Lea Lexis: Romanian gymnastics star turned sex Olympian

I only lasted 30 seconds with Lea Lexis, which is longer than most men last with her, especially in a handstand competition.

When I met the Romanian gymnast turned porn star at the AEE Expo in Las Vegas, she offered me a taste of her parfait. I accepted. Then she offered to spoon-feed me the rest of the creamy concoction. Faced with her deadpan expression and Romanian accent, I wasn't entirely sure if she was just fucking with me.

Minutes into our conversation, Lexis started listing some of the public places where she has had sex and the weird locations where she wants to have sex. She wants to have an orgy on a sex airplane that has a padded interior on all sides. I said it sounded like a crazy plane. She smiled and nodded. I said it sounded like a padded plane for the mentally insane. She smiled and nodded.

To test if Lexis really was this adventurous, or if she was just projecting this persona for the sake of our interview, I challenged her to a handstand competition. She did not hesitate to launch herself upside down in the middle of the tiny press room while dressed in heels and skin-tight pants.

Born Feb. 18, 1988, on the coast of the Black Sea in Constanta, Romania, Lexis started training in gymnastics at age 4. When she retired from the sport ten years later due to an injury, she had earned five national gymnastics titles. In July of 2007, she started shooting porn in Eastern Europe. She developed a reputation for performing in hardcore scenes in which she contorted her body in ways that would have earned her a gold medal in the sexual Olympics.

Soon Lexis took her act to LA where she started shooting with some of the top hardcore companies, including Kink.com, Elegant/Evil Angel, and Digital Playground. She also started doing costume design, special effects makeup, and monster effects for many of the adult features she starred in. One such film, Evil Angel's Voracious: The First Season, earned Lexis a number of nominations at the 2013 AVN awards, including: "Best Supporting Actress," "Best Three-Way Sex Scene (G/G/B)," "Best Art Direction," "Best Screenplay," and "Best Special Effects." She was also nominated for "Best Sex Scene in a Foreign-Shot Production" for In Anal Sluts We Trust 4, and "Best Tease Performance" for Digital Sin's Sexual Gymnastics.

Why are Romanians so good at gymnastics?

As a nation, we've been through a lot of shit. We feel like we have to work hard to succeed at one thing. When little girls get the chance to be good at something, it is the only thing they focus on. They think,'I can be great. I can have something that will be great.' We didn't used to have a lot of things in Romania. When you are a gymnast, you get appreciated for what you do. People see you differently. All the day-to-day problems don't matter as much. Gymnastics gives you an interesting purpose. An interesting thing to be proud of and to work hard at.

You were a five time national champion. Were you in the Olympics?

No. I just did nationals. I stopped at 14. I had a double breakage in a muscle. Recovery took six months. After being out for half a year, I was mentally done with gymnastics.

Have you ever wanted to do an adult-themed Cirque du Soleil show where the performers are naked?

I was asked to do a show with Cirque du Soleil for this year's AVN Awards, but we could not arrange it in time. That made me very sad.

Could you make a better living as a porn performer or doing Cirque du Soleil?

I don't know the exact numbers but from what I've heard, the Cirque du Soleil performers don't get paid that incredibly much. Consider how expensive it is to put the show together with all the costumes and sets. Now that they have so many shows in Vegas, the performers probably do better. When I stopped gymnastics, some of my peers and I were approached about trying out. I just didn't want to do it. Even when I was young I was well aware of the amount of work and dedication you need to put into the circus, and the benefits never really excited me.

Was porn legal in communist Romania?

Well, I was born in 1988. Communism ended in 1989, so—

So you weren't out leading the Romanian rebels?

My mother claims I was cheering in front of the TV when it was happening. In Romania, they are not so accepting of porn, even though you would think Europe would be more open minded. But one of the reasons porn performers are so interesting to people there is because we are so controversial. I accept the fact that they judge us because I know they secretly love us. They do shoot some porn there, but they kind of hide it. I never really did porn in Romania. Too much drama. Too much of a hassle.

