A Field Guide To Tessa Lane

We are forever striving to expand our knowledge on pornstars, and part of that effort is keeping up with the fresh faces. Tessa Lane caught our attention the other day when we saw her rubbing up on Manuel Ferrara in "Time for Change," so we figured it's time for her to have a Field Guide.

Tessa Lane was born on September 08, 1988 in Long Island, New York (according to IAFD). We don't know much about this young woman's upbringing, but porn seems to be a significant part of it. She said, "I basically grew up on porn. I started watching it at a young age and I was immediately drawn to it," and when asked who her childhood (more precisely, teenage) hero was, she named Jenna Haze:

It sounds odd having an adult performer as a "hero" per-say, but I saw how much she enjoyed her scenes. Before that, I was taught sex was bad. She made me feel empowered as a sexual woman and she's a smart business woman on top of that! She branched off into her own company and makes her own productions etc. I am tailoring my career towards the same goal with a special Tessa Lane twist.

When she graduated high school, Tessa was living at home and working as a waitress at a small family-friendly restaurant in New York. She flew out to California for a friend's birthday--her first trip away from home by her lonesome--and ran into Tee Reel at a club. Tessa recognized him instantly, but played it cool and simply asked if he was a pornstar; one thing led to another, Tessa discussed her interest in being a porn performer, and Tee said he would help get her connected. She shot a scene during that trip, and a year later, she quit her job, left her home and her friends behind, and moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a porn career. All she needed was a pseudonym, and Tessa got hers from "Tristessa" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Tessa has only been around the adult industry for a little over a year, and she's happy to be doing what she's doing, but she's already thinking about her long term goals. Like many of her porn peers, she's been thinking about a future working behind the camera--not just directing, but supporting her colleagues in any way she can. As she told Tod Hunter:

Sometime in the future I'd like to be behind the scenes. Give new girls the advice I got, because a lot of people don't get the same advice I did. I want to be like that for new girls who don't know what to expect. I'm one of the lucky ones. You have to figure out your own niche, your own brand, and work it from there.

We know that Tee Reel was a big part of her comfortable introduction to porn, but we'd love to know who else contributed to her budding success. Frankly, we feel like Tessa may have overlooked her inner strength as her guide. For example, when Tod Hunter asked about the most valuable life-lesson she's learned, Tessa responded:

Just to be myself and embrace it. It sounds weird, but porn helped me find myself. Before that I would try to fit to the mold of everything. Be the perfect little girl on Long Island. It didn't work out for me. I have to be myself and accept who I am. Embrace it. That's how I'll be happy.

It's not like porn discovered her--part of her adolescent mind was steeped in porn! Obviously, we don't condone or encourage minors to watch smut (never ever ever ever), but in this isolated case, it seems to have done good. Perhaps it's not even the porn that made a difference in Tessa's life; perhaps her porn watching days were simply representative of her willingness to approach sex and sexuality with an open mind.

We know it takes much more than that to be a successful pornstar, but it looks like Tessa Lane has her game on track, and her positive attitude can only help. She was recently nominated for Best New Starlet at the Nightmoves Awards, and we'll see if she takes her first title home in October. Until then, we're going to keep drooling over her every chance we get.

Be sure to check out:
· Tessa Lane's Twitter (twitter.com)
· Her Amazon Wishlist which includes some classic board games (amazon.com)
· An interview with Tee Reel and Tessa conducted by Sunny Leone (youtube.com)
· And this strange article in which Tessa gets a long-distance tarot card reading (adultcybermart.com)

[At top: Tessa chillin' on her teacher's desk, via Naughty America (galleries.naughtyamerica.com)]