Page 61 - AVN November 2020

“All my current business success
I have because of porn.”
Cindy Starfall is sharing a story that is familiar to a lot of porn performers
but also deeply personal and particular: it is the story of letting go of family
expectations and accepting, without shame, her own potential and success.
Starfall says she grew up in a wealthy family in Vietnam. Her father is a
businessman and politician. While she never lacked for food or clothes, she
says she had no freedom, and rebelled.
“If I wanted to leave the house, I’d have to ask my father, who would call
the driver, who would call security,” she says. “Eventually I would just start
sneaking out to see my friends.”
One day in 2004, she was handed a plane ticket and driven to the airport.
The car dropped her off and she was pointed toward her gate. Her family
had arranged for her to live with a family in Portland, Ore.
“I didn’t speak any English,” Starfall says. “I didn’t know I was being sent
away.” She did not know if her rebellious nature was “bringing shame” on
the family or if she was being prepared for school, or both. What she did
know was that she wasn’t given a choice. She was 14.
By 22 she had graduated college in California with a business degree
and had started, via her father’s connections, the corporate job she would
eventually quit. She also learned that her family had arranged for her to be
married “to a man from Taiwan that I didn’t even know.”
“And I didn’t want everything chosen for me,” she says. “I wanted to make
my own money. And I have.”
Starfall worked steadily before the pandemic, her bookings managed by
OC Modeling, saved her money, and began a vacation rental business in
Orange County. “There is no shame in anything I am doing for money,” she
says, “but if I were to go back to Vietnam—which I would really like to do!—
there would be members of my family who wouldn’t want to see me.”
“And all my current business success I have because of porn,” she says.
“My degree helped, but it was porn that gave me freedom.”
To women looking at her story as an inspiration or as a cautionary tale,
Starfall says, “If you want freedom to be a slut, then be a smart slut, and be
proud of yourself.”
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