But didn't you start out shooting scenes in Europe. Isn't European porn a bit more hardcore?

I started in Budapest, which is kind of the capital of European porn. And yes, we are a bit more hardcore.

How much more hardcore can you get than what they already shoot over here?

Well, I've worked with a lot of American chicks, and they do hardcore scenes, but it is like, you have a cock in your ass, but you do not choke and slap. You know? In Europe there is like an added something. A little bit of craziness. A little bit of rebellion and rage. Like, 'I am doing this, and I am feeling it, and it is so good.' Just that act of having sex is not enough. I have so much more energy that I just want to do something more, to get something extra. Grabbing, slapping, choking — you just do more.

I feel like that is the problem with sex and porn. There seems to be a limit to how extreme you can get. What do you do after you've slapped and choked a partner during rough sex? How much more can you legally do?

That is one of the reasons gonzo never really developed after awhile. It got to a point where you couldn't really top it.

Yeah, like where do you go after two fists in an ass?

You could do the umbrella. [Lexis opens her fist in demonstration.] Or the two hands could start clapping inside the ass [She claps slightly with a deadpan expression] ... I guess because you cannot top that, some studios switched to romance porn and passion porn. They adopted different types. People get bored with too much choking after awhile, you know?

Do you get bored with romance porn?

I am not a vanilla type girl in my personal life. I've always had a bit of a rebellious energy about me. I have never enjoyed slow motion walks on the beach while staring into someone's eyes. I'm not that type of girl. I don't carry a pink fuzzy little purse and I'm not delicate. I like to drive strong cars and work on them and I like to build things. I am more of a boy actually.

If you're a boy, then I'm super gay ... What did you put as your "trade" on your US work visa?

Actually a porn company helped me with all of that.

What films have you done the costumes and makeup for?

The recent one is John Stagliano's feature, Voracious.

That's the one with five nominations?

I have five nominations. The movie has many, many more. I made all the costumes for the movie and did all the makeup. And we have a nomination for special effects, which I am a part of because I did all the vampire teeth, the wounds, and I killed John Stagliano in a bathroom.

How did you get into that?

I've done makeup for a few years now. One of the dreams of coming to America was to work on big movies. I've always wanted to put my creative stamp on something, to be like, 'I did that.' Like I had something in my mind and I was able to make it happen. And since I'm not a girly girl, I was attracted to monsters.

What is your favorite monster to create?

I like my monsters to be a bit human, like vampires. To transform. That little bit of humanity in them makes them really scary.

So you like the idea of a human transforming into something monstrous?

Yeah, I enjoy that. I enjoy analyzing the psychology of things. When I was growing up I enjoyed reading books on the art of manipulation and how to express myself more effectively. One of the examples I always think about is these students in Palo Alto. They found a homeless man with a sign that read, 'I am blind. Can you please help me?' They changed the sign to something like, 'Outside, there is a beautiful spring, and I can not see it. Can you please help me?' So, whenever I open my mouth, I wonder how I can say things in a way that will be perceived differently. Rather than saying things like, 'Can you do this for me?' or 'Can we do that?' I always try to think of ways to say things that will be better, nicer, and more productive.

How have you tried to manipulate me during this interview?

Take our body posture for example. I am leaning toward you. That communicates an openness. An interest.

Why don't you have your own paysite yet?

I'm in the talks of building one, but because I am such a control freak and I want to make things my own, I don't want regular scenes with a couch and a plant in the corner. I want to do underwater sex. I want to do outdoor sex. I want sex in a forest. In the desert ... that is taking more time to build than I estimated. But I would rather have it come out later and have it be something that I am actually proud of.

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Follow Lea Lexis on Twitter at @LeaLexisxxx or on Facebook .

See more explicit coverage of the convention and awards show at AVNAwards.com and AdultEntertainmentExpo.com.

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