry started rocking it. So they asked him to find girls to photograph and he walked into the living room and said, “Hey, how do you feel about being naked?”
I told him he could take them, but not to send them for a few weeks, just in case I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night like, “Noooo, what have I done?!” So we took the pictures and I loved it, and I ended up doing nude photos for a while. Then a little later a site called RazorDolls asked me to do a sex scene with a girl on video. I had never even been to Los Angeles”.
Stoya at 2009 AVN AEE – Image Sourced from Wikimedia
Stoya : Adult Film Career & Directorial Debut
Stoya began working in the adult entertainment industry in 2007 and some of her earliest porn productions include Debbie Loves Dallas (2007) and Man’s Ruin (2007) that were both produced by Vivid, as well as the Razordolls Entertainments porn production Razordolls (2007) and Sister Midnite (2007), Shadowing Stoya (2007) for SybiansRide4Cash, and the Digital Playground DVD feature releases Jack’s POV 9 (2007), Jesse Jane: Lust (2007) and Sexual Freak 7: Stoya (2007). Born Jessica, she adopted the porn star stage name ‘Stoya’ which was actually her grandmother’s name! Upon being asked about her porn star stage name within her October 2014 Men’s Mag Daily interview, Stoya has explained that;
“She was very understanding. She said, (Starts speaking in an old lady voice) Oh, so you’re a nudie girl in the moving pictures.” Once we established what I was doing for a living and that I was using her name her main concern was that nobody at the nursing home would come and try and put her feet behind her head because she doesn’t bend that way anymore which tells me that she totally knew what hardcore, XXX porn is and that I didn’t need to start our conversation off talking about Bettie Page naked because she knew. I could have just said I was doing porn….She’s funny and she’s completely in charge of her life and she doesn’t give not one sixteenth of a fuck about respectability, politics, or social norms in regards to how she’s supposed to act. She’s amazing and I want to be just like her when I grow up”.
Stoya in Erotico 2 – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
Stoya was quickly signed up as a Digital Playground contract girl and from 2008 onwards she proceeded to star within a steady stream of best-selling Digital Playground DVD feature releases including Cheerleaders (2008) for which her group sex scene with Jesse Jane, Shay Jordan, Adrianna Lynn, Brianna Love, Lexxi Tyler, Memphis Monroe, Sophia Santi and Priya Rai won “Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene” at the 2009 AVN Awards, Pirates 2: Stagnetti’s Revenge (2008) that won “Best Overall Marketing Campaign: Individual Project” at the 2009 AVN Awards and which was nominated for “Best Overall: DVD” at the 2008 Empire Awards, Video Nasty 3: Stoya (2008) which featured Stoya’s first ever boy/girl sex scenes with Charles Dera and Jerry, Video Nasty 4: Katsuni (2008), Bad Girls 5, 6 (2009-2011) and most recently Bad Girls 7 (2011) that was nominated for “Best Wall-to-Wall Release” at the 2013 AVN Awards and “Vignette Release of the Year” at the 2013 XBIZ Awards.
Stoya has also starred in the fan-favourite Digital Playground DVDs Jack’s My First Porn 10 (2008), Jack’s POV 13 (2009), Jack’s Teen America 23 (2009), Teachers (2009) and Nurses (2009) that was nominated for “Best Feature” at the 2009 RogReviews’ Critics Choice Awards. Performing in this broad spectrum of best-selling Digital Playground DVD feature releases cemented Stoya’s reputation as one of the adult film industry’s most popular female performers and has enabled her to collaborate with fellow leading ladies Kayden Kross, Jesse Jane, Alexis Texas, Belladonna, Jenna Haze, Madison Ivy, Lisa Ann, Vicki Chase, Dana DeArmond, Lexi Belle, Tori Black, Angelina Valentine, Andy San Dimas, Bonnie Rotten, Dani Daniels, Bibi Jones, Monique Alexander, Riley Steele and Kagney Linn Karter among many more famous female porn stars!
In fact, Stoya is regarded by many as Digital Playground‘s first ever alternative porn contract girl and she has filmed several sensational star showcases for them over the years including Stoya Atomic Tease (2008), Stoya: Sexy Hot (2008), Taste Of Stoya (2009), Stoya: Heat (2009), Stoya: Perfect Picture (2009), Stoya: Scream (2009) that won “Most Elegant Riding Out Her Contract” at the 2009 Ropey Valley Awards, Stoya: Workaholic (2009), Stoya: In Love And Other Mishaps (2010) and Stoya: Web Whore (2011) among many others.
