15 Friends And Family Of Sex And Porn Workers Share Exactly What It Was Like Uncovering Their Double Lives
"15+ years later, I am heartbroken over it. My mother is one of the most insecure people I know."
By 
Lisa Woods
1. Friend Was Teased Relentlessly
My friend’s mom was a porn star in the late 90’s. He would beat the shit out of you if you ever mentioned anything about it.
My brother and I of course don’t like it for several reasons. Your friends knowing and watching it at least once, the looks we get if we visit her at her apartment like we are some “John” etc. No, it never gets talked about which also bothers me. Our extended family is VERY small so it isn’t an issue really. If they know, I haven’t heard anything.
Her income was and is pretty good, certainly much better than mine. I don’t have a number though. She did come to Easter dinner last year in a new Maserati Gran Turismo MC if that gives you some idea.
2. Found Out By Seeing A Video
Well I basically realize by age 14 or 15 that my mom did not have a normal job. And I was finally able to kind of put two and two together.
Eventually I actually saw a video that she was in. And that’s pretty much how I found out.
3. Happy For Mom But Won’t Google Her Name
My mom didn’t start getting into it until I was about to leave for college. The computer was in my room, and soon I noticed a new webcam, which she never let me have when I wanted it. I would find lingerie items in my closet, but let it go because my mom can be a hot head.
I moved out to college and never really thought about it again. During this time, she had divorced and been dating again. When I was introduced to her new boyfriend, I was shocked. Huge house, nice car, the whole deal. As he was showing me around his house, we get into his office. Plastered all over the walls are pictures of him with naked women, and lanyards from conventions- porn conventions. This is where I made the connection again. I got bold and talked to my mom about it, turns out he owned a porn website and was helping her launch her career (while also being her sugar daddy).
I was shocked at first, mainly because my mother was the strictest woman growing up. My sister and I discussed it many nights, with her crying and telling me to not Google our mom. I never did.
Flash forward to now, I just talked to my mom today. She’s in Florida at a porn convention. She’s gotten a name in BDSM/ rope play and travels around the U.S. teaching classes at conventions, and she’s never been happier. She will be 51 this year. I just turned 26.
I’m happy for her. Still won’t google her name though.
4. MOTHER WAS EXTREMELY OPEN ABOUT IT
I found out when I was 14. My mom worked in “the industry” for a decade in total. She told me she did it for quite some time, why she did it, how it was and that maybe someone I know in high school would even recognize her one day and to not be surprised by it and that I could always talk to her about it.
5. A DVD
A friend of my wife’s got into the industry for a few years and she told her about the time her son hit play on the DVD player in her room and one of her movies was in it. It had been playing for several minutes when she came back in the room. The kid was probably 7 or 8 at the time. Didn’t get too many details about what happened after that.
6. They Kept Lying Even When He Found Out
Not a pornstar, but my mom’s an escort.
It’s incredibly unpleasant. Especially finding out after your parents lived huge double lives. She’s also a huge hypocrite.
I have nothing against sex workers. It’s a fine profession, though a risky one. But the bad part is how they were handling it improperly when telling/people find out, mainly me and my siblings. They would lie about where she’d be. Never tell me when she’d leave. She was gone 5/7 days a week. Even when I did find out, her and my dad would lie about stuff. And they’d tell me growing up that “sex is done between two people who love each other.”
That’s ignoring that my mom cheated on my dad for a time when he was depressed and has developed a relationship (aka love) with a married client, whose wife doesn’t know, the same one she cheated with.
Finding out about it through them accidentally leaving her website open before I had to print something on their computer when I was 13 didn’t help.
7. Most Kids Know From A Younger Age
I do porn and know lots of people in the industry with kids. Most of them turned out okay. That sounds bad but remember most people I know from my “normal” life (non profits and the education system) had normal kids. You will always have shitty parents, it’s not exclusive to porn.
The older kids 18+ that I’ve talked to say it’s kinda weird but mostly normal to them now. It’s not like they Google their mom or anything. It’s just part of life. It’s still legal and lucrative at the end of the day and a lot of these kids had nice upbringings.
Just depends on who you ask. Some will tell you it was fine and some will say it was a nightmare, depends on who the parent is.
8. “I Didn’t Know What She Did Was Weird”
My mother was a dominatrix professionally for many years. Sex therapist by day and domina by night. So maybe this is something similar?
I did most of the chores in the house except laundry. I was not allowed in the basement for any reason. Of course that means I snuck down… Our basement was a dungeon. Poles, straps, things to straddle, walls of toys and tools…and the smell of incense and something else I didn’t know at the time.
Sometimes my mother had clients when I would normally be home (she usually didn’t). We had a code. I would check the mail box. If there was an envelope with my name on it, it meant that it contained money and a time for me to return. I would take the money and go down the street to a bookshop where I would order a wrap and do my homework in their cafe. At the time I didn’t mind, but as I got older I realized it wasn’t really the best thing for me and that it wasn’t a safe solution.
A few times she forgot to leave me an envelope and I walked into…sounds coming from the basement. Sometimes it wasn’t a client but rather just someone she wanted to bone. I have seen my mother bent over various pieces of furniture in our living room unfortunately when it just came to a walking into her general sex life. She’s also answered the door when I came home to see her in a harness or in her gear. I saw her naked often and she wasn’t shy about it.
I didn’t know what she did was weird, but only that I wasn’t meant to talk about it. Sometimes my afternoons were spend having a snack in a bookstore cafe and sometimes I was able to come right home when I got off the bus. I don’t know if it was entirely about money or if it was just something she loved doing. My mother was more down to earth with sex related things for a parent. She was very difficult in most other area of our life.
