Vera King @verakingxxx Tells Her Nightmare of Working with Nexxxt Level

Vera King, a female performer recently posted her experience with Nexxxt Level. Needless to say, it wasn’t a good experience. I wanted to make sure that her story gets out there. People need to see this story. You can also follow Vera King on twitter @verakingxxx.

Here is her story about her experience in the adult industry.

FUCK IT. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do… You can read my story, or not. But it has taken all the courage in my body to post this. #LAMAGAZINE held this article for A YEAR. Then, they dropped it w/o even telling me.

It is just unfortunate that nobody pays attention unless you are a big name. That is why it is so important for women to protect each other.

I Set Out to Go Undercover in Porn as a Journalist. I Ended Up Becoming an Adult Actress

After graduating from college in December 2016, I applied for a writer’s fellowship at BuzzFeed, hoping to work with a mentor to uncover and reshape narratives about female sexuality depicted in pornography.

My plan to win the fellowship was to re-enact Gloria Steinem’s 1963 essay “A Bunny’s Tale,” but instead of cocktail waitressing for the Mad Men crowd, I’d go into an actual porn audition and see what happened.

I was concerned about how the stunt would affect my emotional, mental, and physical health, but the choice of subject had not occurred to me completely out of the blue.

I’d been interested in porn and how it affects society for a long time. At the University of Arizona I majored in creative non-fiction, with an interest in depictions of female sexuality in literature (my thesis was on Virginia Woolf). Also I grew up in the Valley, fifteen minutes from Chatsworth, the porn capital of the world. In middle school, I picked my first porn name using the popular formula “first pet + childhood street name.” The resulting nom-de-porn, Ginger St.Croix, seemed suitable to this day, at least to me.

Like many others, I’d heard the story of Belle Knox, the performer who gained mainstream notoriety when it was revealed she was a Duke University student. Following in Knox’s footsteps, I started off with a simple Google search: “How to be a porn star.”

That Google search didn’t launch a career in journalism—alas, I didn’t land the fellowship—but it did launch my career in porn. It’s been two years since I first set out to infiltrate the industry.

Since then, I’ve had some of my best days and some of my worst.

Meet Jekyll and Hyde

As an empowered, educated feminist, I thought I was making decisions with my body. I was, to use the concept I had been taught, “claiming agency to resist domination and subvert control.” Except, as the Google research had universally recommended, I needed an actual agency to get started.

I looked into the experiences of other adult models and settled on what seemed to be a reputable agency led by two experienced men who referred to their business as “boutique.” I emailed some cell phone photos to the address on the website, and soon we arranged to meet in person. They suggested meeting for breakfast in a local mom-and-pop diner in Woodland Hills.

The two men—let’s call them “Jekyll” and “Hyde” laid on the agent charm. (I’ve decided to change some names of people and places because, spoiler alert, I’m still an active performer in the industry. The stories, however, are all true to my experiences.) Jekyll was tall and bearded, and would have been imposing like a bouncer if it wasn’t for his cuddly teddy-bear jollity. Hyde, on the other hand, was thin and tall, with a booming voice he clearly was enamored of. Together, they told me, had over 40 years of experience in the adult entertainment industry. Aside from working as agents, they were also “award-winning” directors and performers.

That first meeting was going very well, so they invited me back to their office—which was actually Hyde’s apartment at the time—for the next step. “Eventually,” they said, “you are going to have to take off all your clothes”—so why not speed up the process? It was time to put up or shut up. Was I ready to cross the line from writer to sex worker?

Turns out I was. I mustered the courage to drive to Hyde’s apartment in Woodland Hills (they worked from their apartments “to avoid overhead costs,” they explained). They closed the curtains and asked me to undress.

As I stood naked before them, they immediately started assessing my body: “great stomach, toned, etc.” But, apparently, I “needed to do more squats.” The not-particularly fit Hyde said: “I want your ass as toned as a 15-year-old gymnast.” Men who watched porn,” they explained, “preferred “feminine attributes like long hair and a tight ass. I want your ass so tight you could flip a coin off it.”