Many of Stoya’s Digital Playground DVD feature releases have been nominated for several prestigious adult entertainment accolades at the AVN and XBIZ Awards ceremonies. Fans who are keen to discover some of Stoya’s critically acclaimed sex scenes will not want to miss out on viewing Babysitters 2 (2011) for which Stoya’s group sex scene with Bibi Jones, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Riley Steele and Manuel Ferrara was nominated for “Best Group Sex Scene” at the 2012 AVN Awards, Fighters (2011) that won the coveted “Forest For The Trees” title at the 2011 Ropey Valley Awards as well as “Best Adult Film” at the 2011 Virtual Awards, and Top Guns (2011) that won “Parody Release of the Year: Drama” at the 2012 XBIZ Awards and which was also nominated for “Best Epic” at the 2012 XRCO Awards as well as receiving a string of notable nominations at the 2012 AVN Awards for “Best Parody: Drama”, “Best Special Effects”, “Best Art Direction” and “Best Group Sex Scene”; the list goes on! Talking about her saucy Top Guns sex scenes during her 2011 Impulse Gamer interview, Stoya commented that;
“I don’t know that I was necessarily playing the bad girl… as you’ll see once you have the opportunity to view the film, we’re all just trying to do our jobs as well as we can with the use of every single resource at our disposal. There’s plenty of bravura and posturing on both sides, as one would expect from successful women in what is still a very male dominated profession, but we’re all playing multi-faceted people. Which, by the way, was pretty challenging for a porno…
Top Guns is an awesome, very well produced, funny spoof of the original idea with plenty of hot sex scenes thrown in. Check out the special fan site: http://topgunsxxx.com/…I do a calculatedly slow scene with Mick Blue where I control him and his penis in order to get exactly what I want, and towards the end of the film all of the contract girls we had at the time gang up on one of the main characters and fuck him so hard he could barely handle it”.
Stoya and Kayden Kross in Top Guns – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
During this time Stoya teamed up with sex toy manufacturers Fleshlight in order to create her very own exclusive line of Stoya sex toys that had been moulded from her mouth, butt and vagina. Upon being asked about her Fleshlight product line within her 2011 Impulse Gamer interview, Stoya revealed how;
“I can’t tell you how they make the toy because I wouldn’t want to give away any trade secrets. I have asked a few people who have experienced both my vagina and my Fleshlight, and they say the outside/orifice is very accurate, although the inside creates an experience that is as intense as sex without attempting to replicate it…Everyone I’ve heard from loves it. I have a few of my own Fleshlights laying around for promo and props like in my “AAAAAH” video. I also have Riley’s vagina and when Jesse’s mouth is released (they melded it in January at AEE) I kind of want one to keep on the shelf next to my Best New Starlet awards”.
Stoya in Pirates II – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
Over the years Stoya has continued to star in several award-winning Digital Playground DVD feature releases such as Code Of Honour (2012) that earned her multiple “Best Supporting Actress” and “Best Anal Sex Scene” nominations at the 2013 AVN Awards, unSEXpected (2012) that was nominated for “Best Comedy” at the 2013 AVN Awards and “Adult Movie of the Year” at the 2013 Sex Awards, Bridesmaids (2013) that earned Stoya numerous “Best Group Sex Scene” and “Best Scene – Feature Movie” nominations at the 2014 AVN and XBIZ Awards, and Erotico 1 (2013) that won “Best Vignette Release” at the 2015 AVN Awards. In fact, Stoya has received a wealth of notable nominations throughout her phenomenal porn star career including, but to name a few;
- 2008: Eroticline Awards winner “Best U.S. Newcomer”
- 2009: AVN Awards winner “Best New Starlet”
