Topic: Pornography

The already hostile takeover fight for New Frontier Media, the publicly traded owner of nine adult-themed pay-per-view networks, has expanded to include a pair of Hollywood power players – one of whom is also a former video game executive.

Despite a widely publicized downturn in porn industry profits over the past few years, investors still think there's money to be made there – so much so that a bidding war has erupted for one of the few publicly traded companies with ties to the adult industry.

There's a point in everyone's life when they stand at a career crossroads. Go one way and you end up in your current profession. Go the other and you wind up doing something entirely different. That's true not just of people in the traditional business world, but also those in the porn world. Before they began having sex on screen, the people in the adult entertainment industry were often working in other fields or studying to be a part of them.

Everybody has a first job – and it rarely has anything to do with how you end up making a living. That's especially true of the adult entertainment industry's biggest names. But their first gigs aren't what you might expect. Sure, some kicked off their resumes with stints in fast food joints, like many teenagers around the country. Several, though, worked in law firms. And one learned the hard way that domestic services were not for her.

Each January, Adult Video News, the trade publication of the adult entertainment industry, holds the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.  The event (Jan 18-21 this year) features appearances by well-known actors in the industry, as well as new products and companies vying for a piece of the $14-billion adult industry.

While there are a few adult entertainment companies that are publicly traded, most are firmly closed to civilians, the industry’s term for outsiders. But one company, Pleasure Dynasty, is opening the filmmaking process.

Fabian Thylmann lacks the icon status of Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt, but he has quietly become one of the most powerful people in porn over the past two years.

As the porn industry gathers for its annual convention, there's a lot at stake. Online piracy continues to nip at the earnings of studios, and new legislation could dramatically impact how companies do business.

The L.A. City Council voted to make condom use mandatory in adult films. And adult studios are already planning how to minimize the effects of that law.

While plenty of adult stars dream of making the transition to traditional acting, their dreams rarely become reality. Hollywood – and mainstream culture, in general – tend to segregate the men and women of porn, keeping them at arm's length.

True superstardom in the adult entertainment industry is a tough thing to achieve. And this year's Dirty Dozen certainly underscores that. Just five of the actresses we listed among the industry's most popular last year make return appearances in 2012, as new faces have come along – and some veteran performers made a comeback.

When Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher  married, headlines pointed out the 16-year age difference that made theirs a classic May-December romance. Divorce lawyers have full coffers thanks to the dissolution of such celebrity unions. What are some notable May-December celebrity divorces?