Still, teenage-tight butt or none, they wanted to work with me. I was (and still am) a thin, petite, young woman with a dark bob cut like one of my idols, Louise Brooks. This was also a liability for Jekyll, who let the less-pleasant Hyde do most of the talking. “Porn stars with short hair are unlikely to succeed in the industry,” they said, though I could name a number of porn stars who defy their notions. The gorgeous Riley Nixon, for example, has a shaved head, and the extremely popular Janice Griffith came into her own as a star when she traded in her long locks for a super stylish bob.

Their advice was often contradictory. After they told me I had to look like a pubescent Olympic athlete, they nevertheless recommended that I “put on a few more pounds because men like women that are curvy.” Also, they told me not to wax my pubic hair. “Bushes are in right now,” they informed me.

“Oh, and buy a lot of cheap underwear,” Hyde added. “You will go through it fast—cum will get on everything.”

I was learning something every woman in porn knows that would shock any woman outside the industry: we have to supply our own wardrobe (including lingerie and heels) to the specifications of a call sheet we typically get the night before, and take care of our own beauty-related expenses like buying our own hair extensions, and paying for highlights, Brazilian blowouts, laser hair removal, and gel manicures (a large number of male directors seem obsessed with the appearance of our fingernails and toenails).

Once Jekyll and Hyde were done critiquing my appearance, I was allowed to put my clothes back on.

“How old are you?” they asked.?“ Twenty-nine” I replied.? Hyde told me that there are “only two categories in porn: teen and MILF.” Because there are a number of intrusive websites that post the models’ birth dates where fans can easily find them, the Jekyll & Hyde agency would have to sell me as a MILF, although I have no kids and can look like I’m in my early-to-mid-twenties (depending on makeup).

Typical MILF performers—like Brandi Love and London River, with whom I was paired in a “cougar” production—are voluptuous, often blond, bombshells. Though age-wise, I would qualify for what the porn world considers a MILF, I’m more on the cute, petite end of the spectrum. Thus, in terms of my looks I fall under what they think of as “teen.”

However, my agents assured me, I could overcome this confusing teen/MILF conundrum if I was willing to do whatever it took to book jobs.

“Look,” Hyde said, “cream rises to the top. Not everyone is Michael Jordan. It’s difficult… many people don’t get it: part of the job is doing what you don’t want to do.”

This didn’t sit right with me. I had told them at the diner that I had my reservations about jobs that involved what the industry now calls “family play,” “faux-cest,” or “stepsister” porn. And, as a feminist, consent is always a cornerstone of how I think about sexuality.

“Girls who don’t do anal don’t work,” Hyde proclaimed as his many AVN awards glistened on display in his living room. “What are your career objectives?” he wanted to know.

I told him I wanted to buy a house, pay off my student debt, and then retire.

“Retire?” Hyde laughed. “There isn’t a ton of money in it for the average performer. One could only hope to make a few million that you could retire on.” The average female performer makes $1,000 a scene, minus agency fees.

Sure, an extremely popular adult performer, someone people outside of the industry would have heard of, can bank a six-figure income. This figure depends on her experience, what she is willing to do, her fanbase, and industry standards (body, age, race, breast size, tattoos, piercings, “all natural,” etc.), which are based on fads and, these days, on algorithms.

But porn is also one of the few industries where women make more money than men, at least on the performing side. Furthermore, adult performers can now supplement their incomes by web camming, appearing in live shows, creating custom scenes for individual fans, selling merchandise, directing, producing, and, yes, escorting.

Initially, a young woman can make fast cash, and then her net worth quickly depreciates depending on her popularity. Companies have a word for this: “shot out.” If you are a “brand new” performer, then you will get hired by every company at least once before they consider you “shot out” and move on to the next new girl. Hyde warned me that because I’m well on the wrong side of 18, my career could flop after one bad scene.

It seemed like a lot of pressure. Still, this first informational meeting didn’t deter me and, when they said they would be back in touch when they’d made a final decision about signing me, I was ready for the next round. Or so I thought.