- 2009: AVN Awards winner “Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene” Cheerleaders (with Jesse Jane, Shay Jordan, Adrianna Lynn, Brianna Love, Lexxi Tyler, Memphis Monroe, Sophia Santi and Priya Rai)
- 2009: XBIZ Awards winner “New Starlet of the Year”
- 2009: XRCO Awards winner “Best New Starlet”
- 2012: AVN Awards winner “Hottest Sex Scene (Fan Award)” Babysitters 2 (with Bibi Jones, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Riley Steele and Manuel Ferrara)
- 2012: AVN Awards nominee “Best Boy/Girl Sex Scene” Top Guns (with Mick Blue)
- 2012: AVN Awards nominee “Best Group Sex Scene” Top Guns (with Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Riley Steele, Selena Rose and Tommy Gunn)
- 2012: AVN Awards nominee “Best Double Penetration Sex Scene” Bad Girls 5 (with James Deen and Steve Holmes)
- 2012: AVN Awards nominee “Best Group Sex Scene” Babysitters 2 (with Bibi Jones, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Riley Steele and Manuel Ferrara)
- 2012: XBIZ Awards nominee “Performer Comeback of the Year”
- 2012: XBIZ Awards nominee “”Supporting Acting Performance of the Year: Female” Fighters
- 2013: XBIZ Awards nominee “Best Scene – Vignette Release” Bad Girls 7 (with James Deen)
- 2013: Sex Awards nominee “Porn Star of the Year”
- 2013: Sex Awards nominee “Porn’s Best Body”
- 2013: Sex Awards nominee “Sexiest Adult Star”
- 2013: Spank Bank Awards nominee “Most Photogenic”
- 2013: The Fannys nominee “Most Heroic Ass (Best Anal)”
- 2014: XBIZ Awards winner “Best Scene – Feature Movie” Code of Honor (with Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross, Riley Steele, Selena Rose and Manuel Ferrara)
- 2014: AVN Awards nominee “Best Anal Sex Scene” Code of Honor (with James Deen)
- 2014: AVN Awards nominee “Best Group Sex Scene” Bridesmaids (with Brooklyn Lee, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross and Johnny Sins)
- 2014: AVN Awards nominee “Best Supporting Actress” Code of Honor
- 2014: AVN Awards nominee “Mainstream Star of the Year”
- 2014: XBIZ Awards nominee “Best Scene – Feature Movie” Bridesmaids (with Brooklyn Lee, Jesse Jane, Kayden Kross and Johnny Sins)
- 2014: XBIZ Awards nominee “Crossover Star of the Year”
- 2014: Spank Bank Awards nominee “Most Photogenic”
- 2015: AVN Awards nominee “Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene” Voracious: Season Two, Volume One (with Lea Lexis)
- 2015: AVN Awards nominee “Favourite Female Porn Star (Fan Award)”
- 2015: AVN Awards nominee “Social Media Star (Fan Award)”
- 2015: AVN Awards nominee “Mainstream Star of the Year”
- 2015: AVN Awards nominee “Most Outrageous Sex Scene” (with Ashley Fires, Lea Lexis, Raine DeGrey, Roxy Raye, Skin Diamond, James Deen, Rocco Siffredi and Wolf Hudson) Voracious: Season Two, Volume Four (with)
- 2015: XBIZ Awards nominee “Best Actress – Feature Movie” Voracious: Season Two, Volume Four
- 2015: XBIZ Awards nominee “Best Scene – Feature Movie” Voracious: Season Two, Volume Three (with Chastity Lynn and Rocco Siffredi)
- 2015: XBIZ Awards nominee “Crossover Star of the Year”
- 2016: AVN Awards nominee “Best Supporting Actress” Screwing Wall Street: The Arrangement Finders IPO
- 2016: AVN Awards nominee “Mainstream Star of the Year”
- 2016: AVN Awards nominee “Social Media Star (Fan Award)”
- 2016: XBIZ Awards nominee “Best Scene – All-Girl” Fluid 3 (with Dana Vespoli)
- 2016: XBIZ Awards nominee “Crossover Star of the Year”
- 2016: XRCO Awards nominee “Mainstream Adult Media Favourite”
- 2019: XBIZ Awards winner “Best Actress – All-Girl Release” Talk Derby To Me
Riley Steele and Stoya at the 2011 AVN Awards – Image Sourced from Wikimedia
Some of Stoya’s more recent Digital Playground DVD feature releases include Watch Over Me (2013), Sexual Healing (2013), Interracial (2014), POV All Stars (2014) and Erotico 2 (2014). Although Stoya is no longer signed as a Digital Playground contract girl, she has continued to be featured within some of their fan-favourite DVD feature releases and compilation titles such as Hall Of Famers 2 (2015), Stoya’s Yearbook (2015), Stoya vs. Kayden Kross (2016) and Stoya Loves Anal (2016).
