Stoya is an American semi-retired pornographic actress,

actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

, model, and nonfiction writer. She began her porn career in 2007 in the

alt porn Alternative porn (also known as alt porn, alternaporn, or simply alt in context), a shortening of " alternative pornography," is a subgenre of pornography that is centered around alternative subcultures, such as goths, emos, scenes, skaters, ...

scene, and since 2009 has also worked in non-pornographic media, including the 2016 lesbian fantasy series '' Dagger Kiss''. Since 2019, she has co-written the sex column "How to Do It" for ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

'' under the byline Jessica Stoya.

Early life

Stoya was born to a Scottish father and a Serbian mother. She was named Jessica after Jessica Savitch. As a child, she wanted to become a dancer, and started dance lessons at the age of three. She was home-schooled and received her high-school diploma before the age of sixteen. Because her father worked in IT, Stoya had access to electronics and gaming equipment, through which she developed her love of technology. "I was three when I was using DOS. My mom taught me how to read, and my dad taught me how to navigate DOS." After moving to

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, she attended a summer program at UArts. Some of her jobs in Philadelphia included being a secretary, flier distributor, and a

go-go dancer Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at nightclubs or other venues where music is played. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s at the French bar Whisky a Gogo, located in the town of Juan-les-Pins. The bar's ...

. Stoya appeared in several music videos for bands that, according to her, "no one will ever hear of." In May 2009, Stoya said that she would be moving from Philadelphia and relocating to

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in the fall of that year.

Career

Stoya began posing for adult pictures for a friend, which eventually led her to modelling and working for alt-erotic websites. She chose her

stage name A stage name or professional name is a pseudonym used by performers, authors, and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. The equivalent concept among writers is called a ''nom de plume'' (pen name). Some performers ...

based on a shortened version of her grandmother's Serbian maiden name and trademarked the name in 2009. Stoya was featured in two DVD productions for Razordolls, and she made a non-sex,

cameo appearance A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...

in two Vivid Alt titles before being contacted by Digital Playground with a proposition to perform in a hardcore lesbian scene with Sophia Santi. The scene in question never happened, but, in August 2007, she met with several Digital Playground representatives and was asked if she would star in a pornographic movie with male talent. After careful consideration, Stoya agreed. In October 2007, Digital Playground signed her to an exclusive, three-year contract. Stoya is regarded as the company's first

contract girl. The first scene that she shot for them was for ''Stoya Video Nasty'' (promoted on the DVD box as the first film featuring her engaging in heterosexual intercourse), but her first movie released by the company was ''Jack's POV 9''. In 2012, Stoya was named by

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

as one of the 12 most popular pornographic film actresses. Even though Stoya was under exclusive contract with Digital Playground, Evil Angel director John Stagliano received "special permission" in 2013 to cast her in the sequel for the adult film series ''Voracious''. As of 2014, she left Digital Playground and focused her career on directing. She financed and directed her first film in February 2014. On March 4, 2014, Stoya and Kayden Kross created the pay-per-scene pornographic website TRENCHCOATx. In addition to running the site, Stoya performed in and also directed some of the films. In 2018, Stoya launched the website zerospaces.com with her business partner, comedian Mitcz Marzoni.

Acting

In 2009, Stoya appeared in her first non-erotic film project as Kamikazi Shegun 5000 in the award-winning

48 Hour Film Project The 48 Hour Film Project is an annual film competition in which teams of filmmakers are assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, and have 48 hours to create a short film containing those elements. The competition has been a ...

short film "The Kingpin of Pain". Stoya appears as a main cast member in the 2016 lesbian fantasy series '' Dagger Kiss''. In February 2018, Stoya starred in the Serbian sci-fi film '' A.I. Rising'' (also known as ''Ederlezi Rising'') in the role of the android, Nimani, on a space mission with a

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

played by Slovenian actor Sebastian Cavazza. The two become romantically entwined when the cosmonaut starts to believe there might be something human inside his android companion. Stoya has acted in two of

Dean Haspiel Dean Edmund Haspiel (born May 31, 1967, in New York City) is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his '' American Splendo ...