The next day, Hyde texted me and asked me to drive to his apartment to further discuss things. When I arrived, I realized he was alone and his tone had shifted from professional to personal. Hyde spoke longingly about his own days as a performer. Then he said he was worried about me because I seemed “sweet and submissive,” while “a successful porn star should be more dominant to avoid getting taken advantage of.” However, he added, he personally enjoyed a “natural submissive” and then proceeded to kiss me.

I froze. Had I really stepped into the old “casting couch” cliché, right there in a non-descript two-bedroom apartment in the Valley? At least in the made-up casting couch porn scenes, the girls are getting the regular rate. I hadn’t even signed their contract yet.

I told him that I needed more time to think, and he walked me to the door. Later that evening, when I was walking my dog, Hyde texted me. “When we were together today did you wonder if I was going to kiss you?”

I couldn’t tell if he was attempting to be romantic or if he was gaslighting me.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” I texted back, cautiously. “I don’t want to complicate anything right now.” It was true—I didn’t know how to respond without jeopardizing potential job opportunities. I had, of course, wondered if I was going to have to suck agent dick in order to get work (duh), but once I was confronted with the reality, I was unsure how to proceed.

“Don’t create stories in your mind that have nothing to do with the reality that you live in,” he replied. OK—now it was gaslighting.

“I want to keep things professional,” I wrote back.

“No rush here. If we watched porn together, that would be fun.” I left it on “read.” ?Later that evening, he texted again: “I want to watch you look at the porn video and see you getting turned on. Place my hand on your leg and gently touch you. Whisper in your ear the things I would like to do to your body. Maybe place my hand behind your head and gently and slightly pull your hair. Would you like if I did that? Am I turning you on with the way I’m talking to you? Because it is turning me on.”

He asked if he could talk dirty to me on the phone. I said that I was watching Jessica Jones on Netflix and was going to pass out soon. That was the last thing we texted.

The following morning, I decided to discuss my foray into pornland with my sister and mother, who were extremely concerned by the story. I texted Jekyll my decision to postpone moving forward at this time. Jekyll’s role in the agency was to be “the nice one” and so he responded nicely. “The porn ‘bell’ is something you can’t unring,” he wrote. “You’re a bright young lady and after speaking with you for hours, I feel you’ve got the ability to be successful at anything you try.”

With no real harm having been done beyond that awkward kiss and some random texting, I thanked him and returned to my non-porn life of menial work and student loan payments.

A year later, perhaps against my better judgment, I contacted Jekyll and Hyde again.

I’d spent 12 months at a low-paying Starbucks gig that hadn’t even allowed me to afford my own apartment (though, unlike porn’s gig economy, it provided health insurance). I wrote up my initial audition experience for BuzzFeed and, like many writers just getting their start, received a rejection email in return.

I applied for every job a creative nonfiction major was qualified to do. Like many people my age, I kept the LinkedIn tab constantly open. Well-meaning acquaintances kept suggesting that I drive Uber or Lyft. Less well-meaning acquaintances kept telling me I was “too cute for those jobs.”

So, porn it would be. I tried other agencies, but they seemed even less professional than Jekyll and Hyde, so we set up another meeting at an Italian restaurant. They were pleasant, still interested in representing me, and also seemed willing to make me feel at ease about the previous interaction. They mentioned in passing that both lived with their girlfriends and that they now worked from Jekyll’s apartment. After some back and forth (I was still ambivalent), I signed with them.

At 30, definitely a MILF for porn purposes by now, I entered the industry as “Lexi Foxy.” Hyde rejected “Ginger St.Croix” as unsuitable for a non-redhead. Jekyll took photos of me for the agency site, so producers could be told that there was a new face in town. Lexi Foxy was now “internet official,” with social media accounts and pages on porn fan forums. The next step was parading me around AVN, the industry’s January convention in Las Vegas, where “talent” (what the performers are called) is introduced in person to producers. I used my own credit card to pay for a room and food at the Hard Rock Hotel. With only one shoot under my belt, I was already financially in the red. I had to quit my Starbucks job because Jekyll and Hyde told me I had to be available to work “at the drop of a hat.” In Vegas, Hyde made a stoned pass at me, which I rebuffed, and I wasn’t booked for weeks and weeks. The agents didn’t lose money if I didn’t work because they had other models to fill their slots.

