Kayden Kross Talks About Surviving In The Porn Industry

It's not often that pornstars get featured in the New York Times (link below), let alone are afforded the opportunity to actually write for what is potentially the most respected news organization in the world. Pornstar Kayden Kross is one of the lucky ones who've seized this opportunity however, and she wrote a piece that first appeared in the publication this past Friday.

In the article, she shares a lot of personal insights, such as the financial hardships of her early life that fueled her desire to never wont for money or security. 

Growing up, I was constantly aware of my mother’s penny-pinching anxiety: the quiet calculations as she added up the cost of our school supplies, the flashes of anger each time we outgrew clothes. She would sit my sister and me down and hammer home the importance of education, making us promise we would put a college degree ahead of everything. “Secure your security,” she would say.

And that’s what I intended to do. Then, a year into college, I began stripping. And the money I made allowed a radical change in my standard of living.

However, the financial crash of 2008 had Kayden staring down the barrel of her past, which was poised to come back and haunt her. That's when she made the decision to do porn. 

Porn is a business of surprising contradictions. Many of the roles women play are submissive and subservient: We are the bored housewife, the penniless pizza customer (who must pay her bill in other ways) and the vulnerable secretary. But unlike in the real world, women in porn usually make more money than men for the same work, and with that can come a liberating power, both financially and sexually.

In the years that followed my first shoot, I traveled the world — Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. By the time I was 23, I had started my own lucrative online subscription club. I also negotiated deals for novelty sex toys and landed one of the highest-paying performing contracts in the industry, a five-year deal that increased in value each year and promised roles in the biggest features.

It's a fascinating read, one which I wholly recommend reading in full, and you can do so over at The New York Times.