If you have even a mild interest in porn and keep up with viral media stories on occasion, you’re probably familiar with the Veronica Vain story. Until barely a month and a half ago, Veronica was an intern at a big financial firm in Wall Street. Just a year after graduating college, she was right on the path to a very successful business career.

So how come she wasn’t happy, then? Well, a career in finance is not for everyone; the heart wants what it wants, guys. And this particular heart also happens to have a smoking hot 23-year-old girl’s body around it, to go with its brave and ambitious nature, so her very public and controversial transition to the adult industry came rather easy for her.

It all started with a few naked selfies she took in the bathroom of her old office. She loves sex and thought porn would be something she’d enjoy and be good at (by the way, I have seen her first scene and wholeheartedly agree with her initial assumption.) Originally, the pictures were planned as part of her audition for the reality porn competition The Sex Factor, a contest that could have given her immediate exposure.

“I applied to the Sex Factor thinking it would be my in to the porn industry, without having to shoot on the peripheral edges of it to break in. I was still working at my old job, and at the office I would notice guys would look at me, even though I was covered and whatnot,” Veronica told us, fully aware of her situation’s appeal. “The office fantasy is pretty prevalent, so I took those selfies in order to drum up some attention to my Twitter account and make sure the producers put me on the show. That’s how everything started, but then I got so big that I didn’t really need the show anymore.”

It all sort of happened overnight, too. The media was all over the story; it’s the kind of move that’ll get tons of clicks, maybe even more than the very business savvy Veronica could have predicted. Twitter followers grew by the thousands, the Daily News was knocking on her door, and both her identities became pretty public. There was no backing out; Veronica Vain was already a valuable commodity as an adult actress and she hadn’t even made one scene then.

While at the AVN in Vegas this past January, several major porn studios had lucrative offers for Veronica. In an unprecedented move, though, she chose to sign a six-figure contract with ArrangementFinders.com, a dating website for hot girls and sugar daddies that porn star and producer — and one of Veronica’s idols — Kayden Kross presides over. This made Veronica the first adult star to sign with a non-porn studio, effectively making their money through product placement.

“I had already thought, ‘Gosh, why doesn’t PornHub do product placement of condoms, or lube, or lingerie, or toys, or alcohol? Why isn’t there a channel for that?’” Veronica wondered. “Then Kayden actually told me, ‘Hey, there’s this company, they want to do product placement in porn, but they want the right media attention behind it before they try it, since it’s a new thing and has never been done before.’ They wanted to get a lot of attention, and I was obviously a perfect fit for that. There were other girls who had kind of come out in mainstream media and porn, but I represented more of what they wanted to sell to their user base.

“Kayden told them, ‘God, it’d be great if we can get a girl like this to do this kind of thing. We would definitely do it and pay a lot more if we could find this girl.’ They were talking about this amongst themselves; two days later, I blew up in the media. It was sort of meant to be, they told me. I still fielded all the other offers I was getting from porn production companies, but I was just most intrigued by theirs.”

It really is intriguing that this hadn’t been done before. If there’s one advantage that porn has over a lot of videos on the Internet is that it will invariably be seen, regardless if people are buying it, downloading it illegally or streaming it; it’ll be watched by many. So even if users are not paying for the porn they’re watching, the advertisement inside their video still gets across.

Sure, perhaps some non-porn products may be a bit wary of being associated with it, but Veronica doesn’t think this would be a problem.

“It’s stigmatized and it hasn’t been done before; that’s all it is. It’s not actually that a lot of products don’t want to be associated with it; a lot of them already try to sell through the adult channel, they sell primarily in adult stores, or they sell through advertisement on adult websites. They’re no strangers to marketing, it’s just the fact that no one had done it and they wouldn’t have known how to start it if they wanted to. We pioneered it and now it’s open, and I’ve already heard of other companies who’d be interested in this. It’s definitely on the table. I hope I can be even more involved in it, but the thing with any kind of marketing is they’re going to want to appeal to certain user bases, so a woman lingerie company might want to be softer, prettier, romantic stuff than like… some hardcore anal lube.”

This is a pretty groundbreaking stuff — even if it was in front of our eyes the whole time — and one that might change the marketing of porn as we know it, perhaps empowering an industry that keeps taking massive hits through piracy. Veronica believes this is just the beginning and suggests there might be many more mainstream products that are not sexual yet attract the right demographics that porn usually goes for.

“Energy drinks, who already have a pretty strong young male demographic. Basically, anything with that kind of demographic could benefit from advertising. Any company that appeals to them, like fitness products, or even gaming companies to a small extent.”

