June 23, 2021August 27, 2021 by dallas

Kayla Paige and Linzee Ryder: A Tale of Two MILFs

What comes to mind when you hear the word “MILF”? It likely conjures many images, from sexy suburban housewives to famous Hollywood performers. In the end, the concept boils down to a mature, beautiful woman, with experience to match her statuesque good looks. If you organized a casting call designed to select the quintessential MILF, pornstars Kayla Paige and Linzee Ryder would undoubtedly rise near the top of your list.

These two adult performers have never actually met, but they have much in common. They are almost exactly the same age, they are frequently cast in MILF porn, and they have cannily adapted to the times. I recently had the chance to chat with both of these engaging, lively stars, who gave me a portrait of two successful MILFs: one who appeared on the scene in 2002 (Paige), and one who shot her first content in 2019 (Ryder). With so much in common yet a large gulf in time logged as performers, how have their experiences converged and diverged?

Beginnings

Both were exposed to pornographic images for the first time in the pages of Playboy Magazine. (Interestingly, had they been born as little as just a few years later, they likely would have encountered porn on computer screens, not on the printed page.) They were both at the outer edge of Millennial Generation, a unique cohort in that they are among the very last to remember a time before the internet.

For Paige, seeing the glamorous Playmates who crowded those iconic centerfolds was a formative experience. “I remember looking at them, going, ‘I want to be one of those girls.’ It was never a thought of if or when. It was ‘I’m going to be one of those girls.'” Ryder, meanwhile, found the experience less profound, noting that she was not really the intended audience. “I kind of felt like it was more for guys than it was for girls,” she says. She did not watch much porn recreationally until she entered into the industry many years later.

Paige’s goal to become a sex symbol came into sharper focus when she met some of the Vivid contract stars at an autograph event. “It was all kind of going there [to becoming a pornstar]; it was just how I was going to get there,” she says. Later, after watching a porn movie with her then boyfriend, she called the phone number on the back of DVD box. Before long, she was shooting her first scenes, making her official entry into the industry at just 19.

For Ryder, there was less of a sense of inevitability. She worked in other jobs, including stint at a law office, but her amiable personality and beauty eventually led her to exotic dancing. After shifting to modeling and posting some of her portfolio online, she was contacted by industry reps about appearing in porn. Soon, she was on set shooting her very first scenes. (Amusingly, her first major shoot put her into a real estate scenario, an arena she knows little about. She had to awkwardly stumble through improvised dialogue, which was later overdubbed in post-production. “Once I got to the sex, I was good!” she joked.)

The impact of social media

Their vantage from the liminal point of generations also means they can remember the era before social media took over our lives. Come 2021, of course, social media is stitched into the fabric of every pornstar’s career, regardless of when they started. Paige regrets that social media has become a 24/7 preoccupation, in some ways detracting from the purity of the porn performances themselves. “[Before], it was just like you have it or you don’t . . . It came down to whether you were good onscreen. It wasn’t about your next tweet or how many followers you had. It was, how did you just perform, right now. I’m a total attention whore, “she says. “I love to be the spotlight. I love to be fucking ‘King Dingaling’ in the situation. But at the same time, the amount of pressure that is on to be that person all the time is ludicrous. It’s not fair. It’s not right. You shouldn’t have to be on camera all the time. You shouldn’t have to be ‘on’ all the time.”

Ryder, meanwhile, notes that she enjoyed the rise of social media from the beginning, even before it was part of her professional life. “I’m kind of shy in person, it gives me a way to reach out. I feel more confident behind the screen, doing the social media, versus being in person,” she says.

Both Ryder and Paige see the omnipresent nature of social media as rupturing part of the pornstar mystique. “I want your concept of what I am to be your reality. I don’t want to tell you what you should think of me and who I’m supposed to be to you. That takes away the star value. That takes away the mystique,” saysPaige. Similarly, Ryder rues some aspects of the current cancel culture, when the negativity of social media exposes fans to rumors or unflattering aspects of a favorite star. Ryder also finds a great deal of frustration in Instagram, whose content regulations can be maddeningly opaque.

Consent and boundaries

Consent and discussions of boundaries are important to both Ryder and Paige. They are in accordance that the industry has made such conversations a priority, and that it’s unequivocally a good thing. When Paige started out, such discussions were not as prevalent. “What I do love is that the conversation is [now] open. No one’s afraid to go, ‘I’m not into that,'” Paige says. Now that performers themselves are content creators — in contrast with the era when almost all pornography was made within a studio system — they are more empowered. “It’s very different to have the power in the hands of the performer,” Paige noted.

Ryder agrees that in her time in the industry, open dialogue about boundaries has been largely the norm. “I would say more companies do it than don’t. At the beginning of the shoot, they ask you, “Are you voluntarily doing this performance? Are you under the influence?’ They ask dos on don’ts. It’s all on video camera. At the end of the shoot, they ask the same kinds of questions,” Ryder says.

Being a MILF

Now that both performers are in their late 30s, there is a certain natural logic to them being cast in MILF roles. However, Ryder and Paige have both had this particular label affixed to them for nearly 20 years. Paige says she became a MILF by “technicality” at age 19 when she had her daughter, immediately embracing the term. Ryder, who recalls being referred to as a MILF for the first time at 24, was more taken aback. She envisioned a MILF as someone much older than she was, probably in their late 30s or 40s. As the years have passed, she has grown much more comfortable with the term. “Now I totally embrace it. I like playing the role of the MILF,” she says. Ryder even touts herself as a “Midwestern MILF” in her official Twitter bio!

Looking forward

So, what’s next for this indelible pair of performers? Paige’s career has been one with certain starts and stops, of course, including some lengthy hiatuses. (She joked that she quit the industry because she wanted “to get fat.”) Coaxed into a return scene by close friend and porn legend Julia Ann, Paige has been on the comeback trail, including the recent debut of her first anal scene in 18 years. Come what may, she’s enjoying the ride! “I want to know that at the end of the day, I stood my ground and didn’t anything that I was told to, I did things I wanted to do. I want to end things on my own note, not anyone else’s,” she says, returning to a frequent theme: taking things at her own pace.

Similarly, Ryder also sees her career as a question of enjoying the moment, though she does hope to check the gloryhole and blowbang genres off her list soon. “I’m just having fun. I’m just enjoying myself. I’m hoping that I can get into feature dancing,” she says.