by Rich Moreland, February 2019
Christiana Cinn is the second installment in a series on Star Factory clients I interviewed at this year’s AVN trade show in Las Vegas.
The Northern California native is bright and straight forward with her opinions . . . an absolute delight!
Photos are credited to Kevin Sayers.
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A Playboy Start
A small-town girl, Christiana Cinn grew up in a rural American culture. After high school, she became a hair stylist. But she was not entirely satisfied and opted to use her sexuality to earn some extra money.
“I started go-go dancing, kind of stripping, [but] I hated coming home smelling like cigarettes,” she says with a chuckle.
There was a further downside to being on stage. “I was afraid to be who I was because I did see people from high school walk in [the club].”
To conceal her real self, Christiana says, she performed in wigs. Using the stage name, Jade Jackson, she played safe.
“Nobody recognized me. I had like a different identity,” she explains.
When Playboy called unexpectedly, Christiana thanked her lucky “stylist” stars. But for the publication, her makeup skills were not the order of the day. They wanted her as a model. Never short of an adventurous spirit, she posed and “started web-camming to make more money” to supplement her dancing.
That was the beginning of a new career.
“Playboy Live had a studio in Culver City. I work[ed] out of that studio and it opened a lot of opportunities for me to do music videos and model with well-known photographers.”
A visit to the Playboy Mansion followed by a shoot for Hustler, and Christiana was on her way.
“Posing for Playboy and camming really opened the doors for all of that,” she says. But there are expectations for a career in adult. “Being comfortable naked and photographed and video-taped kind of sets the bar, sets the tone of how it’s going to be.”
Filling up the Space
In her view, what makes a successful cam girl?
Christiana believes there are two important characteristics–personality and consistency–every cammer possesses. To illustrate her point, she asks how interesting can you be talking to yourself because that’s essentially what a cam girl does in front of her computer.
This California girl discovered she had the right set of skills for that.
“I’m an only child, so my best friend sometimes growing up was the mirror and my reflection. I would make funny faces and pose from a really young age. That made me comfortable with my body.”
The success formula is pretty straight forward.
“Being comfortable looking at yourself–and being yourself–is what makes a successful cam girl [while] filling up the space with something a little entertaining, or sexy, or silly, or fun,” Christiana believes.
On the other hand, profiting from camming is not as simple as it seems and this leads us to Christiana’s second characteristic.
“Consistency is really key to being a successful cam girl,” she insists, and reinforces the mantra, “same time, same place.” Unfortunately for her, feature dancing and personal appearances means she is frequently on the road. That is costly for camming.
“Adhering to a specific [online] schedule, especially when I’m in different time zones,” is problematic, Christiana adds.
The Table
I decide to drop my “three-legged stool” question into our conversation because Christiana can provide insights from a dancing perspective.
Is camming a fourth leg to add to shoots, escorting, and dancing?
It is, she proclaims, and reminds us we live in an online age.
“Camming or social media, such as selling your videos online, doing custom videos, doing Snapchat, Only Fans, Money Bits, I Want Clips” are part of the mix.
“Those platforms are designed to put the performer back in power so she’s not relying on a company who has shot her a hundred times.”
Referencing her own professional history, Christiana underlines her point.
“I’ve been on the cover of Penthouse four times, I’ve been all over the world for them. But I can’t count on them to employ me every time I want.”
She is grateful for her career and believes it’s a mistake to minimize porn.
“I care about the industry, I care about the people in it and I care about where it’s going,” Christiana says. That’s important because she believes “the sex industry sets the trend for the rest of the world and the media.”
Wow, that’s a bold proclamation! Christiana explains.
“First of all, when there’s different trends in women and in body image, what’s desirable, what’s new, what’s next. It all starts with pornography, because in porn . . . or the sex industry . . . [we’re] showing all of our selves, exposing our bodies. The trend of no pubic hair started here with sex workers, people in a sexual image, and the rest of America took suit.”
Christiana believes that when people develop self-images that are attractive and sexual, the porn industry is influential in their decisions.
“They’re looking to us, because every single part of our bodies is there on display. That’s where people gain their inspiration from.”
Christiana demonstrates a kind of basic sexual intuitiveness that very well may have come from her dancing background.
“Our basic human instinct is driven to sex. That’s what it all comes down to. When they say, sex sells, the media and advertising agencies gather that from what we are selling . . . and that’s sex.”
When we return to the three-legged stool and camming, Christiana is blunt.
Camming “is cool, it’s interesting.” But it is also “a physically taxing and demanding job. Just like a lot of jobs in the sex industry.”
But after a moment, she concludes, “You’re right. The stool has four legs now, it’s a table.”
Can we say a porn career has gone from three legs to four?
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In Part Two of our talk with Christiana Cinn, we’ll discuss some of her concerns about the adult industry.