Louis Theroux: Twilight of the Porn Stars (2012) Movie Script
This programme contains
scenes of a sexual nature
This programme contains
very strong language
That's the price we pay
for being cheerleaders. Yeah.
Oh, my God!
'In 1997 I made a documentary about
the world of male porn performers
'in Los Angeles...'
I don't want to cause offence
when I say that I look at him
and I don't automatically think,
"There's a porno performer".
Are you John Dough? Hey. What's up?
How's it going? Louis from the BBC.
Break a leg.
'..finding out how difficult
and stressful it can be
'having sex on camera for a living.'
Action.
Let's cut. Cut! Let's break.
It seems like the easiest job in
the world, really. Let's face it.
It's not. Really?
Many, many men have tried
and very few have made it.
And action!
'Fifteen years on, I'd heard about
big changes in the industry.
'Porn was struggling, under threat
from piracy on the internet.'
PornTube sites pretty much...
killed the business.
Killed it.
If you've got a guy who's
seen 500 porns, you know,
whatever you're gonna do isn't
gonna particularly astound him.
How you doing?
How are you, my friend?
'And so I'd returned to LA, curious
how my old friends were faring...'
Good to see you.
'..and to meet the new performers
pursuing a dream of porn stardom
'in an industry where a stable
career was more elusive than ever.'
You like girls, you like boys,
you like getting tied up.
The only thing...
Actually, you like everything.
Everybody has to be something
at some point in their life
that they may not want to do, but
they do it because they have to.
I am someone that does blow bangs,
I am someone that does anal scenes.
That's who I am. That's...who
I'm becoming and I'm OK with that.
'My journey was starting
in the San Fernando Valley,
'America's capital of porn.
'Faced with competition from free
YouTube-style porn sites,
'studios have responded by making
films with higher production values
'for the couples market.
'I'd been invited to the latest
shoot by Wicked Pictures.
'The male lead was the rising star
Xander Corvus.'
How we doing? Nice to meet you.
Good. Nice to meet you too.
I'm Louis. Xander.
Xander.
You're a performer in the business.
I am.
How long have you been doing this?
About a year...
A little over a year and a half.
You will be having sex with someone
this afternoon on camera? I will.
Erm... I feel like an asshole.
Alex... Alexa I think her name is.
Have you seen her yet? No.
Have ever you done a scene
with her before? No.
Is it important that you
find her attractive?
I've had to do scenes with girls
I wasn't particularly attracted to
but, you know, I'd get it up anyway.
I mean, I'm 23... I just turned 23,
so it's usually not a problem,
and if it is, it's like,
"OK, Cialis. Cool, we're good".
Cialis? Boner pill.
It's like Viagra?
Yeah. You get it at any doctor.
But we go to, like,
the porn doctor, basically.
So what is this called, this movie?
Erm... I don't know.
I forget.
We have the white virginous
kind of look here. Mmm.
'The film's director,
Brad Armstrong,
was also an occasional performer.'
Brad, have you worked with Alexa
before? I have indeed. Yeah.
Let me just say that Alexa's
a lot of fun.
I mean, you've directed her,
but did you mean that you've
also performed with Alexa?
Oh, we've made the sweet love a
number of times. Yeah. She's fun.
Step.
Step. Step.
Step.
Step. Look deep into each other's
eyes without touching.
Is it set in a period,
a certain period of history, Brad?
It's not so much a specific period,
but it's period-esque.
You know, in the romance novel,
there's always that guy
with the open pirate-esque shirt
and the girl in her little
kind of Spanish...
It's just sort of in romance land.
Romance land.
And kiss.
Do you recommend it as a lifestyle,
because it's a very particular kind
of a business to be in, isn't it?
It depends on the person.
If you're straight
and business minded,
like Nicole's going for her
Bachelor's right now. Who's Nicole?
Sorry. Erm...
What's the chick over there?
What's the girl's name?
LAUGHTER
Alexa, sorry.
Alexa or Nicole? Alexa Nicole.
Her first name is Alexa and her
last name is Nicole? Exactly.
So you very much get
a wide variety...
You've had sex with her
a couple of times
and you didn't remember her name.
No, I just blanked.
And action.
Michael...
I can't.
My father will never allow this,
you know this.
Do that line one more time.
Which one?
Hers. "I know that my father will
never allow it. You know this".
