Stoya Debates NY Times' Kristof Over Sex Trafficking

NEW YORK—The NY Post's Ian Mohr had a snark-tinged item on Page Six this morning about a party thrown Tuesday by the New York Times to celebrate the launch of its opinion page app. According to Mohr, the celebration attracted a sundry crowd of "such heavyweight thinkers as Mayor de Blasio, David Geffen, Bob Kerry, Mia and Ronan Farrow, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Arianna Huffington and, naturally, hard-core porn star duo Stoya and James Deen." The not-so-subtle snarktone continues, "Deen — who made his legit acting debut opposite Lindsay Lohan in Paul Schrader’s disastrous 'The Canyons' last year — shared such scintillating opinions on Twitter the day of the Times party as: 'Coffee is [bleeping] awesome' and 'I am going to shoot a series called james deen is gonna [bleep] [bleep] your mom . . . mark my words, this will happen.” But then the piece shifts focus to Deen's girlfriend Stoya, who, Mohr writes, "confronted columnist and anti-sex trafficking crusader Nicholas Kristof at the bash at Neuehouse." He then quotes a June 10 tweet by Vice columnist Molly Crabapple, who wrote, "Tonight @stoya . . . told Kristoff to his face why his narratives about sex workers hurt actual sex workers like her." Crabapple also tweeted the next day, "Last night, me and @stoya went up to Nick Kristof, asked about @melissagira's op-ed, told him why his narrative on sex work was harmful, wrong." Seeking a little more information, AVN roused Stoya from her beauty sleep (regretfully) to ask her what happened during what Mohr termed the "confrontation." Not so, corrected Stoya. "It was an extremely polite debate about differences in opinion," she told us. "I tried to explain how criminalization leads to perceived inability to report unsafe working conditions, because of fear of arrest and of over-reaction. He politely changed the subject. "I think the real takeaway," she added, "is how cool it is that someone like me can end up in the same room as someone like Kristof and have a civil discussion of how we both think the other is wrong." Yes, very cool, though we can't say we're that surprised Stoya got the opportunity, and used it. Image: Nicholas Kristof, left, and Stoya.