Ricky Johnson is always in motion.
Even as he takes time out of his busy shooting schedule to chat with XBIZ, there’s restless energy behind the calm. This makes it easy to envision a younger version of Johnson, back when he arrived on the adult scene with no connections — but a great deal of persistence.
“I’ve always wanted to make films,” he says. “I just took the performer route to learn the game because when I came in, I knew very little about the industry. So I used to ask directors a lot of questions.
“A lot of times they would be like, ‘You don’t want to be a director, just stay performing,’” he recalls. “But I knew.”
So he stayed quiet and watched. He shadowed crews, studied camera setups. Absorbed how sets were run, how lighting shifted mood, how talent was managed, how scenes were stitched together in post.
Eventually, he understood that no one was going to send him an engraved invitation; he had to make the leap on his own, on spec.
“The only way to do it was just to send my own work out to the people who made the decisions,” Johnson says.
He wrote two scripts, cast the talent himself and hired a videographer he trusted, someone who had already shot with him and whose creative chemistry with him felt natural. He funded both scenes out of pocket. One was tailored for Babes, which was part of the MindGeek ecosystem at the time — clean, centralized, high-polish. The other leaned toward a Brazzers-style aesthetic.
“They took the one that was for Babes,” Johnson recalls. “Then they sent me an order for more, two months later.”
The Vibe and the Drop
That green light gave Johnson the momentum he needed to start building his vision. Quickly growing more comfortable behind the camera, he started experimenting by shooting scenes built on mood, intimacy and that particular vibe that only descends once most of the world has turned in for the night.
“I shot a couple of scenes that were in the style of what Ricky’s Room is now,” he remembers. “They did pretty well on the Reality Kings site, so I was like, ‘All right, I’m seeing in real time that audiences are liking this style.’”
The concept itself was simple.
“As long as it’s nighttime and we have a bed and some satin sheets, we’re good,” Johnson laughs.
That stripped-down aesthetic, less about spectacle and more about atmosphere, became the spine of Ricky’s Room. Perhaps appropriately, Johnson’s signature style was itself built in the dark.
“I did it quietly,” he says. “We shot like 35 scenes without releasing, without promo.”
It was like building a house — or in this case, a room — at night, when nobody was watching. Only in the strange stillness that followed the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns did Johnson finally decide the time was right.
“I dropped like 18 scenes in a row,” he says. “Then I had enough time to keep it going.”
There was no teaser campaign, no hype machine — just content stacked patiently and released without warning. Looking back, that silent buildup remains one of Johnson’s favorite chapters.
“It was fun,” he says. “It’s something I plan on doing again with a future site. I like the idea of dropping something randomly, like how some shows do on Netflix or when a random album drops that fans don’t expect. I think when you trust your product and the commitment you put into it, it will do well.
“I believe this is especially true when it’s an unconditional passion,” he adds.
What Makes Ricky Run
Ask around at any industry event and you’ll hear, from every corner of the room, variations on the same theme: “Oh, I love Ricky.”
Indeed, Johnson seems to be equally at home talking shop with execs or catching up with performers, who feel more like old friends than talent. Over the past decade, he has evolved from performer to producer to impresario of his own ecosystem — a world that now includes Ricky’s Room, the reality-style expansion Ricky’s Resort, a growing slate of creator-owned content zones, a boutique model service that operates more like a support network than an agency, a growing partnership with Fleshlight and a seat at the table with the Adult Studio Alliance, where he’s helping to define how the next generation of performers will experience the business.
Asked if he ever stops to rest between projects, Johnson laughs, “I don’t go to sleep, I fall asleep.”
According to Johnon’s partner, Erotic Medusa, this is no exaggeration.
“A lot of people underestimate how much time he puts into this,” she says. “He will literally stay up days — no food, barely hydration — just locked in on a project. Forgetting to brush his teeth. And then here we are, reaping the benefits.”
Riding that much momentum can require a pace that would flatten most people. Fortunately, endurance has been built into Ricky Johnson since his days of running track in college.
“There was a lot of discipline in terms of accountability,” he recalls. “If somebody else was late, we all had to get up at six in the morning and work out.”
An athlete’s determination still drives him.
“There’s always someone better,” Johnson says. “But I like competing with myself too.”