Porn producers demand the performers show an STI test done within 14 days of the shoot, and my agents insisted I get tested every two weeks just in case they had to book me overnight. Testing fees, which every performer pays out of pocket, began adding up. There is no subsidized health care program for performers and many performers I’ve spoken to don’t have health insurance.

Because I wasn’t getting booked, Jekyll’s fiancée suggested I take a job dancing topless at a club in the Valley. I had never been topless in a room full of strangers whom I had to charm into tipping me before. I was now experiencing a second kind of sex work, swaying my hips and breasts at a grungy titty bar in Winnetka for crumpled-up dollar bills. Hyde, who continued being passive-aggressive towards me while not getting me shoots, kept theorizing that I wasn’t made for the job and that I would eventually find a man to take care of me and quit porn.

Even though I received positive feedback from fans and directors, my agents barely got me one scene a month. Sometimes, Hyde would book me for a job and then they’d mysteriously cancel. A casting director told me that when he requested to book me, Hyde had offered him his girlfriend, instead. To make ends meet, I poured at a winery on the weekends.

I tried to be proactive. Maybe it would help if I changed my name to something less generic than Lexi Foxy. Jekyll said the change would be bad for my career. “What career?” I thought. I was a woman in my 30s being treated like a 16-year-old girl by two unreliable men, one nice, one terrible. Forget retirement, at this point I was worried about piling porn-related debt atop my existing student loans.

Seeing other performers brag on Twitter about how much they were working was not helping. “I got into porn because I wanted to do something that would let me do a lot of other things: write, and create, and drink Chardonnay in my pyjamas at 4PM on Tuesday,” a bubbly blonde “teen” performer tweeted. I was drinking in my pajamas, alright, but I was too stressed about the future to write or create anything.

When in Prague

In the 1960s, when Gloria Steinem went undercover to report on the chauvinistic culture of Playboy Clubs from a female point of view, a feminist could still infiltrate the patriarchy with just bunny ears, a black velveteen one-piece, and a fluffy tail. In the 21st century, however, the stakes were a little higher and they apparently involved something called “anal training.”

Hyde—who by now was single-handedly running the agency because Jekyll’s fiancée wanted them to start a family—made me an offer that I was too broke to refuse. Legal Porno is a Europe-based brand that shoots in Prague. They are known for hiring U.S. talent, flying them over, and paying high rates, if the talent explicitly agrees to extreme sexual stunts, often involving degradation.

“Lexi,” said Hyde (I was still Lexi). “It’s three anal scenes, but you have to agree to at least try double anal for one of them.” He told me I would make $10,000, and that the opportunity will lead to more work, and put me on the map.

“Let’s face it: there is no other company that is going to offer you this amount of money for your first anal. No company in the Valley cares about a MILF’s first anal,” Hyde scoffed.

It just so happened that being a writer in Prague had been a dream of mine since I saw the 1990s indie flick Kicking and Screaming, in which a young, beautiful aspiring novelist (played by Olivia D’Abo) travels to the Czech capital to write. Prague, however, was also the hometown of Franz Kafka. Would this be a magical, artistically fulfilling experience, or a Kafka-esque nightmare?

Once again, I decided to roll the dice. My first journey ever out of the country, in August 2018, would be paid for by one of the most hardcore porn sites in the world.

Legal Porno had something of a reputation, but several well-known performers shot for them repeatedly. In porn, I thought, you paid your dues with your body. Hyde said that he had sent other girls from the agency to LP and they had come home “with 10k, 15k.”

The “double anal” (aka two penises in one butt—at the same time) clause was something that gave me pause. I still hadn’t done single anal in my personal life and I knew (as the many women and men who Google “how to do anal” know) that it required some preparation.

Less than an hour after I had agreed, I was getting my nails done when he texted me the e-mail confirmation ticket. I had a month to learn how to handle double anal. “You better get swiping on Tinder,” he texted.