In addition to her Digital Playground DVD collaborations, Stoya has also teamed up with leading pornographic production company Evil Angel in order to shoot some sizzling sex scenes for their award-winning vampire hardcore kink DVD series Voracious alongside famous female porn stars Lea Lexis, Ashley Fires, Anikka Albrite, Samantha Bentley, Skin Diamond, Chastity Lynn, Mz Berlin, Jessie Volt, Raine DeGrey, Roxy Raye and Sandra Romain. Thus far, Stoya has starred in Voracious: Season Two, Volume 1 (2014), Voracious: Season Two, Volume Three (2014) and Voracious: Season Two, Volume Four (2014) all of which have earned her multiple nominations for “Most Outrageous Sex Scene” and “Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene” at the 2015 AVN Awards, “Best Scene – Feature Movie” and “Best Actress- Feature Movie” at the 2015 XBIZ Awards and “Best Epic” at the 2015 XRCO Awards.
Never one to rest on her laurels, Stoya has also filmed some sizzling sex scenes for the Evil Angel DVDs Fluid 3 (2015) with Dana Vespoli, Carter Cruise, Sovereign Syre, London Keyes, Dana DeArmond and Jessa Rhodes that was nominated for “Best Anthology Movie” at the 2016 AVN Awards and Screwing Wall Street: The Arrangements Finders IPO (2015) that was nominated for “Best Parody: Drama” at the 2016 AVN, XBIZ and XRCO Awards. Over the years Stoya has also collaborated with a broad spectrum of fan-favourite porn production companies such as Plausible Films LLC on Adult Insider 3 (2012) also starring Allie Haze, Bree Olson, Chyna and Jessie Andrews as well as shooting some saucy Friends With Benefits sex scenes with Kayden Kross for Babes.com in June 2012 and starring in Lesbian Desires 2 (2014) for Babes.com that was nominated for “All-Girl Release of the Year” at the 2015 XBIZ Awards.
In recent years Stoya has swapped shooting sex scenes for directing her own pornographic productions. In fact, in 2015 Stoya teamed up with her friend and fellow adult film superstar Kayden Kross in order to launch the pornographic production company TRENCHCOATx. As matters stand, Stoya has directed the TRENCHCOATx DVD titles Graphic Depictions (2015) that was nominated for “All-Sex Release of the Year” at the 2016 XBIZ Awards and which earned Stoya a notable “Director of the Year – Non-Feature Release” nomination.
Spurred on by the commercial and critical success of her directorial projects, Stoya has co-directed Brett Rossi Is Delicious (2015) with Kayden Kross that served as Brett Rossi‘s first ever hardcore showcase. This TRENCHCOATx DVD title was an instant hit that was nominated for “Best Star Showcase”, Best Three-Way Sex Scene” and “Best Oral Sex Scene” at the 2017 AVN Awards as well as “Performer Showcase of the Year” at the 2017 XBIZ Awards. Stoya’s most recent directorial project has been the TRENCHCOATx web series Around The World In 80 Ways (2016) wherein she explores the gonzo genre by shooting ten episodic sex scenes in some of the world’s most obscure and exciting sex-related locations. Stoya has described herself as an “Incendiary. Quixotic. Slobcore” director so fans can expect to enjoy all manner of exciting adult film projects from Stoya and TRENCHCOATx in the coming years!
AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2011 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center – Las Vegas, Nevada on January 6th to 9th 2011
Image Sourced from Wikimedia, Attribution : © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com
Stoya : Feminist, Advocacy Work & Literary Projects
In addition to her phenomenal pornographic projects, Stoya is a multi-talented writer who has published some thought-provoking articles on sex worker’s rights, identity politics and feminism for leading mainstream media publications such as the New York Times, VICE, The Guardian, Esquire and Refinery 29 among others. Some of Stoya’s most poignant articles include her November 2012 Making Porn Actors Wear Condoms Is Not The Best Way To Protect Us piece that she wrote for the Guardian, Stoya: Feminism & Me and Stoya On Ethics, Porn and Workers’ Rights both of which were published via VICE in August 2013, 10 Things Stoya Learned From Masters Of Sex that was written for Esquire in November 2013, Seriously Smart Sex Advice From Stoya that was first published in February 2014, Amazing Sex: All About Orgasms in March 2014 and Threesomes, Oral Sex & Other Sex Questions in May 2014 that were both published via Refinery 29, her March 2014 New York Times article that was titled Can We Learn About Privacy From Porn Stars? and her May 2015 New Statesman article titled What Porn Actors Don’t Talk About.