I didn’t look down on her for doing this though. My relationship with my mother is complicated, but it is due to a number of other unrelated factors.
9. Daughter Is Doing Better Than Her Mom
One of my girlfriend’s good friends has a pornstar mother.
I even saw the video of her getting railed by like 500 guys and she stars in Life After Porn where she talks about her meth habit.
The daughter isn’t exactly an overachiever but she is doing a hell of a lot better than the mom.
10. Mom Tells The Truth About It When Drinking
My mom wasn’t in porn as far as I know, but she was a stripper/escort back in the day. It’s hard to deal with because when she drinks, something will come up after I tell her that her drinking is getting out of hand, and she’ll say something like, “you don’t know what I’ve been through, I went through all that so you wouldn’t have to. But maybe you should see what it’s like, maybe you’ll learn and toughen up. Maybe you’ll learn why I drink so much.” Not just about stripping, but being on the street, too. Funny thing is, when she’s sober, she openly admits to putting herself in that situation and staying there because her cousin was doing it at the time. She says she enjoyed it, but drunken her says otherwise.
11. Not A Big Deal
Not really a big deal. It’s the reason I have clothes and food and a home. My parents were always stricter about dating and stuff like that though,
12. It Was Super Normal For My Friend
For a short time in high school, I dated a girl whose father and older brother produced porn. The girl mentioned three things which stick out:
- They were moving to digital media (CDs at the time) for distribution because they felt this was the future. They were also experimenting with multiple viewing angles on the same video.
- Her younger (edited 4 hours later to clarify based on comments below) brother, around 10 years old at the time, received a subscription to one of the main mags (Penthouse or Playboy or whatever) around that age. He was the most popular kid in the neighborhood.
- She noted the pornstars would babysit the family members when she was younger.
It just was so normal for her and she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.
13. Business Is Business
My parents have owned their own amateur pornography company since 1999. They have been one of the leading producers for amateur porn in the adult entertainment industry. My father created the company, and with the help of my mom, built an extremely successful business. I remember when I was 10 years old we had to move cause of my parents work, but I didn’t find out what they did until I was about 14. They had bought a huge house and turned our finished basement into their office. Since then they have established partners from around the world. If you ever met my parents you would have no idea that they did this. But I remember when my mom would take my little sister and I on all day shopping trips, because my dad was at home directing a new movie. Yes, my house was used in the majority of the movies. No, my bedroom was never in any of the scenes. Yes I met a lot of the stars of the movies, one of them became close friends with my parents. She later did more executive work for the company, but she also would babysit my sister and I and we are still friends with her till today. My senior year of high school, my parents were contacted by the city newspaper to do an article because they had gotten a hint of what my parents did. My parents did an interview, and a well written article came out right before graduation. Surprisingly, everyone loved it! I remember my French teacher in high school giving me the biggest hug and just talking with me about it. I was worried at first, but people didn’t treat me differently and most people just wanted to tell me how cool it was.
After that I wasn’t shy to tell people about it. It was a great conversation starter once I got into college. I joined a sorority, and I remember sitting in the living room at the house one day when I told a couple of the girls. I was telling them about how my mom and the girl working for my parents go to the annual AVN Awards in Las Vegas (which are the like the oscars for the adult industry). So we opened a laptop so I could show them the website and to my surprise saw my mother on the front page of the website for a new movie. The real kicker is that she did a girl on girl scene for that movie. I never brought that up with my parents, just tried to ignore it. The icing on the cake is I became a teaching assistant for the human sexuality teacher on campus, and since that year my parents have been guest speakers for the class when they get to the chapter on pornography. The first one, the class had no idea they were my parents until my dad decided to call me out in front of everyone, but hey no biggie.
Anyways, my parents business is still doing great. My little sister has now become a co-owner of the company since my dad is close to retirement age, so she has taken over a majority of the graphic design as well as picking out content for the movies. When I go home to visit, conversation is normal, but if I go into the office I am never shocked when my sister asks me for font opinions for the new covers. The office now has a shelf of awards they have won, and they have all the XBIZ magazines highlighted with multiple of their titles in the top 100 each month.
So yeah, that’s my story.
14. Gave A Poor Perception Of Women At A Young Age
My mother was never a porn star, but she was a popular dancer at a topless bar.
This is going to sound backwards, but I was also raised “Christian” (more so by my dad, but she insisted we go to church and all that throughout). So, there was a lot of secrecy involved. My sister and I saw the hypocrisy in her double life and we lost a lot of respect for her. We still loved and supported her, because what else were we going to do… she’s our mother.
Now, 15+ years later, I am heartbroken over it. My mother is one of the most insecure people I know. She is a 4 time divorcee, and continues to
seek out men to support herbelieve she needs to be supported by men, and consequently is forever getting involved with she has no actual interest in. She rents a run down old house in the worst neighborhood in town. The only reason she got into the house is because the church helped her out. My sister and I have been helping her with rent for years now.I feel the need to clarify, I do not blame all my mom’s problems on her time as a stripper. But I see it as a huge factor in a long line of objectifying, mentally damaging events that has contributed to her current situation.
Additionally, it didn’t give me a great perception of women to know that mom’s only worth in the world was her sexuality.
15. It Was Weird Knowing She Did Porn At 13YO
My mom worked in porn for a while and told me about it when I was 13 years old. It was a little weird knowing that my mom did that for such a long time and I did worry for quite a while that one of my friends or someone else I know might come across a video or pictures of hers. I don’t think negatively of her for doing it, although I was curious as to why she chose to do it and how the experience was and she’s explained it to me in full. She and I have always had a very close and open relationship, so her having been in porn isn’t any sort of issue, although, I’m not sure how I’d feel about it if she was still doing it…that would be kind of weird.