Off Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

stage plays: ''Harakiri Kane (Die! Die, Again!)'' (2017) and ''The Last Bar at the End of the World'' (2018).

Writings

Stoya has written sex advice columns for ''

'', ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...

'', ''

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'', and ''

Refinery29 Refinery29 (R29) is an American multinational digital media and entertainment website focused on young women. It is owned by Sundial Media Group. History Justin Stefano, Philippe von Borries, Piera Gelardi, and Christene Barberich co-founded Ref ...

''. For her ''Slate'' column, "How To Do It", she uses the byline Jessica Stoya. She has published pieces in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

'', and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', as well as an article in '' Porn Studies,'' a peer-reviewed academic journal. She published her first book in 2018, entitled ''Philosophy, Pussycats, and Porn,'' a collection of personal and critical essays.

Personal life

Stoya has acknowledged the importance of

social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

in her career; she was active on

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

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, and various Internet forums. In June 2009, she was reported to be dating

Marilyn Manson Brian Hugh Warner (born January 5, 1969), known professionally as Marilyn Manson, is an American rock musician. He is the lead singer and the only original member remaining of the Marilyn Manson (band), same-titled band he founded in 1989. Th ...

, but they later broke up due to Manson's touring schedule. Afterwards, she dated pornographic actor

James Deen Bryan Matthew Sevilla (born February 7, 1986), known professionally by the stage name James Deen, is an American pornographic actor and film director, director. Deen entered the porn industry in 2004 at the age of 18. He gained attention due ...

for several years. On November 29, 2015, Stoya wrote on Twitter that Deen had raped her: Deen denied the allegations, calling them "false," "egregious," and "defamatory." Following Stoya's statement, eight other women went public with assault allegations against Deen. San Francisco-based Internet pornography studio Kink dropped Deen, and the website '' The Frisky'' terminated his column. Stoya moved to

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, Serbia.

Publications

* 2015: "Noooooooodie Girl" (pp. 284–286) in ''Coming out like a porn star : essays on pornography, protection, and privacy'' compiled by Jiz Lee. ThreeL Media. . * 2018: Philosophy, Pussycats, & Porn. Not A Cult.

Awards

* 2008 Eroticline Award – Best U.S. Newcomer * 2009

AVN Award The AVN Awards are List of movie awards, film awards sponsored and presented by the American trade magazine ''AVN (magazine), AVN'' (''Adult Video News'') annually to honor achievements in the global Sex industry, adult entertainment industry. ...

– Best New Starlet * 2009 AVN Award – Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene – ''Cheerleaders'' * 2009

XBIZ Award XBIZ Awards, renamed as XMAs Awards from 2025 onwards, are given annually to honor "individuals, companies, performers and products that play an essential part in the growth and success of adult films". They have been described by XBIZ publisher ...

– New Starlet of the Year * 2009 XRCO Award – New Starlet * 2012 AVN Award – Hottest Sex Scene (Fan Award) – ''Babysitters 2'' * 2014 XBIZ Award – Best Scene - Feature Movie – ''Code of Honor'' * 2018 FEST Beograd – Best Actress – ''Ederlezi Rising'' * 2019 XBIZ Award – Best Actress - All-Girl Release – ''Talk Derby to Me''XBIZ Award Winners
'' XBIZ'', January, 2019

Notes and references

External links

Official blog
* * *
"From Barbie Doll to Razordoll: The Sexual Shift in Porn"
by Lauren Mayberry, '' The Skinny'', July 30, 2009. *
Podcast Interview at Adult DVD Talk

Stoya interview (05:12)
re ''" A.I. Rising"''
(1:21)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stoya 21st-century American actresses Alt porn American bloggers 21st-century American writers American female adult models American pornographic film actresses American people of Scottish descent American people of Serbian descent Living people Actors from Wilmington, North Carolina Pornographic film actors from North Carolina American women bloggers 21st-century American women writers Year of birth missing (living people) American sex columnists American expatriates in Serbia