The narrative of the modern porn industry—humble beginnings, technical innovation, rapid growth, mainstream adoption, massive fracturing thanks to the Web—is shared by several American businesses. One major difference? Porn is way more entertaining to read about. Here are five of our favorite stories about the sex entertainment industry:

The Devil and John Holmes Mike Sager • Rolling Stone • May 1989 Detailing the rise and fall of the most prolific star in the history of porn, Sager's 12,500-worder helped inspire Boogie Nights.

"Holmes's voice was sly and ingratiating. He sounded a lot like Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver and bore some resemblance to the actor who played him. Above all, he said, he loved his work: 'A happy gardener is one with dirty fingernails, and a happy cook is a fat cook. I never get tired of what I do because I'm a sex fiend. I'm very lusty.' "

They Shoot Porn Stars, Don't They? Susannah Breslin • They Shoot Stars • October 2009 A self-published snapshot of the industry following the Great Recession:

"Three years ago, Powers shot four to five movies a week. Nowadays, he's lucky if he shoots two a week. Like many other businessmen, he's been forced to cut corners. Ergo, the 'life support system for a penis' of yesteryear has been replaced by the lower maintenance RoboCock."

Scenes From My Life in Porn Evan Wright • LA Weekly • April 2000 The former entertainment editor at Hustler describes the psychological impact of his half-decade as a porn reviewer:

"I wrote reviews under the pseudonym 'Mack Assarian.' This helped reinforce the notion I maintained to my girlfriend, my therapist or anyone who asked that my life was separate from my job. The words I wrote in Flynt publications in no way reflected my own thoughts or feelings. Mack Assarian had the voice of an unrepentant misogynist, wise to the games played by manipulative bitches. But he was not me."

Barely Legal Whores Get Gang F***ed Zak Smith • Rumpus • Jan 2009 The story of an appearance by porn star Sasha Grey—referred to here as "Tasha"—on The Tyra Banks Show:

"Tasha talks, twinklingly, about the always interesting experience of telling your mother you're doing porn. Pale and still peachy in her makeup, time after time, she smiles and tosses the ball of human interaction to Tyra, where it hits a null field, loses all inertia, and is sucked straight to the floor. Thuck. If the look Tyra Banks wears while receiving reality was a sound, the sound would be thuck. If Tasha is very lucky, she gets instead a cautious, queasy nod before the next queasily asked question."

Hard Core Natasha Vargas-Cooper • Atlantic • January 2011 An essay on what Internet porn has done to American sexuality:

"Porn's new pervasiveness and influence on the culture at large haven't necessarily introduced anything new into our sexual repertoire: humans, after all, have been having sex—weird, debased, and otherwise—for quite a while. But pervasive hard-core porn has allowed many people to flirt openly with practices that may have always been desired, but had been deeply buried under social restraint. Take anal sex: in a 1992 study that surveyed sexual behaviors, published by the University of Chicago, 20 percent of women ages 25 to 29 reported having anal sex. In a study published in October 2010 by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, the instances of anal sex reported by women in the same age cohort had more than doubled, to 46 percent. The practice has even made its way into the younger female demographic: the Indiana study shows 20 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds have had anal sex at least once."

Have a favorite piece that we missed? Leave the link in the comments or tweet it to @ longformorg. For more great writing about sex, check out Longform.org's complete archive on the subject.