Like Mother, Like Daughter: Ryan Conner and Dylan Phoenix
It’s not unusual for the daughters of famous female actors to follow their mothers into the same profession. Think Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow, or Melanie Griffith and 50 Shades‘ Dakota Johnson. Interestingly enough, it’s also not unheard of for pornstar daughters to take up their mother’s trade. Sex drive has to be partly genetic after all, right? Mother’s Day weekend is the perfect moment to take a look at one of the most memorable mom-daughter pornstar teams: Ryan Conner and Dylan Phoenix.
Conner and Phoenix certainly aren’t the only such pairing in porn’s history — De’Bella/Jewel DeNyle and Jessica/Monica Sexxxton come to mind — but they’re the only major one who have been active within the past decade. For many fans, it’s a surprise to learn that the two are related. Once the fact has been pointed out, it’s easy to detect a faint family resemblance, but the parallel is not so compelling as to be obvious from first glance. (Unlike other previous mom/daughter porn duos like the Sextons, Conner and Phoenix decided not to pick matching last names for their porn pseudonyms.) Nevertheless, once you hear the two talking together with an ease and good-humored affection that can only come from years of familial intimacy, there can be no doubt. They’ve chatted on numerous occasions about their history and story, both separately and in a memorable joint appearance on the Porn Director Podcast.
Finding Out
Conner, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, left behind her religious upbringing and joined the adult industry in 1999. After getting married and then running into some health problems, she took an extended hiatus starting in 2006, before returning in 2015. Daughter Dylan was born in 1992 and did not initially understand the nature of her mother’s career (despite accidentally walking in on a Conner tryst with Wicked‘s Jonathan Morgan at one point). “She just knew that I did online pictures,” Conner told the hosts of the Porn Director Podcast. “I didn’t fully know. I just thought maybe she was a little bit of a slut,” Phoenix added.
Dylan got a brusque introduction to her mother’s real career when a classmate showed her some hardcore clips in school. “This kid brought it up at school. Actually, [he] just whipped it out and showed me right in the middle of class – my mom getting railed in the butt,” said Phoenix. “I excused myself to the restroom and fell against the wall and was like ‘Holy shit! What do I say to my mom later?’ [ . . .] It bothered me at first.”
A New Career
That consternation soon gave way to curiosity, and when Dylan began stripping, the idea of following in her mother’s footsteps started to crystallize. When she asked her mother what she thought, Conner cautioned that it was not a choice to be made lightly: “It’s a lifelong decision. It’s like getting a tattoo – you can’t erase it once you do it.” Dylan’s burgeoning interest in sex also made the decision logical on a personal level. (In fact, her first-ever sexual experience was a DP, and she has since earned the nickname “Dozer” for the number of men she “bulldozes” her way through each week.) “She is very sexual, has a high libido, very, very strong, independent person, kind of stubborn. Everything you’ve heard about a Scorpio is her,” Conner told Adult DVD Talk.
“We Don’t Dip from the Same Pot”
Soon, both mother and daughter were shooting scenes (though Phoenix noted in the Pornstar Director Podcast that her mother tended to appear in more movies). While the two have had one male scene partner in common — industry vet Mark Wood — they have a strict rule of not sharing men in their personal life. “We don’t dip from the same pot” is their stated motto! Perhaps not surprisingly, Conner blanched at the idea that the two might ever shoot a B/G/G scene together, even one that did not involve any direct interaction with Dylan. “I would be very uncomfortable with it, for now. I can’t say how I would feel in the future. I do follow her on Instagram and Twitter and vice versa and I do see the pics and I try to be supportive as much as possible,” Conner told ADT. “Will it be in the pipeline someday? I can’t say no it won’t. I don’t know. I don’t know what somebody financially would offer us and I don’t know.” (As odd as it sounds, such scenes are not unheard of in mainstream porn — sisters Natalia and Natasha Starr have shot threesome sequences together where they share a sexual experience but do not touch one another.)
Conner continues to be a popular MILF performer, but Phoenix’s scene output has dwindled (according to Conner, Phoenix was an active star only for a brief period, though her scenes were released over a long span).
Learn more about the Ryan/Dylan relationship in this in-depth video interview with Ryan! Watch it here.