In the middle of all that, Johnson also manages to play another important role: being a parent.
Johnson and Medusa share a 14-month-old son. Watching Johnson move between work and parenthood has only deepened Medusa’s admiration for how deliberately he organizes his life.
“He will literally be in the middle of doing something and then our son will need something, and he’ll drop it,” she says. “The way he can parent and work and make it feel seamless — he really prioritizes his time.”
She recalls an occasion when she had a health crisis and Johnson cleared his schedule completely so he could care for their son while she recovered.
“I felt so bad,” she recalls. “But he was like, ‘No, babe. This comes first.’”
She pauses, then smiles.
“To have my son look up to him as a man — between his intelligence, his character, his care — I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Alongside competitive spirit and family values, another defining trait is Johnson’s “all for one and one for all” mentality. That team mindset has reshaped how Ricky’s Room operates. These days, it’s a machine that runs largely on trust and trade rather than any rigid studio-style hierarchy.
“We shoot more trade than we do paid,” Johnson affirms. “Though I don’t think the energy is massively different. Usually, I offer trade to people I have shot with a lot and built that chemistry and trust with, as well as established creators who don’t really shoot mainstream.
“This definitely doesn’t work for everyone, so I don’t propose everyone do it,” he adds. “It’s important to be transparent with the people you work with, and be aligned with what your goals are in the industry. I plan to be involved in sex work for some time, so the idea of having my content exposed continuously to the masses works for me in that way.”
Of course, every team has its star players. For Johnson, sustaining the frenetic pace he favors simply would not be possible without Janae, a longtime friend turned indispensable colleague.
“I needed a PA and I was like, ‘Are you down?’” Johnson remembers.
She was. Today, Janae is the yin to his yang, providing the behind-the-scenes stability that fuels his front-facing charisma.
“Make sure you say Janae’s amazing and is my right hand,” Johnson insists, provoking a humble laugh from said right hand.
Janae herself describes the dynamic more modestly.
“I like being in the back,” she says. “I don’t like bossing people around.”
Night and Day
Not having to hover over every corner of the operation at every moment, Johnson notes, is a big part of what has allowed him to expand.
“It’s like, ‘All right, we’re good here, let me go cultivate something else,’” he explains. “I give somebody something: ‘Now this is your land. You keep this land going and we can have a giant community where everybody’s doing something.’”
Notably, that trust gave Johnson the freedom to develop Ricky’s Resort, initially envisioned as a one-off celebration, into a second flagship brand.
The project began as a three-day venture featuring 16 women and eight men hanging out, rotating through activities that felt more like summer camp than a shoot schedule, with sex interwoven throughout rather than being the sole focus.
“It was a lot of logistics,” Johnson admits. “I spent a lot of time on preproduction to ensure things ran smoothly. But I was blessed with amazing crewmates who helped push things along when I wasn’t around.”
He describes it as an all-star weekend: elite talent vibing, fornicating, competing, playing games — but with a built-in system designed to prevent burnout. Wristbands told the story: green for “Ready for sex and SFW,” yellow for “SFW only” and red for “Something’s wrong, talk to me.”
Johnson notes, “The goal was to have fun and make sure everyone was comfortable. With those two factors, I was able to get a bunch of footage.”
That’s somewhat of an understatement. The crew worked championship hours — 12-hour days two days before Christmas — capturing more than 40 sexual moments, including more than 20 sequences strong enough to carry a full scene.
“That’s six months of content in just three days,” Johnson marvels.
Still, he expected it ultimately to end up as just a tab inside his existing site. Then the footage came back, seeming to answer a question he hadn’t yet thought to ask: If Ricky’s Room was night, what would day look like?
“They said, ‘You have enough footage to make a site,’” Johnson recalls. “So I was like, ‘All right, let’s just do another one.’
“I see Resort going further and further,” he predicts. “I like how MrBeast does things — a fun environment. It can turn to more safe-for-work stuff, where we have like 26 people playing games and having fun, and then we can have another 26 the next weekend.”
For the Love of the Game
For Johnson, the end goal isn’t just personal success. It’s a future where the people at the heart of the industry get to own it.
“I really want to help other creators climb ladders, and open lanes for those that may not see them or know that they’re there,” he affirms.