As the trip approached, I showed up at Jekyll’s home office in tears. They looked me in the eyes and told me that the anus is “extremely flexible.” Meanwhile, Hyde kept dismissing my fears and concerns with his catchphrase “don’t create stories in your head,” something he had apparently picked up from the Landmark Forum self-improvement program, which he was known to use with clients to make them question their reality.

Days before I left for my European dream journey, Hyde volunteered to “practice” with me for the anal scene. This time he was definitely serious. I declined.

Also before I left L.A., Jekyll’s girlfriend said that Legal Porno was too extreme even for her, a ten-year veteran performer. She also said that “they like to see women in pain.”

I had some experience shooting for U.S. sites that specialize in BDSM and rough content. The sets were run professionally. One Washington State director and his wife were generous hosts and cooked me meals catered to my quasi-vegan, gluten-free diet. I filled out detailed consent forms before shooting and was informed that nothing I said in the recorded consent interviews prior to and directly after shooting would affect my pay. I could change or stop what was happening in a scene at any time. During that shoot, all of my boundaries were respected. The director encouraged me to communicate my boundaries with him during my scene. I was also compensated generously.

Even without double anal looming in my future, my first trip abroad would have been stressful for me. I was scared of flying and of heights. I had no idea what “customs” were or how you “cleared” them. My family didn’t know where I was. With no knowledge of Czech, I didn’t know where the fuck I was. After landing, I texted my agents. “Where am I going? Who is picking me up?” They told me a name, but a guy by a different name picked me up.

We drove for an hour or two into the countryside listening to Madonna songs and hits from the early 2000s. We arrived at an industrial building in a one-street, one-grocery-store rural town with no English speakers besides one gentleman working for Legal Porno, which appeared to be the town’s largest employer.

I was led up three flights of stairs to a room with bunk beds and a single window with a view of the parking lot. The hardwood floors were covered with dirty laundry, monster-sized dildos, and enemas. The shower looked like it had never been scrubbed. The top bunk was bare and the driver searched for clean sheets. Afterward, he asked me if I wanted to have sex with him, and I replied no. My dream European vacation was resembling more the beginning of a Blumhouse horror movie or an early Eli Roth film.

My hosts owned a washer but no dryer or air conditioner. I returned home from my trip, covered in bites from what I hope were bed bugs. This was worse than camp—it was anal boot camp. Turns out the Czech August is hot and humid in the day, and cold at night. My American roommate (let’s call her Angel) and I were lucky to have a private shower. The two European models who were at Legal Porno’s version of a bed and breakfast, had to use the communal showers. I asked the other performers and makeup artists who wiped down the furniture or cleaned up after the scenes. They just laughed.

The night I arrived, they shot an orgy starring Angel in the room next to us. Jet-lagged, all I could hear was loud sex screaming. The gonzo scene (shot without interruption) took hours instead of the U.S. standard of 45 minutes per sex scene. My introduction to Legal Porno’s shooting practices was the sound of (what seemed like) hours of hardcore anal penetration after a transatlantic flight.

At some point, Angel stormed into our room. “I am fucking torn,” she said. “What can I get you?” I jumped off the top bed. I had no idea. “Ice?” One of the LP directors knocked on the door and treated her injury with a cooling gel. He told her that he would make it up to her.

I had no blankets nor a pillow case. My agents did not suggest items for me to take. Angel said that she was going to call Jekyll like I wasn’t in the room. “I am worried about Lexi,” she told him. “I don’t think she is ready for this.” I could hear her describe how Hyde, whom she had been involved with, was being unprofessional with me and Mia, a very young client. As she was saying this, I could see that Mia had signed her name on the drywall next to the bunk bed and drawn a heart around it.

That first night, my agents texted me that my first scene would be with “D.J.”, a European performer I had never met, and the director I will call him Alain, who spoke no English. I introduced myself to D.J. the night before our scene and told him that I was brand new to anal and to “please be gentle.” Consent in porn should be negotiated clearly, but isolated in an industrial building somewhere outside of Prague, there was a language barrier on top of a cultural barrier. I stayed awake all night staring at the ceiling.

