By Peter Berton

WINDSOR, Canada – She bills herself as “Canada’s top fetish porn star,” and one look at the big-busted dominatrix and performer Maxine X adds credence to the claim.

But Maxine X is more than a body in scenes from Brazzers, Jules Jordan, Reality Kings and the reality TV show Webdreams. Along with her husband Scott Rhodes, Maxine X is a video producer and entrepreneur who owns Maxine’s Adult Playground ad a piece of four Sinsations adult boutiques.

Her success is all the more impressive given her roots as a Cambodian refugee who, as a child, just barely escaped the Khmer Rouge massacre at the end of the Vietnam War.

YNOT.com: Your childhood in Cambodia during that period must have been terrifying.

Maxine X: When I was an infant, I was one of the two survivors of a bomb in a village. I was orphaned and taken to an orphanage called The Canada House in Phnom Penh. A woman named Naomi Bornstein from Montreal was there to help the orphaned and abandoned babies find homes in the Western world. I originally was to be adopted by a family in Australia.

The war in Cambodia was getting very bad as the fighting in Vietnam moved into Cambodia and the other countries around it. The country was going to be locked down, and planes would soon not be able to arrive and leave the country.

Naomi had tickets for the babies and the women who cared for them to get out of the country on a large plane they named Operation Baby Lift, but at the last minute she wanted to save other Cambodians and gave up our tickets to take the next flight out.

The plane that we were supposed to be on malfunctioned and crashed after it took off. The doors were not installed properly, and they blew out and crashed the plane. All the people Naomi tried to save on that flight died.

When we arrived on the next flight I was on the front page of all the newspapers in Canada with my new parents.

What happened next?

I grew up in Oakville, Canada — a wealthy suburb of Toronto — as the youngest of five kids. Three of us were adopted: my sister from Ecuador, my brother who was Slavic and two who were my parents’ natural children. They also had a baby girl who died of crib death before I was adopted. My oldest brother is an Orthodox Rabbi, another brother is a urologist, the third brother is a scientist and my sister is a bartender in Toronto.

How did you get into porn?

I got into porn with my husband, Scott Rhodes, mostly for fun. I loved to model. He knew how to produce and was a video editor. We were just a fun, sexually adventurous couple who loved sex and porn. We went to fetish parties, swinger parties and adult events such as [AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo] just as porn fans.

Before I met [my husband], I was a stripper in my early 20s. I did a little escorting and worked as a webcam model before everyone had their own computers and girls did it at home. I also worked as a waitress, bartender, room service girl, secretary and daycare assistant.

I tried out for Playboy and didn’t make it. So, my husband created my own website and took my pictures and videos, and we experimented in fetish porn a \long with regular porn.

After working for many amateur photographers, I started my professional model career at 27 years old at FetishCon.com.

One day at our local adult video store where we used to go to rent porn together, I handed my business card with my website on it to the guy who worked there, He later handed my card to the owner, who gave it to the person who is now our distributor. My husband partnered with him and produced Maxine X Productions Inc.

We now have 12 years in the adult industry and more than 100 adult titles. As well, I have worked for many other companies big and small throughout the years.

You started in Canada. How tough was it to get into the Los Angeles porn market?

As a Canadian, it is very hard to break into the L.A. porn scene. To do so, I had to invest my money in my own travel, take the chance and get an L.A. agent. I had not worked with an agent for most of my career.

My husband helped me get some shoots, negotiated business and worked like an agent for me.

On top of all this, you run your own adult stores.

I now have two adult stores in Windsor that I run. I sign my DVDs, my photos and take pictures with fans at my own store.

I run my adult store with a unique knowledge of porn, sex, sex toy experience and how-to. I am known for teaching a lot of my customers how to do anal for the first time and squirting. I’ve given a lot of couples advice, fetish advice and how to take care of certain products advice.

I have held sex workshops in my store, and I want to do more. I make custom naughty gift baskets for customers, and I host Adult Toy Home Parties — like Passion Parties or Fantasia Parties — along with teaching sex workshops.

I have written blogs on sex, squirting, anal and more. I have a lot of video blogs on YouTube on random stuff: events, how-to and products in my adult store.

What goals do you have left to achieve?

My current goal is to create a sex-positive environment for young people, couples, men and women to shop in. I am creating a training manual for my staff to teach them more about the products we sell, about appropriate sex advice for customers, about the fetish world, care for products and how to talk to all our customers using an open mind.

My future goal is to have more adult stores and train staff to have proper knowledge and offer good customer service. I believe I can give the world a new kind of adult store; give adult stores a fresh, new look and feel. As a fetish model I have been around many unique fetishes, and my customers feel comfortable asking me all kinds of questions.

I also have an advantage by being a woman. Many women love my sex advice and feel that my store is not a creepy one but a refreshing, sex-positive environment. Many women have told me I am an inspiration to them and they love what I do. Women e-mail and tell me how they have learned to squirt because of me.

I feel my new goal is to inspire others, help women be more comfortable with sex and porn, and build a loving and healthy sex life.