Nina Hartley’s Tips for Thriving in the MILF Zone

The May issue of AVN magazine turns the spotlight on female performers who talk about why life gets better after 35. To mark the occasion, veteran performer Nina Hartley offers her insights on "maternal intelligence." Click here to see a copy of the digital edition. Nina Hartley is pictured above in My Evil Stepson 2 (Dana Vespoli/Evil Angel). In 2014, on the anniversary of her 30th year in adult, Nina Hartley offered up a well-considered list of tips for industry newbies. Hartley wrote, “Allow me to offer words of hard-won wisdom that, if I had only known then what I know now, I’d have had a much better and more profitable time.” For this issue of AVN, we asked the veteran adult star for another set of tips, this time aimed at older performers: stars looking to maintain longevity as well as performers who get into the game later in life. The doyenne of adult entertainment did not disappoint. 1. Embrace your age and experience and try to mentor younger performers. It gives you the exposure to fans who always choose younger, while giving your established fan base an continuing opportunity to see your work. 2. Do a gut check on a regular basis: Am I still enjoying the sexual aspects of the work or am I more often feeling insecure about my body/appearance? I’ve been through a couple of such bouts in the past ten years and each time it ended when I took control over what/who I was doing, either for my site or my clips store. I knew I was a lifer when I started in my mid-twenties. I don’t know how many other women come to porn with the intention of staying forever.3. MILF is a popular category. These days a performer of any age over eighteen can go online when she wants, present how she wants, take the clients she wants and do the show(s) she wants. This is such a huge step forward in a performer being able to build independence. It helps if she is a self-starter and not afraid to learn new (usually tech-related) things.4. If you are a new performer entering the business already over the age of thirty-five, “MILF” is your fetish genre. Based on your authentic sexuality, what kind of MILF do you want to be? You’re at the age now when all of your sexual expression is best if it’s the real you. That’s the power of experience. Let it show. Learn how to stream live video shows. Shoot clips for a store (so you own your content forever). Develop a specialty that is true to you but also under-served in the fan base. I know one MILF who does nothing but stream M-F 12-4 and clears two grand a week. She’s not stunningly beautiful, but she’s consistent and that helped her build her regular customer base. She treats streaming as her regular job and it pays. It took her a year to build up to that and there were some tears and slow days on the way, but she kept up with it and it’s paying off.5. Dress sexy but not inappropriately for your age/body type/fitness level. The appeal of the mature woman is that she is knowing, stable, self-aware, horny. Dress so you look and feel very attractive and confident.6. In the words of Ernest Greene, a maternal intelligence is very, very, alluring. Try to cultivate that if you can.