James Deen, Boy-Next-Door-Style Porn Star, Takes on Hollywood Movie and Lindsay Lohan
March 1, 2013— -- What if that dashing boy-next-door, who seems wholesome and has a cute smile, was on the Internet beckoning and ready to romance your every whim and sexual fantasy?
That's what women and teenage girls find so appealing about James Deen.
With his curly brown hair, soft blue eyes and fit body, this 27-year-old porn sensation from Pasadena, Calif., looks like he could be a neighbor, a classmate or that cute guy at the bar. That appeal has turned him into something of a porn sensation with fans much younger than 18. It's a fact that many parents might find disturbing.
"If there was a 15-year-old girl, an underage girl, an underage guy, an underage person that is viewing a scene that I'm in or any sort of porn, chances are they're doing that because either they're curious. They're horny, whatever it is. They're sexual enough that it is something that they desire, that they crave, that they want, and it's not necessarily a bad thing," Deen told "Nightline" in an interview last year.
These days, the porn star who had made more than 1,000 adult films, is going mainstream, starring in a new movie, "The Canyons," with troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan. The low-budget film has not been released yet, but it is already making headlines for its cast and their on-set drama.
WATCH: 'The Canyons' Movie Trailer
Deen is part of today's voracious, unstoppable American porn industry -- by some estimates, a $13 billion business -- that now targets and reaches a new demographic: teenage girls. Evidence of that is in Deen's star status.
"Everyone has sex," Deen said. "If your daughter is 15 or 18, and you know, at some point, she's gonna have sex with somebody."
Christina Ahlsen, 21, told "Nightline" last year that she had been a fan of Deen since high school and started watching porn around age 10.
"My first legitimate encounter with porn was when I was in fourth grade and I searched Playboy," she said. "It was early adolescence. I'm at a very curious stage."
At the time, Ahlsen said she checked up on Deen through Tumblr, and even had a setting to track when his name is mentioned on the blogging platform.
"The first time I saw him, it was kind of really relieving," she said. "Because in porn, the males are usually guys I'm not even close to being attracted to. He is just accessible, he looks like somebody that I could see at, you know, a coffee shop or something and actually approach, I mean, if he were, you know, just a regular guy. He is a regular guy."
