Hartley has stated that pornography is one of the few places where women are allowed to initiate and take pleasure in sex in a society that restricts women's sexuality with expectations of
virginity,
monogamy, and childbearing. She deliberately sought a career in pornography as a way to make a living by having sex, later telling
Las Vegas Weekly, "Porn gave me easy access to women without having to date them or have a relationship." She writes that part of her reason for choosing sex work was to be able to indulge her
exhibitionistic and
voyeuristic streak. She has said she chose her life's work when she saw the 1976 erotic film
The Autobiography of a Flea alone at a theater in San Francisco. She told an interviewer that she chose the name "Nina" because it was easy for Japanese tourists to say during the time she was a dancer in San Francisco, and "Hartley" because it was close to her own last name, and she "wanted a name that sounded like that of a real person." where she was cast and directed by fellow performer
Juliet Anderson. For many years, she toured the United States and Canada as a stripper and made personal appearances at
sex shops. Hartley describes her father's reaction to her choice of occupation: In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hartley starred in several of the
Debbie Does Dallas film series spin-offs such as
Debbie Duz Dishes (1986) and
Debbie Does Wall Street (1991). In 1992, she directed her first movie, ''Nina Hartley's Book of Love''. She also produced and starred in a series of sex education videos for
Adam & Eve. In 1994, she began her line of instructional videos marketed under the ''Nina Hartley's Guide'' brand. , she was still actively performing, and by 2017 had appeared in more than one thousand pornographic films. She has been described by the
San Francisco Chronicle as "one of the best-known actresses in the industry" and by
CNBC as "a legend in the adult world". ==Mainstream media appearances==