Stoya at 2010 Exxxotica New Jersey – Image Sourced from Wikimedia
Stoya has also teamed up with fellow adult film star and activist Jiz Lee in order to contribute to the groundbreaking literary work Coming Out Like A Porn Star which was named within Reason’s list of “Best Sex-Work Books of 2015”. Within Coming Out Like A Porn Star, Stoya has divulged how she ‘came out’ as a porn star to her friends and family. Whilst she was discussing this important literary work with Lauren Wissot during her April 2016 The Rumpus interview, Stoya divulged that;
“Not all of my family members were as easy to tell—which is easier only in the sense that once it’s done, it’s done. As for telling new people—acquaintances, strangers on the train—it has gotten easier and depends on the person. It’s easier to get a read on how to be precise without upsetting them. (Will they have an easier time with “porn star” or “adult performer in videos”?) But if, say, your seatmate on the train works for the 2257 department, it’s still going to be rough”.
Stoya in Screwing Wall Street – Evil Angel – Adult Empire Galleries
As well as publishing her own literary works and collaborating with her fellow adult film industry professionals on numerous creative projects, Stoya has been interviewed by a broad spectrum of international news outlets throughout her porn star career including Rob Brink, Refinery 29, Wn.com, The Awl, Vagabomb, Institute, Technically Philly, Les In Rocks, Dis magazine, Drunk Ex Pat Writer, Short and Sweet NYC, Aha Noir, The Debrief and Village Voice but to name a few. Stoya attracted mainstream media attention in December 2015 when she published the following tweets regarding her sexual assault at the hands of her former boyfriend and fellow adult film star James Deen;
“That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks…James Deen held me down and fucked me while I said no, stop, used my safeword. I just can’t nod and smile when people bring him up anymore”.
Stoya’s tweets sparked mainstream media attention and she was featured within numerous articles in the Daily Mail, the Guardian, The Frisky, The Cut, Uproxx, Complex magazine, Jezebel, Nylon, College Candy, Cosmopolitan magazine, Pedestrian, Mama Mia, Death and Taxes magazine, The Huffington Post and Bustle among many others. Since coming forward with these tweets, Stoya has received a wealth of support from her friends, fellow porn stars and fans; many of whom have publicly voiced their support for Stoya and shared their own personal experiences with sexual assault in solidarity. Talking about her reasons for coming forward during her December 2015 Guardian interview, Stoya stressed that;
“I couldn’t bear the thought any more…that there might be something terrible happening to yet another woman at his hands, or more likely, at his cock, that she didn’t want, because I kept quiet. I just … I couldn’t, I couldn’t…
Nobody was saying anything. And I didn’t feel like I could say anything. But from what I hear – because I am not looking at my Twitter mentions – the way the public conversation is going is shockingly good in some ways. But also there is ‘Well, you know you can’t rape a sex worker,’ or ‘She still defends porn when she was raped by a pornographer’ – everybody has got their own fucking agenda, and that’s why I was scared to say something. I don’t know the reasons for other women, why they felt they had to keep quiet, but it just got to be too much…
“If I don’t say it now, then, when am I? Am I just going to carry it around for the rest of my life and keep it secret? Because secrets aren’t really a thing that I do…It’s not just a porn problem…It’s not just an entertainment problem. It’s easy to look at Bill Cosby and think, oh, he had access. No. It happens fucking everywhere”.
Stoya in Screwing Wall Street – Evil Angel – Adult Empire Galleries
As matters stand, Stoya continues to speak out against sexual assault and sex workers’ rights which has resulted in her becoming a role model for many of her fellow adult film stars and fans. Utilising her prominent porn star status to help others, Stoya currently contributes to a regular sex-advice column for The Verge. Talking about her sex advice column within her November 2015 Amuse interview, Stoya conveyed how;
“In the sex advice column I write for The Verge—and for Refinery29 before this—so many of the questions I get go something like: “I want X in bed but my partner wants Y. How do we fix our sex life?” But the truth is, they’re just not matching sexually, and I don’t know if that can be fixed. If you applied the same logic to anything besides sex—to music, for example, or religious beliefs—you would just accept that you have basically nothing in common. But when it’s sex, for some reason, we think: “I need to change who I am as a person so my partner and I can get on the same page.” When maybe the real answer is that you just aren’t sexually compatible…
I think you need to have expectations and agreements in open relationships, but any rules, in my opinion, seem to eventually not serve people well. I can’t be in a relationship where I can’t talk about everything I did in my week with my partner. I don’t need to give them a full blow-by-blow report—pun intended—but if the most important thing that happened that week was that I had some crazy sex adventure, then I have to be able to at least mention it”.