The guys slept downstairs and Angel told me to keep the door locked at night. When I woke up the next morning, I noticed that the male performers were walking around naked. One nude male performer I had never met before pushed me into the wardrobe closet and tried forcing my head down. I just pushed him off me and went on to my scene.

Director Alain didn’t speak English and, compared to U.S. directors, had no idea how to do his job. “No one on set speaks English,” Angel had warned me. “You have to stick up for yourself.”

D.J. wore a tribal necklace and jewelry around his wrists, and was peculiarly obsessed about me being “clean.” He weirdly insisted on using his penis to test that my butt was spotless before the scene. Angel had warned me that the male performers here “shot up their cocks” and it wasn’t like in the States. This was the first time I had heard this term. D.J. injected his penis with some kind of substance to make himself rock-hard, and, while he was not gentle as I had requested, it was OK. I had survived my first Legal Porno anal scene.

Angel and I celebrated by taking a bus to Prague for dinner. It was amazing, my first night in a legendary European city, and I was surprised that I could even walk after my rough anal scene. I had off the next day, and we went to Prague again. I probably would not have been able to leave the Legal Porno building if I had been there by myself, but Angel ended up extending her trip and serving as my guide and translator.

After getting to play “regular tourist” for a little while, it was time for the “double anal” challenge. The next scene was four-on-one (which is exactly what you think, with me being “one”). I tried to speak with Alain, who used his rudimentary English to insist that I had agreed to “try.”

There was no trying. There was only doing. When the camera turned on there was no turning back. The guys injected their penises on set. Somehow, I was able to perform, thanks to a lot of “numbing cream” that was liberally applied to my posterior and the promise of walking away with $10,000.

Angel had to fly out for another shoot and so I faced my last day with Legal Porno by myself. Hyde had stopped replying to my texts and I found myself naked and alone, unable to communicate clearly with two guys and Alain, who were gearing up for my final DP (double penetration).

Suddenly, my two co-stars started fighting with each other. D.J. was screaming that he could not get an erection because the other male performer had put numbing cream in the lube. “Look at this!” he kept screaming at the other guy shaking the lube bottle in his face. They bickered in different languages.

The DP was supposed to be a 45-minute, uncut shot, but it ended up lasting over five hours. An increasingly frustrated D.J. became violent. After I tried to tell him that I would not relent to anal sex off camera because I was sore, he kicked a water bottle across the room, then went downstairs and hit a punching bag until he was drenched in sweat. He paced up and down the stairs, sweating, huffing, and puffing.

I was terrified and exhausted from hours of on and off anal penetration. After taking a 20-minute shower while we sat on set waiting for him, D.J. returned he could only perform if the sex was anal. He said that it was my fault there was “no chemistry.” I wanted it to be over, and Alain told me to “do what D.J. said” and then we could finish the scene. It went on and on. If I grimaced in pain, then Alain would stop shooting and tell me to smile. “Ten more minutes,” he kept saying. I couldn’t feel anything. I texted my agents that the shoot had no end in sight, but received no reply until the next day.

Finally, after receiving a pair of injections in each side of his penis, D.J. was finally ready to finish. He ejaculated in my ass without pulling out, and the director told me to push it out and lick it up. I did what he said to finish the goddamn scene.

Afterward, I sat on the floor of the shower and cried.

The car ride to the airport and the plane ride home was a blur. I hadn’t slept in nights, but I was walking somehow. I thought if I could pretend everything was fine, then I could just move on with my life. After I landed, I pretended nothing had happened. I told anyone who asked me about the trip that I was “fine.”

My physical injuries didn’t become apparent to me until a few days later. I felt bruised inside. I was bleeding with my bowel movements, so I went to urgent care.

The doctors inserted a small camera inside me and found my rectum was infected. Treating it was another ordeal, more painful than anything I had experienced on set. I spent weeks soaking in Epsom salt baths to alleviate the pain.

I developed a purple-blistering rash on my elbows, knuckles, and knees and the doctor called it a textbook allergic reaction to the antibiotic Doxycycline. Psychologically, the toll was also great. The experience re-triggered my panic attacks. I awoke at night soaked in sweat.

