Porno industry secrets

I recently penned (OK, "keyboarded") another story and wanted to offer it up to all of you for your site or sites. All I ask is (of course) links.

The piece is an insider's look at the gay porn industry and hopefully entertaining and enlightening. I'm also posting a pic of me you are free to use.

Thanks all!

Lifting the Sheets: Uncovering the top five myths of gay porn

By Andy Dill
Dill Media (http://www.dillmedia.com)


Ah the simple days, when I was just a porn consumer, enjoying an occasional video with the remote in one hand and, well, something else in my other hand. Like so many other viewers, I fast-forwarded thorough much of the dialogue (who cares what kind of pizza the guy is delivering) and went directly to the cum shots, maybe stopping along the way for some great fucking or oral.

But working inside the business has changed how I look at porn. It’s an amazing experience to make a porn video (or 20 or so), whether you’re performing on camera, hanging lights, or handing out condoms and lube. You learn so much and get great insight into not only how the industry works, but also how fantasies are created, packaged and sold.

Don’t get me wrong, I love porn. And as a sex-positive gay male, I appreciate the freedom to both create and watch the erotic material of my choice. But I see it differently now: I understand the sweat and hard work that went into each and every scene.

Friends and complete strangers are always fascinated by my experience and full of questions. And so much of what they believe about the industry is just dead wrong. So here’s a quick list of the biggest myths about the porn world, along with the more prosaic truths.

1 – All porn stars have huge dicks – I’m not saying gay men lie about their endowment but, really have you ever taken a tape measure to a trick’s cock? Chances are his claim of 9 inches will evaporate like, well like the missing three inches!

There’s no doubt that some porn stars, like Michael Brandon or Chad Hunt, have giant penises, bigger than most guys or women will ever see in a lifetime. And generally speaking, porn guys have bigger than average dicks. If you have a tiny weenie, you probably don’t want to embarrass yourself in a porn interview.

But the industry today is much more about what you can do with your dick…and about the guy overall. Big cocks are nice, but do you have “the look,” the right attitude, a beautiful body? In fact I can think of a few porn players who have very average dicks but are big stars…and no one’s measuring their dicks!

2 – There’s big money in gay porn – Well, how do you define “big money?” If you’re an 18-year-old skater punk and someone offers you $100 to jack off, you probably feel like you’ve won the lottery. But many potential models, who are willing to do porn but only to for a huge payday, find that’s not how it works.

Porn models are generally paid per “scene” meaning per sexual encounter on video. A scene can take anywhere from a couple hours to a day or even two. For their work, most guys will get between $200, from a low-end amateur company, to $1,000 to $2,000 from a major studio. There are plenty of variables including how hot and in demand you are. And at the top end, an exclusive star can make many thousands for a few scenes.

So how do most porn models survive? Other jobs, from waiting tables, to flying planes to hooking. Not all porn guys do other “sex work,” but check out their websites and you’ll find many are available for private performances…with happy endings!

3 – Porn stars get paid to have sex – Well, technically they do. But shooting a scene is a lot more complicated and challenging than having what I call “personal sex.” That’s why I like to call porn models “performers” because they are truly giving a performance, creating a sexual fantasy out of lots of hard work.

Imagine if every time you had sex there was a crew of anywhere from two to 10 people watching your every move and listening to your every grunt. Imagine someone telling you how to have sex, and directing you into the most uncomfortable and awkward positions you can imagine. And when you’re exhausted and want a break, you have to keep going. Oh and even though you’re ready to come after about 20 minutes, or an hour or six hours, you’ve got to wait until the director’s covered everything else.

When I hire porn models I explain that this is a job and will be hard work. Now sometimes it hardly seems like work and I have to admit I’ve done scenes where time flew by because I was in rapture with my partner. And rarely has a sex scene been total drudgery. But to rephrase the Navy’s slogan, “It’s not just an adventure, it’s a job.”

4 – Drugs, drugs, drugs – Maybe one of the great misconceptions about the industry is that drugs are everywhere and directors and producers routinely offer crystal, pot, ecstasy or whatever to models, who are almost always loaded on and off camera.

I’d be lying if I said that it’s never happened. And certainly a few years ago, drugs were pretty common. But in my nearly three years in the industry I’ve never seen drugs on the set, with two exceptions: Viagra and poppers. Viagra, or other erectile dysfunction meds, are common at shoots and if a model doesn’t have any, someone will always provide it. Poppers are usually tolerated on the set, especially for the bottom in a hard-core scene.

Having spent three hours once waiting for a tweaked out solo model to get hard, I can tell you that I’d much rather work with a sober model. They’re present, they look better on camera and they can get and maintain a hard-on. And frankly, if a guy needs drugs to have sex, even sex on camera and in front of an audience, he probably isn’t right for porn and vice versa.

5 – “Fake” porn is easy to spot - More than once someone has told me how hot a scene I did was and how it was obvious I was into my scene partner. Obvious, eh? In the same way it’s obvious that an actor playing a killer in the movies is really evil? Without naming names, I’ve done a few scenes with guys I wasn’t into and who weren’t into me. But so far, no one’s seemed to notice.

Porn models are often put together because they look great or have complementary interests. Sometimes they’re put together by default. And for the most part, performers are respectful and polite to each other, no matter whether they’re really “into” the guy or not.

The truth is, porn is made in the editing suite. Of course you have to have good material to work with: If a model is overweight or “out of it” at a shoot, no amount of editing can make him look slim, attractive and alert. But good directing, production and especially editing can really make a scene sparkle. Even if there’s just no spark between the performers.

Happy porn viewing and…see you in the movies.

Andy Dill (http://www.andydill.com) is a porn performer, producer and online pornographer. His company, Dill Media (www.dillmedia.com) runs Redhead Guys (http://www.redheadguys.com) and Cumshot Guys (http://www.cumshotguys.com).

Great column Andy! I hope you plan on writing a column on the politics of the porn business someday.

nice article! i enjoyed reading it.

it reminded me - years ago (god, could it REALLY have been the 70's?), i was a teenage runaway in hollywood, and i was staying with a married couple. he did some porn, and when i was bored, i'd go along.

one day, he did a scene with slender blond absolute twink - and he couldn't get it up. he's not into the "boy" thing at all. he had done lots of scenes for these guys, but this one just wasn't working.

finally i hung out with the blond boy (and later lived with him and his boyfriend for quite a while) till ace was ready. when they shot the sex, he lost it halfway through, and finally they faked part of it - everyone laughing hysterically afterwards. it is hard to imagine two guys less into each other.

funny thing - i saw the video at the las palmas theater after some serious editing. you'd swear those two guys were wildly horny for each other if you didn't know better.

Awesome article Andy!

BTW -- Once again many thanks for your article on "supercharging your hookup ad" that I'm using this month at gaydatingtips.com -- most appreciated!

Thanks for sharing mr. Dill
I also chkd ur sites out pretty kewl.
good job.