Stoya at 2013 Exxxotica Expo – Image Sourced from Wikimedia
As mentioned above, many adult films stars and fans regard Stoya as a feminist role model. Upon being asked about whether she regards herself as a feminist within her October 2014 Men’s Mag Daily interview, Stoya was candidly honest and conveyed that;
“Here’s my thing with feminism. My mother was a feminist, like second wave, marched in the streets, was all up in the political actions and all that type of stuff. I’m not what she envisioned for her child. I’m not a doctor and I’m not a lawyer. In fact, a large part of my job is engineering displays of stereotypical femininity. For a long time I struggled with the ideas of feminism because the feminism I saw growing up was definitely not what I was doing with my life. However, when it comes to the basic principles of, “I am a person even though I happen to have a vulva”, then yes I’m a feminist. When it comes to a person being denied rights based on their sex, religion, sexual orientation, the color of their skin then I am absolutely a feminist. I believe it’s your right as a person to do what you want to do with your life and your body as long as you aren’t harming others. If you’re discussing if red lipstick is anti-woman or not I don’t want to hang out with you regardless of what ideology or label you’re applying to yourself. There are so many larger things that need to be worried about right now other than whether or not we should wear fucking red lipstick or shave out God damn pubic hair. Because of all of the feminists who have worked so hard for decades, in the mid 2000’s I was able to say that I want to engage in sex work and that I want to engage in all of these stereotypical displays of femininity. Having that choice is just so important and to deny feminism would be extreme ingratitude towards all of those people who made it possible for women to make real choices”.
Stoya continues to utilise her literary works, pornographic productions and directorial projects to raise awareness towards the rights of sex workers. Stoya is also an active member of the Adult Performers Advocacy Committee (APAC) with her fellow adult film stars Chanel Preston, Ela Darling, Venus Lux, Mickey Mod and Verta among others. In fact, Stoya was the secretary for the first year that the APAC was founded. Through her ongoing advocacy with likeminded adult film industry professionals, Stoya and her fellow members of the APAC endeavour to;
“maintain and improve safety and working conditions in the adult film industry by giving adult performers organized representation in matters that affect our health, safety, and community…The mission of APAC is to provide representation for performers in the adult film industry and to protect performers’ rights to a safer and more professional work environment. We do this through education of each other and the greater community, development of ethical best practices, and fostering of solidarity. We review existing health and safety protocols, and will initiate new ones as needed. We are committed to working cohesively with all aspects of the adult entertainment industry and the public, strengthening unity between all performers, and maintaining a work environment where workers are valued, respected, and educated”.
Stoya in Top Guns – Digital Playground – Adult Empire Galleries
Upon being asked about her hopes for ‘safe sex work’ in the future during her 2015 Dazed interview with Melissa Gira Grant, Stoya conveyed how;
“I’m stuck on the word “safe”. Safe does not happen in any industry. Your job is not guaranteed even if you’re a salaried worker who goes in five days a week. It’s a question of how people can be provided with the tools to make their work safer…One of the things that gives me a lot of hope is that a few years ago there was almost a hierarchy of sex work where strippers go “I can’t believe that you let people document you”, and nude models go “I would never do porn”. Now, partially because of the internet, we are better able to communicate. We’re able to come together more frequently and take care each other as a larger group. AB1576 (the bill that makes condom use compulsory in porn) was the first time that I know of where straight and gay porn performers were working with each other to deal with an issue – and that’s incredible”.
What does the future hold for adult film icon Stoya? Only time will tell. Until then, you can catch up on her impressive porn star portfolio of award-winning DVD feature releases and familiarise yourself with her thought-provoking literary works, advocacy campaigns and directorial projects by visiting her official social networking channels online today using the links provided below!
Stoya – Social Networks
Twitter : @stoya
Instagram : @stoya , @stoyadoll
Mile High : Stoya at Mile High Media
VICE Author : stoya
Esquire Author : stoya
Refinery 29 Author : stoya
The Nude : Stoya at The Nude
Babepedia : Stoya at Babepedia
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