Erotic 
collectibles generally aren’t showcased in the living room — they’re something most people would only brag about to close friends. But if you know the market, they can be curiously lucrative.
Odds are that porn DVD you bought online will never appreciate — even 50 years from now. But the sex industry has a deep history in various forms of culture and at various stages of media. That has proved enticing to certain collectors.
For 
the third time in three years, adult movie studios have largely shut down production as a precautionary measure after a performer was diagnosed with a potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease but didn’t immediately disclose it.
A male performer in the Los Angeles porn community was reportedly diagnosed with syphilis last month, but apparently hid the fact from producers, prompting fears of a spread among other actors and actresses. Several big studios have voluntarily suspended production for an unspecified period, while the Free Speech Coalition (a trade group that represents the adult entertainment industry) has called for a moratorium on filming until all performers have been re-tested for the disease.
The 
already hostile takeover fight for New Frontier Media, the publicly traded owner of nine adult-themed pay-per-view networks, has expanded to include a pair of Hollywood power players – one of whom is also a former video game executive.
Longkloof Limited, which launched the bidding in early March, recently announced its intention to nominate four new board members at New Frontier’s annual meeting in an apparent attempt to push its $19 million offer through. (Porn giant Manwin has made a competing $24 million offer for the company.)
Despite 
a widely publicized downturn in porn industry profits over the past few years, investors still think there’s money to be made there – so much so that a bidding war has erupted for one of the few publicly traded companies with ties to the adult industry.
New Frontier Media, which oversees nine adult-themed pay-per-view networks, including XTSY, TEN and Penthouse TV, has received a pair of unsolicited takeover offers this month as the company’s stock has hovered under $2 per share for over a year.
There’s a point 
in everyone’s life when they stand at a career crossroads. Go one way and you end up in your current profession. Go the other and you wind up doing something entirely different.
That’s true not just of people in the traditional business world, but also those in the porn world. Before they began having sex on screen, people in the adult entertainment industry were often working in other fields or studying to be a part of them.
We were curious about what some of today’s top porn stars would be doing if they weren’t a part of their current industry, and tracked some down at the recent Adult Entertainment Expo. Cosmology? Cosmetology? The answers might surprise you. Click ahead and find out.
Everybody has 
a first job – and it rarely has anything to do with how you end up making a living.
That’s especially true of the adult entertainment industry’s biggest names. But their first gigs aren’t what you might expect. Sure, some kicked off their resumes with stints in fast food joints, like many teenagers around the country. Several, though, worked in law firms. And one learned the hard way that domestic services were not for her.
We tracked down a number of industry superstars on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo to see how they got their start.
When the 
movie industry slapped adult films with an XXX rating, porn companies came to embrace the scarlet letters. But when the nonprofit corporation that oversees Internet addresses rolled out the .xxx domain, the reception was unequivocally unenthusiastic.
Manwin, one of the porn industry’s largest companies, is challenging Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in an antitrust suit over the new domains. And while most other porn companies haven’t rushed to join the legal fight, they’re watching closely.
Porn companies 
have always been interested in the girl next door, but now there’s a company that’s taking an interest in her parents.
Pleasure Dynasty is trying something new in the industry: opening the filmmaking process up to outside investors and letting them add the title of adult film producer to their resume (though don’t expect too many people to brag about it).
While 
plenty of adult stars dream of making the transition to traditional acting, their dreams rarely become reality. Hollywood — and mainstream culture, in general — tend to segregate the men and women of porn, keeping them at arm’s length.
But there are some performers whose drive, persistence and fan base lets them break through. Some make it onto the big screen. Others take a different path. But by the time they’re done, their names are known by a much wider audience than they started with. Here are 10 who have managed to make the transition to ‘civilian’ celebrity.
Fabian 
Thylmann isn’t a familiar name to most people outside the adult entertainment industry.
But while the 33-year-old managing partner of Manwin lacks the icon status of Hugh Hefner or the grand showmanship of Larry Flynt, he has quietly become one of the most powerful people in porn over the past two years.
Chris Morris: Journalist 