One key initiative that reflects that commitment is what he and Janae call “the model service,” an informal agency-style operation that doesn’t take commissions from performers or directors.
“We don’t make any money from it,” Johnson admits. “We just help people out for the love of the game.”
The results speak quietly but clearly: multiple newcomers nominated for various awards, and a roster growing organically through trust rather than hype.
On set, that sense of unity shows up in micro-decisions: the music choice, flexibility with wardrobe and willingness to adjust a script mid-scene. Johnson and his crew bring options, ask questions and listen.
Medusa sees ripple effects that constitute nothing less than a quiet revolution in the adult industry.
“The way you shoot Ricky’s Room is collaborative,” she says. “Now with AI and everything, companies are being forced to question how they hire models, how they pay models, how they get content. And it’s because of what he was already doing.”
She points to decisions that once felt unconventional — the “green light”-style production, trade-based collaboration, the “model service” — but now feel prescient.
“He stepped out and said, ‘I’m doing it like this,’” Medusa says. “And now people are trying to compete with what he built. He’s literally changing the way porn is shot.”
For Medusa, that impact carries particular weight when it comes to representation and agency.
“He’s really focused on minorities, people of color — giving us the choice of how we want to be seen,” she says. “Not just slapping a label on us. He forced companies to think about how they’re treating us, how they’re hiring us, how they’re paying us.”
Most recently, Johnson became involved in the Adult Studio Alliance, a collaborative effort between studios including Adult Time, Mile High, Dorcel and Ricky’s Room to establish practical standards for performer rights, on-set conduct, health and safety, in order to provide “a safe, comfortable and empowering set environment for performers.”
Johnson describes it as the closest thing the business will ever have to a union — not a rulebook, but a reference point. He feels that such an effort is needed due to the high rate of turnover in the industry.
“Someone that came in three years ago wouldn’t know about swabs,” he points out. “Now you have to get swabs. There should be a place for people to kind of understand the ins and outs.”
Sex Work Engineer
Johnson doesn’t see himself performing forever. For years, he has teased that he has “one more year” left in him. He’s been saying it since he was 28 — but lately it seems less like a joke.
“I’ve always wanted to be someone who leaves the game before the game leaves them,” Johnson reflects. “I’m in my early 30s, so I’m sure I could do this another decade, but…”
That “but” leaves the door wide open to a whole range of future endeavors. As Medusa notes, imagining what’s next turns out to be yet another one of Johnson’s fortes.
“Anytime we sit down, he’s like, ‘Yeah babe, I’m thinking about 2027,’” she marvels. “And I’m like, ‘I’m thinking about tomorrow. How are you years ahead?’”
Some of Johnson’s ambitions involve a decided pivot away from online toward the brick-and-mortar world, where he envisions physical spaces that sex workers can own rather than simply work inside. Think strip clubs and sex clubs designed by people who live inside intimacy rather than theorize about it.
“Outsiders often design from spectacle or theory,” Johnson says. “Sex workers design from use. We know how people move, what makes them feel safe enough to open up, how power dynamics shift in a room and how to balance excitement with trust.”
He’s talking about engineering environments based on insights only sex workers can provide.
“We’re thinking about bodies, stamina, comfort, longevity and emotional experience,” he explains. “Not just aesthetics or profit.”
Another key element for Johnson is agency.
“These spaces aren’t about consumption of people, but collaboration with them,” he says. “That perspective creates environments that are more ethical, more sustainable and ultimately more magnetic. And if it’s a funnel of feature dancing controlled by sex workers, it can be properly safe. All the things that are done with sex workers should have sex workers in control.”
That means sex clubs designed to feel less like something taboo and more like community — real-world versions of Ricky’s Room.
“Who better to cultivate the sex club industry than sex workers?” Johnson asks. “It should be somewhere that we can bring comfort and break down that taboo barrier. It’s happening already — we should be the ones in control of it.”
He doesn’t frame it as rebellion so much as stewardship.
“We can be the bosses of it, and keep growing it and make it the best it can be,” Johnson says. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
Rather than chasing viral fame, Johnson is building a legacy. Always building, stacking bricks — and refusing to slow down long enough to romanticize what he’s already done or rest on his laurels. Because the next venture is already calling.
Ricky Johnson is always in motion.
