Alyx Star

She grew up in San Jose, schooled online and independently rather than through a conventional system, which tends to produce either total self-starters or people who drift — sometimes both at once. Her first documented sexual experience with a woman was in sixth grade, a detail she has apparently shared publicly, though exactly what she has said about what that meant to her is less clear. Before the industry she was making smoothies at Jamba Juice, which is neither glamorous nor shameful, just ordinary, the kind of pre-career job that says nothing about the person except that they were young and needed money. Her entry into the industry came through a casting-format shoot, the kind designed to look spontaneous, and she appeared alongside Mia Melano. What happened between that first appearance and building whatever the current version of her career is isn't well-documented in interviews. The personal layer — what she wanted, what she left behind, what San Jose meant or didn't mean to her — remains mostly unlocked.