XXX-ceptable

Sometimes Bill Asher can't believe what he hears. As the president of Vivid Entertainment Group, the biggest name in pornography, Asher makes a living lucrative enough to send his 16-year-old daughter to one of Los Angeles's most expensive private schools.

And he's not at all intimidated by the school's other parents--lawyers, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, even Andy Garcia. "It's not seen as an odd thing that I'm a pornographer," he says. "They know what I do, and they talk to me about it, it doesn't faze anyone." When he drops off his daughter at her friends' homes, he says, parents open up to him. He estimates that an amazing one quarter of them have asked him for work. But what stuns him most are the reviews he gets. "They talk about my movies like you'd talk about Julia Roberts," he says. "They say, 'My favorite is Jenna Jameson,' or whatever. A lot of the women will say they'd like to see more plot. It's nice to hear the advice, but it always feels strange to me to have someone's mother give you her take on our porn movies."

OK, that's L.A. But 30 years ... // 86% Remaining