Aila Donovan’s short career in professional porn is pretty much the definition of a roller-coaster ride.
Fairground ticket booth: 30-year-old hardbody goes to a gay porn convention with her performer friends and decides to quit a decade-long career in nightlife and restaurants to join the adult industry.
When I started in the industry, I said to myself, ‘Oh, I’m going to be naked all the time in front of a 4K camera! You can see every little thing. So I should focus on being very fit.
Up: Immediately shoots for Brazzers.
Still up: Gets scooped up by the Spiegler Agency.
And up: Shoots several more scenes in as many days, while being pitched to studios. Creates an OnlyFans account.
And down: COVID shuts down the normal scheduling of pro shoots a day after her fourth scene is shot.
Slight up: With people stuck at home, OnlyFans numbers take off. Models can now make a living off those checks.
Down: The COVID shutdown lasts about eight months — and those crucial first months can make or break a performer, especially one who doesn’t fit neatly into the standard teen/MILF dichotomy.
And up: COVID seems to shift from a “Let’s all freak out collectively” pandemic into an endemic problem we all live with. Pro shoots resume. OnlyFans and other creator-driven platforms are still doing great...
Which brings us to where Aila Donovan is right now. Having hit a post-COVID restart button with new management by NMG and new agency representation — she signed with Motley Models in May — Donovan is hoping to reap the accolades and career that her early promise and successes seemed to foretell.
Donovan is aware that she falls between the two default modes of casting for women in adult, but she remains undaunted.
“I don’t fit the MILF look and I’m obviously not a teen, and you can only shoot ‘the trophy wife’ so many times,” the plain-speaking Northern Californian tells XBIZ, in a phone call from her longtime homebase of San Diego. “I don’t have the big tits for the MILF stuff. I’m kind of in the MILF age, but I don’t look it, especially having this fit, athletic body.”
Donovan explains that, for the most part, she’s always been pretty athletic.
“I’ve got good genes,” she says. “But I got more into fitness several years ago. I had some very bad health stuff go down that kind of made me take a step back on my life and adjust food and diet and lifestyle and all that.
“Then, when I started in the industry, I said to myself, ‘Oh, I’m going to be naked all the time in front of a 4K camera! You can see every little thing. So I should focus on being very fit.’”
Donovan describes a modest epiphany: “The more fit I get and the more I become aware of other models in the industry, the more I’m like, ‘Wait, there’s not really a lot of us, like “the girl who’s super fit”? Hmm — maybe that will be something that helps me stand out. If I can bring a fit, athletic body that I don’t see that much of, maybe that would be my angle.”
Donovan is looking forward to studios and directors recognizing the opportunity they have for exploring the fitness angle of her persona. So far, however, the only scenes Donovan has shot that explicitly address her passion for exercise have been content for her thriving OnlyFans account, which Donovan feels really exploits her distinctiveness and shows her in a truly optimal light.
“I started it at the same time I went into porn, in 2020,” she explains. “OnlyFans really blew up over COVID, I feel. I was there before, but not the way it was once COVID hit. I was aware of it because my close gay friends, who are also performers, were doing it.”
The key to her OnlyFans success, she says, is authenticity. “Some studio people said that I can be a little difficult to brand. They’ll have me on set shooting as a MILF one day — again, looks-wise I’m not a MILF at all, but hey, that’s where the paycheck is! And then the next day I’m shooting a scene and I’m the trophy wife, and a day later I’m the fit stepmom, and all this stuff that obviously isn’t me, but it pays, and it’s all over the place, so it’s harder to have a specific brand with just the pro scenes.”
With OnlyFans, she adds, “I feel more ‘me’ because I’m not trying to play these roles I don’t fit. My OnlyFans is more like, ‘Hot people fucking!’ [laughs] Or, ’Hot people, just having a good fucking time!’ You know?”
The care she takes in self-presentation plays a big role in Donovan’s choices for self-produced content, which she says carry over to her reliability when it comes to studio shoots.
“I make a point of always showing up on time, hair and makeup on point, everything on point,” she says. “I always make sure my lingerie is great, my makeup is great, my hair is great. When I shoot my own stuff, the background of whatever I’m shooting looks pretty, things like that. I present the best that I possibly can, for their scenes and for mine.”
A growing legion of Aila Donovan fans have taken notice. “My fans like me just because I’m just me on my content. It’s cool if they sometimes want a specific video — like ‘Oh, I like it when you wear the sexy teacher outfit’ or something like that’ — but I still get to be me. They just like seeing me and my personality versus this role that I have to play with a script. Although they also do love it when I have studio scenes when I get to act, because I’m quite good at it. But they can tell when I’m just being me versus I’m putting on a costume.
“What I’ve been told from my fans is they like that I keep things somewhat classy, especially when other girls may be trying to keep it as raunchy as possible because that’s the only way to get up in the world,” she adds. “I give it my all, and my scenes are great and hot, but I also keep a somewhat nice vibe. I’m not out there to be nasty and raunchy — that’s not me. I will have a good time and you will definitely get off, but I will take my own approach. I’m very artistic, so I want things to be visually pleasing and sometimes some fans like the nasty. So that’s cool, search for someone else on the internet. There’s literally a billion people out there doing that.”
Donovan says her best experience on a professional set was a recent scene she did for bisexual site WhyNotBi, co-starring bi performer Roman Todd and 2022 XBIZ Gay Performer of the Year Michael Boston — who also happens to be her close friend and roommate in real life.
“The scene is called ‘Executive Fierceness’ and Michael and I were fighting over our boss, Roman,” she describes. “So it was super fun because it’s me and my roommate, and we always have such a great time. The banter was hilarious! We could not stop laughing, and Roman was super hot — some of the best sex I’ve ever had — so between the chemistry there and the hilarious banter between me and my roommate, it made for such a great scene. It’s one of those great days when I left set and did not feel like I worked at all.”
Although the product of an extremely sheltered upbringing — she is one of 12 siblings, was homeschooled and did not begin exploring her sexuality with others until her 20s — before joining the industry, Donovan happened to watch a close friend rise through the ranks of gay porn.
“My best friend from college is Johnny Donovan, and he and his husband Ricky Donovan are exclusive models for Sean Cody,” she notes.
Being close to top gay performers before shooting even one scene, she found, was invaluable.
“I feel I had a good head on my shoulders and going in, because of my being around Johnny and Ricky, I kinda knew what to ask for and what to expect,” Donovan notes. “Which kind of gave me the advantage — I feel some people get in and they’re kind of clueless about what they’re getting into.”
Their common surnames, by the way, are not coincidental — Aila calls Johnny and Ricky “family,” so when it came time to pick her moniker, she naturally picked the family name, expanding the Donovan dynasty into the so-called “straight” side of the industry.
The choice of “Aila,” on the other hand, was less sentimental and more canny: she says she was already looking forward to the list of awards nominees, “where they go alphabetical.”
“I’m always thinking business-minded,” Donovan explains. “I could care less about fame or how popular my name is. Does that convert into a paycheck for me? That’s where my motivation comes from. That’s always where my brain is.”
Donovan says that although she has already shot for Deeper, she would like to continue shooting with other Vixen Media Group lines, like Vixen, Slayed and — when she is finally ready, which she says may be soon — Tushy, because “their stuff always looks amazing and their productions are great and are great for exposure. Their exposure is phenomenal, and that’s what I need. We need to maximize the audience reach.
“The main reason we do studio shoots is to promote our brand, which then converts into OnlyFans paychecks,” concludes Donovan, tapping into her brand of hardbody with a keen business mind.
