Meet Ashley Orion

“I wanted to do porn since I gave my first blowjob at 15,” said Ashley Orion, who today shot her very second porn scene ever for Hustler’s Barely Legal 82.

The sylphlike and semipellucid Orion is the only porn performer I’m aware of who has taken her name from a constellation rather than a planet (Ange Venus) or single celestial body (Aiden and Bobbi Starr, Celeste Star, Sun Myung Moon). Nicki Hunter almost makes it because Sagittarius is the zodiac sign from which she took her name, even though Sagittarius is the archer and Orion is more closely associated with a hunter. It would be bad form to name oneself after Cancer, the crab.

Orion is from “all over L.A.” but doesn’t fit the stereotype; she’s pale and charming. She makes me think of Stoya’s lab partner in Chemistry by way of Hillary Scott.

I went to the set of Barely Legal 82 to see how the series had progressed, thematically and spiritually, since Barely Legal 75 last spring.

“My dog had puppies,” said director Erica McLean.

I believe that a performer’s first experiences with porn has a bearing on her longevity in the business.

Let’s say you had Max Hardcore and Erica McLean running side by side film shoots, the way porn sometimes works, in adjoining rooms of the same house. And let’s say identical twins decided to get into porn on the same day, a few days after their 18th birthdays. One twin chose to work for Max Hardcore and the other chose to shoot her first scene with McLean.

No offense to Mr. Hardcore, but the one who shot for McLean would probably be pleasanty surprised by the goings on in the porn industry and would continue working. The other, awash in urine, would begin plotting her exit strategy.

So fathers who think the more time their daughters spend in porn, the worse things are, owe a debt of gratitude to Hardcore. McLean’s set, on the other hand, was stocked with healthy snacks, including fruit, pasta salad, sliced avocados, and a sandwich bar. Orion is probably thinking of making a career out of this now.

Orion was actually an alternate choice. As I drove through the gate and up the hill of a private residence off Sepulveda, I met another car barreling toward me down the one lane driveway. This was the woman McLean sent home.

“She didn’t look like her pictures,” McLean said.

“Somebody told her to get hair extensions that shouldn’t have,” the production assistant explained.

Orion, on the other hand, looked perfect. It made me think of my own 18th birthday just three years ago; innocent, pale, eager to please, and full of promise.

“Are you Irish?” I asked Ashley, thinking her last name was O’Ryan.

“No,” she said for what I’m guessing was the fifth but nowhere near the last time. “It’s Orion. Like the belt.”

In Greek mythology, it was said that Orion raped Artemis. In Hollywood history, Orion released Caddyshack.

Orion’s jacuzzi-bound and Budapest-born scene partner was veteran porn dude Anthony Hardwood, 40. I asked him if he gets particularly excited when he hears he is about to work with an 18-year-old.

“It is every man’s fantasy to have sex with the 18-year-old,” he said, eating a hard-boiled egg. I don’t feel this way myself, but I respect Hardwood’s perspective. My fantasies usually involve vampires, squid, and Lita Ford.

It was cold up on the hill as Orion posed, not enough of her in the jacuzzi to keep her warm, but she didn’t complain. No one else did, either.

Previously: Barely Legal 75: Stacks of nudes spotted in Sunland
See also: Hustler