Recently I interviewed a porn star. Not just any porn star, but a former Dirtiest Girl in Porn (honors get no higher). Taryn Thomas put out a XXX version of Jersey Shore — yes, this is decidedly NSFW — and in commemoration of this cultural watershed it seemed fitting to do a profile for Esquire.com. I found her perfectly charming; we’re both Jersey natives and Jersey folk have a natural bond. Due to space limits and what not, much of the copy didn’t fit and rather than losing Taryn’s comments I decided to preserve them here. I considered providing context, but these can more than stand on their own. With no further ado, random musings from a porn star:

“I needed something to numb my pain. I did blow, I did Xanax, and when I was ready to do anal again, I wasn’t happy with myself. I felt like this wasn’t a good job for me.”

“Jersey’s my life pretty much.”

“This is gonna sound really f—— weird, but I love fresh mozzarella.”

“I had a tear in my intestines which required me to have stitches and have surgery. The doctor said I couldn’t do anal for three months. During that time I was hanging out with I guess you could say the wrong person, and I started doing coke.”

“Before I got into the business, I already had my pharmacy tech license and attended real estate school. When I took time off, I went back to real estate school and went to cosmetology school. None of those things were really exciting to me.”

“It’s mind over matter. When I used to do my anal scenes I used to be able to do it really well by just not thinking that something was in my a–. That’s how I performed so well. After the tear, I couldn’t mind over matter any more. I’d think, ‘Oh my gosh, is my ass gonna tear? Is it gonna bleed? Is it gonna hurt?’”

“When I took time off for the business, it was only supposed to be six months. But when I left…I’m Italian, so eating is natural to me. When I was gone, I stopped working out.”

“It took me like two years to lose all that weight.”

“Other people were paying me, now I pay myself. It’s no longer, ‘You’re booked for an anal scene’ or ‘You’re booked for five on one.’ Now if I want it’s ‘I’m just going to do boy-girl’ or ‘I’m going to do 10 scenes in one day.’ But I’m obviously not going to do that.”

“When I came back, February 2009, the business had changed drastically. There’s not as many companies shooting as there were before. I thought, ‘Do I really want to keep putting myself out there for other people to make money off me?’ So I thought it was best to set up my own production company. Launched the company in May or June, signed a distribution deal that same month.”

“James Gandolfini, his family’s beach house was right behind my grandparents. My mom and her sisters and brothers grew up with him. They say his mother would always scream, ‘JAMIE! JAMIE WHERE ARE YOU!?!’ I think The Sopranos is awesome, I love it. Definitely did not like the final episode though.”

“When I worked full time, I worked 15 to 21 times a month. Get to set 8am, two hours for hair and makeup, after that you’re gonna do your pretty girl photos, probably take like an hour, then clean up, do hardcore stills, then do actual sex scenes, which probably only take like an hour since the actual sex lasts only 25 to 45 minutes, depending if you’re shooting hard and soft or just hard or just soft.”

“I perform probably once every three months now, doing two to three scenes, all for my company.”

“I eat, sleep, and breathe my company. Around the holidays, my mom was getting upset. My mom’s a doctor, she doesn’t have much time off. She was like, ‘I found time off from work. Why can’t you?’”

“I was gone for two-and-a-half years, there was not a day I did not think of it. There is no other career. This is it for me. I don’t see myself doing anything other than porn. Some people might think that sounds kind of sad.”

“I love that award! It was a really big compliment, because there were other girls that were way dirtier than me, more hardcore that could have won it, other girls that put it down way harder than I did. It was a great big honor to win the Dirtiest Girl in Porn.”

“When someone says you’re dirty, it means you’re a good performer. Other people outside looking in might not think it’s great.”

“Unfortunately, right now the business isn’t so dirty. You don’t see too many circus acts being filmed.”

“When times are tough, people do crazier things, but it’s also harder to sell. The best thing that’s selling right now are parodies. There’s so much free Internet porn out there, but that’ll die down eventually.”

“My family is interesting. My dad, my mom, my brother, my sister, my cousins, my immediate family knew what I was doing. My mom lost her mind, because she’s in medicine and she knew the risks of catching something. She asked me to get tested twice a month, which I did.”

“My dad always knew, ‘I can’t control you, you’re gonna do what you do, I support you.’”

“We don’t talk about it. It’s not like we sit at the dinner table, ‘So, when’s your next movie coming out?’”

“I always wanted to be in the business. I remember looking at my dad’s porno mags when I was a really young kid and I thought how cool it would be.”

“I don’t know how to explain it. It gives me a lot of pride. It’s really gratifying to say, ‘That’s my product. I did it!’ Satisfying. That’s what I should say.”

“He’s my business partner, life partner, whatever you want to call him. He helped me get things started. He’s a businessman. We’ve known each for about three years now. We met because he was a silent investor in a company and they hired me to be on set. We started talking and became friends, started hanging out, and it was pretty much over from there. We’ve been together two years. Tell him I want to get married.”

“It’s not just shooting another porno. I’ve spent every summer of my life on the Shore. Shooting the movie was very emotional.”

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