Musings from Women Pornographers and How They Are Changing the Sex Industry

When porn first appeared on the pop culture radar, it surfaced as an underground phenomenon that took over movie theatres in red light districts across the globe. Titles like "Deep Throat", "Behind The Green Door", "Misty Beethoven" and "Insatiable" became household names, as did women like Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers. The 80s brought the home video revolution, and — constantly adapting to new technologies — porn went right along with it, launching a number of powerhouse video companies that furnished the world with smut they could view in the comfort of their own home. This was also when toy companies as we know them today truly started appearing on the map, bringing "sexual aides" to the masses. And then there were the 90s, which brought along the Internet revolution, another charge led by the adult industry as companies and stars alike flocked to the World Wide Web, some becoming multi-millionaires almost overnight. Soon after the writers followed, bringing forth a batch of sex positive females whose mandate was to make sexuality and pornography comfortable for the everyman. And while the history of the adult industry's steady climb into meteoric popularity is certainly interesting, it's the women behind it that make it more interesting.

No book before has charted the evolution of this body of work, much less in the voices of those women responsible for it. Thus, Naked Ambition charts this course by inviting 31 of the leading women involved in adult entertainment and the proliferation of it to share their ideas, experiences, histories, and passions so that we might better understand the profound influence that porn — a social force that feminists and others on the left for a generation espoused as dangerous and degrading to women — had in helping liberate a newer, younger generation of women into claiming their sexual selves on their own terms.
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Introduction: Carly Milne

Porn Purveyors: The Women Who Shape What We Consume By Their Media Coverage

• Violet Blue: on experiencing boot camp on the road to becoming an adult video expert.
• Jill Sieracki: on revamping Playgirl Magazine.
• Laura Leu:on bringing porn into the world of lad mags.
• Regina Lynn: on how sex and technology come together.
• Jamye Waxman: on helping debunk the pervert myth surrounding porn through mainstream media.
• Lisa Massaro: on being the managing editor of one of the world's most recognizable porn magazines.
• Dana Harris: on covering the porn beat for the Hollywood trades.
• Tiffany Granath and Juli Ashton: on launching Playboy Radio.

Erotic Envisioners: The Women Who Enable Our Viewing Habits

• Holly Randall: on following in her mother's footsteps to become an erotic photographer.
• Tristan Taormino: on crossing the line to create feminist porn.
• Tera Patrick: on becoming and being a porn star.
• Mason: on directing the hardest of hardcore.
• Stormy Daniels: on transitioning from a performer to a director.
• Jackie Strano: on making porn that's titillating, educational and feminist.
• Shane: on launching reality porn from a woman's perspective and becoming a mother in the process.
• Nina Hartley: on pioneering the hardcore How To video.

Wanton Webmistresses: The Women Who Changed The Face Of Online Smut

• Katie Smith:on marketing adult content on the Internet.
• Jane Duvall: on mining the Internet for good adult content.
• Emily Dubberley: on starting a sexual revolution in the UK through Internet publishing.
• Hester Nash: on how a longtime interest in vintage porn launched the most unique site on the Internet.
• Danni Ashe: on learning how to launch the most popular adult website from working at a strip club.
• Joanna Angel: on being a feminist with a porn site.
• Seska Lee: on taking the amateur porn approach to the web.

Sex Sellers: The Women Behind The Companies We Buy From

• Sheila Rae: on running an adult specialty store.
• Theresa Flynt: on helping restructure the Hustler empire.
• Jennifer Martsolf: on helping create the sex toys that make it into your bedroom.
• Linda Johnson: on being one fifth of the Club Jenna team.
• Joy King: on wearing many different hats behind the scenes, from PR to sales and almost everything in between.
• Jewel DeNyle: on the decision to front an ultra hardcore porn company.
• Lainie Speiser: on promoting some of adult's most recognizable brands.
• Jodi Marie Lindquist: on lending an artistic eye to the industry.