I discovered that Hyde was intentionally ignoring my texts and calls in Prague because Jekyll had talked to him about his unprofessional conduct. Hyde called me to say that he was just trying to be a “nice guy” by offering to have anal sex with me, and that I hadn’t even given him the chance to defend himself. How could I be so sure my terrible on set experience had not been “a story I made inside my head?”

After neglecting to book me for months, Hyde seemed eager to put me to work. He said that it was his job to present me with every opportunity. I told him that I couldn’t work due to internal injuries I was trying to heal. “Think of all the money you are losing out on,” he told me.

Ah, the money. When I returned, the promised $10,000 had mysteriously turned into $4,800. Legal Porno had paid Jekyll and Hyde $6,600 and they had given me less than half of what I had been offered initially after subtracting agency fees.

Hyde, gaslighting again, said that he never promised me $10k. I told him that he intentionally sent me into a high-risk situation and misled me. Hyde kept blaming me for the shitshow scenario in the Czech Republic. He insisted it was “just business” and I wasn’t even qualified for the “kiddy pool” since I was being a “baby” and that I “lacked drive” to thrive in the industry. I wanted to tell Hyde to take two dicks up his ass.

After my return, I reached out to “Ginno” another Legal Porno director on Twitter and asked him about his initial offer. He said he had never promised $10,000 and that Hyde must have made up that number. Ginno told me my scenes “were selling like hotcakes” and offered to rebook me, but I told him that I lacked the experience to continue working with Legal Porno.

Regaining My Agency

Shortly after that, I informed Jekyll and Hyde that I was leaving my contract. I kept having health issues and I was also depressed. In porn, your body is your income and your ability to work depends on staying healthy. The Prague misadventure not only failed to get me out of the hole financially, but I ended up losing money because I couldn’t work until my symptoms were gone.

I interviewed with a top male agent after leaving Jekyll and Hyde. He told me that he couldn’t get me any work because I didn’t look enough like a MILF. A director contacted the agent and told him that he had made a big mistake.

Finally, I found OC Modeling, a female-run agency. Upon meeting me, the new agency did not make rude or critical remarks about my body or age. I was nervous about telling Sandra, my new agent, why I couldn’t work for almost two months. People had warned me not to badmouth Hyde, but it was impossible to tell my story without explaining his harassment and negligence. Sandra listened to me and reassured me that I was not to blame for Hyde’s unprofessional behavior. OC Modeling kept a door open for me while I recovered from mono and my injuries in the aftermath of Prague.

Shortly after my return to the industry, I was booked almost immediately for an amazing opportunity with Chick Media, a project by Kelly Holland, former CEO of Penthouse, which focuses on porn written and directed by women.

It was an amazing experience working for Kelly who gave me so much direction and feedback when acting for the camera, and restored my hope in performing. I worked with an amazing crew and talent and felt honored to shoot for Chick Media.

I felt born again as a performer, and so I decided to rename myself. Lexi Foxy had gone through a lot. It was time to say goodbye to that poor girl and welcome Vera King. Louise Brooks would be proud.

It seems crazy now to think about how that Google search, “How to Be a Porn Star,” launched a life-changing journey. I’ve grown from my experiences in the industry. I am now a working adult actress, booking several scenes a month. My work more than quadrupled and I could finally start thinking about my financial future.

I discovered that I long to continue to perform and explore erotica in a cinematically interesting way. I want porn to push boundaries. I want to see women in all sorts of roles and positions of power. I love challenging myself to grow for the camera and appreciate every learning opportunity.

Many women in the industry never get to tell their stories. Some may think there’s no one to tell it to. As one performer tweeted, “Twitter is our HR department.”

I am grateful to be working in this industry and to express my sexuality on film. Some days are just so fun and amazing that I can’t believe I get paid to do this for a living. But like any job, there are bad days, as well. And we should talk about them.

I have met some truly wonderful people in the industry, despite a few bad ones. Ultimately, I love being a part of a community of performers and industry folks that support and empower each other.