A Porn Star and Her (Male) Partner Also in the Same Industry

choi

Kayden Kross, When the Family Business Happens to Be Porn; We are like millions of couples, but I happen to love a man whose work involves having sex with other women. New York Times, Sept 7, 2014 (in the Sunday column "Modern Love").
www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/fashi ... ens-to-be-porn.html

Excerpt in the window of print: Women’s roles in porn are often submissive and subservient, but they usually make more money than men for the same work. With that can come a liberating experience.

My comment:
(a) I have no money to watch her films, but did download a short, free clip (about ten minutes long), in a series  that featured a beautiful woman artistically stripteasing and then amusing herself.

(b)
(i) Kayden Kross
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayden_Kross
(1985- ; “No. of adult films[:] 120 as actress, 1 as director (per IAFD)”)

Quote:

“Kross began stripping at Rick's Showgirls in Rancho Cordova, California [a city in Sacramento County] when she was eighteen years old to earn extra money to rescue a pony from a slaughter house, which she kept for eight months.[5]

“Kross was a senior at California State University, Sacramento when she signed an exclusive performing contract with Vivid Video in November 2006 [age 21]. Her movies with Vivid included Kayden's First Time

"Kross gave birth to a baby girl on Jan 23, 2014. She is engaged to the father")

(ii) Her Birth Name was Kimberly Nicole Rathkamp. The surname is Swedish.

choi

(c) Her partner is
(i) Manuel Ferrara
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Ferrara
(1975- ; born and raised in France; ”No. of adult films[:] 1344 as performer, 130 as director (per IAFD) as of April 2014; section 3 Personal life)
(ii) The south Italian surname Ferrara: “for someone who lived by a forge or iron workings, from ferrara, Latin ferraria, a derivative of ferrum ‘iron,’ or a habitational name from the provincial capital of Ferrara, in Emilia-Romagna”

(d) “More than two decades earlier, my mother thought she had done everything right. She had enrolled in college and knocked out the general requirements while working an office job at a firm related to the career she intended to pursue. There she met my father — a handsome, well-educated finance guy with an aggressive style and big ambitions.”
(i) knock out: "PHRASAL VERB [TRANSITIVE] informal to produce something quickly or carelessly <They've been knocking out candles at their factory since 1831>"  (brackets original)
www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/knock-out
(ii) knock (v): "Phrasal verbs * * * knock something out  informal Produce work at a steady fast rate <if you knock out a thousand words a day you’ll soon have it finished>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/knock

(e) “Then, a year into college, I began stripping. * * * Throw in a suddenly tanking economy, and college began looking less like the ticket to financial security. When the housing market plunged, I felt trapped. I did, that is, until one slow Friday night at work when a man [an agent, a talent scout] dropped $30 in my lap to hear him out. The next week I was on a plane for Los Angeles.”
(i) I do not want to accuse her of lying, but there are inconsistencies. “Throw in a suddenly tanking economy.” “When the housing market plunged.”  However, she plunged in film industry in 2006.
(ii) “According the US National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of US recessions) the US recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, and thus extended over 18 months.”
Great Recession
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession

It is wrong, not about recession but about NBER (which is private--and therefore “US” should NEVER precede it).

(f) “I also negotiated deals for novelty sex toys and landed one of the highest-paying performing contracts in the industry, a five-year deal that increased in value each year and promised roles in the biggest features.”

That is (porn) film industry, and a five year contract.
(g) “Manuel tried to talk me down. ‘Did you hear me?’ he asked. ‘I want to marry you. I want to have a baby with you.’”

talk down: "PHRASAL VERB [TRANSITIVE] talk someone down informal to speak to and calm someone who is upset or nervous, especially because they have taken an illegal drug <She talked him down, telling jokes to ease the tension>” (brackets original)
www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/talk-down