Stoya

Stoya — Biography & Career

Stoya is an American performer, model, and writer whose career spans adult film, screen acting, stage work, publishing, and digital media. She began working in the alt-porn scene in 2007 and, in October of that year, signed an exclusive three-year contract with Digital Playground, where she was described as the company’s first alt-porn contract performer. In 2012, CNBC named her one of the 12 most popular adult film actresses.

Her early recognition included the 2008 Eroticline Award for Best U.S. Newcomer, the 2009 AVN Award for Best New Starlet, the 2009 XBIZ Award for New Starlet of the Year, and the 2009 XRCO Award for New Starlet. After leaving Digital Playground in 2014, she focused part of her career on directing. That year she financed and directed her first film and, with Kayden Kross, launched the pay-per-scene site TRENCHCOATx, where she both performed and directed.

Beyond adult entertainment, Stoya has built a parallel career in non-explicit media. She appeared in the 2009 short film The Kingpin of Pain, joined the main cast of the 2016 fantasy series Dagger Kiss, and starred as the android Nimani in the 2018 Serbian science-fiction film A.I. Rising. For that performance, she won the 2018 FEST Beograd award for Best Actress. She also appeared in two Off Broadway plays by Dean Haspiel in 2017 and 2018.

As a writer, Stoya has contributed columns to Slate, Vice, The Verge, and Refinery29, and since 2019 she has co-written Slate’s “How to Do It” under the byline Jessica Stoya. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, New Statesman, Esquire, The Guardian, and the academic journal Porn Studies. In 2018, she published Philosophy, Pussycats, and Porn, a collection of personal and critical essays. In the same year, she launched zerospaces.com with comedian Mitcz Marzoni.

Source: Career reference — Wikipedia. Career summary adapted from the linked article under CC BY-SA 4.0; wording and selection have been edited.

Photo credit

© Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com — Stoya 2014. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Display size and framing may be adjusted; the photograph remains available under the linked license.