But aside from the business aspect of it, what really stands out from Veronica Vain is the feeling that this was a lifestyle choice. She sounds genuinely happy and relieved to be in porn, and away from the corporate world. There’s no time for stigmas in this day and age; if you want to fuck on camera and there are people who would like to watch it and pay you for it, by all means, go for it! Historically there’s a lot of judgment about sex work in general, but society’s standards may be adapting — if slowly — and becoming more understanding.

“I love it. I’m really strong. I’m not the kind of person that is easily swayed by a lot of hate of mean comments; it just rolls right off my back,” Veronica reflected after the many reactions to her story. “I think I have the right qualities to be somebody who’s in the spotlight.”

If anyone does, it’s safe to put your money on her. Aside from her driven business sense and her good looks, she’ll admit to having a very demanding libido; one that has led her to try a lot of sexually adventurous experiences, way before porn even became a possibility.

“I really like gangbangs and double penetrations,” she confessed about what kind of porn she’s into. When asked about new things that she’d be excited to try in the adult industry, she had to think for a while. “I’m already very adventurous and open-minded,” she laughed, “I mean, I’m more excited about the lifestyle associated with it, going to L.A. I like being on set and screwing around with the crew. It’s definitely a more fun lifestyle than what an office has to offer.”

Her first scene came out very recently through Evil Angel. I watched it a couple of times in order to prepare for this interview  — I’m a professional, guys; it’s my job.

The scene is part of what will be a feature adult film, written by Kayden Kross — with Veronica making some financial notes on the script to make it a little more authentic — and starring Veronica and Manuel Ferrara. It’s a fitting spoof of the movie Wall Street, with Veronica playing the Charlie Sheen-inspired up and coming character; only Veronica’s will likely do a few more things to get ahead than Bud Fox was willing to do (the real and current Charlie Sheen, though, might be game. Just saying.)

So, how did new porn star Veronica Vain feel about her first three intensive days on the job?

“I loved it! I can’t say that it’s this super glamorous, amazing thing that everyone should do; you need to have a bit of a tough skin. It’s definitely different, but I liked that; I’m adventurous and spontaneous and very comfortable in my own skin.”

She should, too. She looked every bit as convincing as a girl who you’d think has been in the industry for quite a while.

“I think the stripping, combined with the Wall Street experience — having done both — really prepared me for my career in porn. There’s the confidence, the street smarts, the business smarts, the business acumen, the sexuality, the performance aspect; there’s a lot of stuff that prepared me to have a good career.”

She hopes to stay in the industry for a long time, and has a clear outline of what she wants to do. In spite of her preference for anal, gangbangs and DPs, she’ll be holding out on those for a while.

“It’s interesting, I don’t actually want to start off making the kind of porn that I would actually like. I want to make the porn that the mainstream likes. Somewhere in between HBO and features with better story lines.

“Whatever people are watching on Pornhub, they’re not paying for it. What people are paying for are those feature films that are being broadcasted on European networks; they sell DVDs; they get rented. That’s where actual money is, so that’s where I’m going to go.”

But again, it’s not just the money. It’s fair to say she’s a fan of the genre, and like any fan who becomes an active participant of that activity, she’s got some artistic hopes as well.

“At some point in my career, I’d like to get back to making porn that is sexually exciting and mentally exciting. I think we’ve kind of lost the mental excitement. For instance, I’ll watch a normal scene; it’s filmed very well, the people are hot, the lighting is great. It’s just the setting is so like:

– ‘Oh hey, I just shot a zombie.’

– ‘Oh, my girlfriend just got bit by a zombie’

– ‘Oh well, I’m horny, you want to fuck?’”

“I would love to make more things that have an element of realness to it.”

Which is interesting, because an element of realness is also a big reason she quickly became a big story. People like stories; it’s why everyone clicks to see who this Wall Street porn star is, instead of a random girl they can’t place. We like grounding elements because they feel more likely to happen — even if they don’t. Knowing who this girl was, her unique backstory, her struggles and successes; it’s a big part of why we’re interested. We’re rooting for Veronica, a hot porn star who found a clever way into the adult industry and managed to keep everyone interested. But we’re also rooting for Paige, the high GPA student who stripped to put herself through college, landed an internship at a top Wall Street firm and is firmly driven to succeed on her own terms.

So, is a life in porn better than one in finance? It’s tough to say; it really depends on the person, but in this case?

“I’m pretty comfortable now,” she said confidently. “I’m Veronica Vain.”