Porn Moms, a portrait series by Mary Beth Koeth, reveals how women balance the role of motherhood with their work in the adult film industry.
In the fall of 2017, photographer Mary Beth Koeth rented a car and drove from New York City to Edison, New Jersey for the Exxxotica Expo, an erotic arts convention. Her goal was to meet women who worked in the adult film industry and also had children. The last born in a big Catholic family, Koeth wanted to know how the world where she’d grown up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas differed from the worlds of these women. How do they balance motherhood with their work? wondered Koeth. How are they treated at gatherings like PTA meetings? For a while, she kept the idea to herself, scribbled in a pink notebook. “I was intimidated by this project because I didn’t know how I would find subjects, or if these women would be open to sharing their stories,” says Koeth.
At the Exxxotica Expo, she met an actress named Emily Mena who had a three-year-old daughter and a son on the way. Koeth shared her vision of Porn Moms with Mena. “She loved the idea that someone wanted to tell her real story, rather than the narrative of fantasy,” says Koeth. Mena, like many of her colleagues, keeps her private life hidden at work. But what is the toll on these women and their families when society only sees them in one light?
Mena was the first woman Koeth interviewed for the series. Through Mena, and by attending other erotica expos, Koeth gradually found her subjects. To capture the women in their home environments, she traveled to different corners of the United States—Colorado Springs, Dallas, Phoenix, and Las Vegas—and listened to their stories. “Their lives are just as complicated as the rest of ours,” observes Koeth. “I’m grateful to these women for trusting me with a piece of their lives that, professionally, they prefer to keep secret.”
Porn Moms | Collaboration between writer Laura Lee Huttenbach and Photographer Mary Beth Koeth
Makayla Cox | 35 | Las Vegas, Nevada | 7-year-old daughter
Cox says her daughter is very popular at school. “She’s everyone’s best friend,” Cox observes. “She’s full of energy.” So their schedule is filled with birthday parties for her daughter’s classmates. With the other mothers, she finds her connection with them depends on the person. Some women don’t want to know anything about her work, while others are more open. Cox doesn’t want to lie to her daughter about her job. “She’s going to grow up knowing,” she says. “It’s going to be common knowledge, [like] Oh, okay, mommy does porn for a living.” But she finds nothing easy about being a single mom. Her dream is to move with her daughter to Los Angeles and buy a house close to the beach, where they can live like hippies.
Tiffany Brookes | 31 | Dallas, Texas | 1-year-old son
Brookes wasn’t planning on returning to work in the adult entertainment industry after becoming a mom. “But you do what you gotta do,” she says. “After having my son [I realized], I’m a single mom and oh shit, what can I do that’s going to bring in income now?” She hated the idea of putting her son in daycare to take a 9-to-5 job. Though she admits working in porn can be difficult and pays less than it used to, the schedule allows her to spend more time at home with her son. “It enables me to be a hands-on, stay-at-home mom,” she says. “He literally is my everything. Everything you do is completely thought out around them.” Coming back to the film set with a postpartum body was challenging emotionally and physically. “Everything that you’re self-conscious about is amplified,” Brookes says. She thought people would be able to tell right away that she’d had a baby. “I’m constantly concerned about every time I get undressed in front of a camera. I look for people’s reactions.” When her son gets a little older, she hopes to find a new career outside adult entertainment. In the meantime, she says, “The minute the camera is off and I’m off set, it’s back to being a mom.”
Cameron Canela | 24 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Newborn son
“All my friends and family knew I was adamant about not wanting children,” Canela recalls. “I didn’t want to be a mom. I actually didn’t like kids at all.” But when she found out she was pregnant, her initial reaction surprised her. “I thought it was going to be like, What is this leech in my body? I don’t want it. But I immediately felt connected.” The birth of her son coaxed out a new version of Canela. “I just felt like I became a whole new person in the coolest way. As cliché as it sounds, your heart just grows immediately.” She feels the experience of being a mother has matured her and changed her relationship to working in porn. “Before, I definitely embraced who I was in the adult industry and didn’t really care how people thought about it. I was like, This is what I am, this is who I am, this is what I like to do. Now I like having more of a conservative image and being a mom. That’s been the biggest transition for me, just realizing that there’s still a whole other side of me.” She’s unsure about her future career plans. In school, growing up, Canela was always good with numbers and wanted to be an accountant. She laughs when she thinks about an accountant’s image as being boring, because she believes there’s real potential for the work to be exciting. “Even a therapist only knows what you tell them,” she says. “But your accountant knows where you spend all your money. They know all your deep, dark secrets.”
Emily Mena | 25 | Phoenix, Arizona | 4-year-old daughter and son on the way
“I’m a chauffeur,” says Mena, when asked to describe her day-to-day life as a mom. Her daughter’s after-school schedule is filled with soccer, gymnastics, swimming, and sometimes dance. So when Mena picks her daughter up from school, it’s straight to an activity, then home to cook dinner, then help with homework. “And I like to read to her before she goes to bed,” Mena says. “My life revolves around her. It’s a lot, but I love it. It’s expensive, but I look at it as a long-term investment. Keep your kids active doing something so they’re involved in their community or school or whatever, versus the streets.” She beams when she talks about her daughter, describing her as sassy, energetic, outgoing, loving, talkative, and smart. “And,” Mena adds, “she has a sweet tooth.” At the time of the photoshoot, Mena was seven months pregnant with her son, shortly after friends and family had thrown her a baby shower. “My husband and I are really excited,” she says. “And my daughter’s excited to be a big sister.” Mena’s dream job would be acting in mainstream film and TV, but she’s also considering getting her nursing degree. “Being in the adult industry kind of hurts you a little bit, so who knows,” she says. “I don’t care what people say about me. I just don’t want it to affect my children. That’s all I care about.” Her hope for her children is that “they’re genuinely happy, successful, healthy, and that they know the world is theirs. They can do anything they set their minds to. And that they’re safe. There’s so much bad stuff out there.”
Nickey Hunstman | 26 | Colorado Springs, Colorado | 9-year-old daughter
Huntsman’s daughter came into the world early and stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for her first weeks of life. When they were discharged, her daughter went home with an oxygen tank, which she used for another month. “I was very clingy and protective of her for the longest time when she was itty bitty,” recalls Huntsman. “Now that she’s older, she has more space.” When Huntsman was a little girl, she participated in Girl Scouts, drama club, and talent shows. “I was very active in the arts community,” she says. “My daughter is kind of following in my footsteps in a lot of those areas, so that’s pretty cool.” Her daughter loves to draw and paint and recently started taking karate lessons. Personally, Huntsman took up mixed martial arts fighting last year. “I’m not a pro or anything, but I can protect myself, which is the important thing,” she says. Becoming a mother came naturally to Huntsman. She found it easy to interpret the needs of her daughter. “When I had her, it came automatically with mothering skills,” she says. “Sometimes you just know that you’re made to do something.”