Not "this" and "this'. OK.
And go from there, and action.
I know...
Fuck! And I too.
I know, and I you.
As in, I love you too.
Are you enjoying the scene?
Yeah, dude, she's great.
I'm really feeling her.
I think we have a pretty good
chemistry going so that's good.
It's work, isn't it? Yeah, it's
work. It's not sex for pleasure.
It's fun, but it's definitely
not sex for pleasure.
How you doing, Brad?
So far, so good. Are they OK?
Are they just moving... He's
walking around with his willy out.
Yeah, it's...
Isn't that... look at that.
Some people are a little more...
..flamboyant than others
with their penis out.
Yeah! Oh!
Oh!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh!
No, less porno.
"Yes, yes, yes".
Yes, yes.
Cool. You got it and I got it.
How did that go? Do you feel closer
now that you've just had sex?
It was a pretty romantic scene.
We're not gonna run and get married
but it definitely, like,
opens a lot of doors to a person
we're more comfortable around. Yeah.
There's something quite touching
about seeing you there like that,
how your legs are crossed over
like that.
It's almost like you've just had
a romantic moment. We did. Yeah.
Sure did.
Do you have a boyfriend, Alexa?
Yeah. Yes, I do.
Who you live with? Yes.
Kids? No.
Would you like to have kids one day?
Definitely.
You're not worried about your kids
seeing something,
seeing one of your scenes?
Not at all. And if they were to,
I think sex is perfectly natural,
so I don't think it's anything
that someone should be ashamed of.
'My next stop was the offices
'of one of the industry's leading
talent agencies, LA Direct.
'Its founder and CEO is the
performer known as Ben English.
'His real name, Derek Hay.'
Louis. Hello. How you doing?
Ah, how are you?
Nice to meet you. Yeah, good.
Now, you've got a busy day.
What have you got going on?
I'm not sure how many shoots
but there's today's schedule.
She's doing an unusual shoot,
actually.
She's doing a gangbang,
which a lot of people say 'gangbang'
when you're talking about
the porn industry,
but actually it's pretty rare.
Is there a rate for a gangbang?
Would there be a going rate
for something like that?
Anywhere from...
3,000 to 8,000.
I don't know if people consider that
a lot or not.
I don't know. Yeah.
For a gangbang, is it a lot?
I don't know.
'A few doors down from Derek
is his number two, Fran Smidor.'
Hello. Hello. You must be Fran.
I might be. Who wants to know?
Louis. Louis? How do you do?
So is that what you pay
the talent with?
Erm... some of it is for the talent,
yes.
Most of them are cheques.
How's business?
Could always be better.
Do you think the internet and piracy
and free porn on the internet
has had an impact?
Yes. Devastatingly.
How has that had a knock-on effect
on the industry and the performers?
Less work.
There's less work and there's an
abundance, because of the economy,
of performers.
There aren't enough people shooting
to give everybody a day's work.
You see a lot of people coming
in here and saying that, you know,
they want to be in adult movies,
right?
Do you give them a talk where you
explain what the consequences are
and how it's likely to affect them
and have they thought it through?
No. Why not?
Because I would talk half...
three quarters of the girls
out of the business
and we wouldn't be in business.
I'm here to promote the adult
industry, not put a curse on it.
Jinx, Jinx, Jinx.
Fran, do you get on with Jinx pretty
well? Can't stand the sight of her.
Can't stand the sight?
She's a good earner for you.
Is she? Are you a good earner?
What have you got? Because you're
always trying to short me.
This is what they do.
They think I was born yesterday.
Well, she's come in to give you
the money, Fran. Here you go.
Are you working this week, Jinx?
Yeah, I'm working tomorrow.
What are you doing? I'm getting
a pound in my ass tomorrow.
Do you have respect for what
they do, the performers?
Because it's a lot of work,
isn't it? Or it can be.
I think working 64 hours a week
in an office is hard work.
I don't think going to set
and fucking someone is as hard
as we have to do on a daily basis.
It's not something I would want
for my child. Why not?
Because it fucks with their heads
and I don't want to be the mother
of a whore.
I take care of...
Hi.
Hi. Brownie cam.
I'm Louis. I'm Stefania. Stefania?
Stefania is another of your clients?
Yes.
Performers? Yes.
And how long have you been doing it,
Stefania? I just started.
I did, like, three shoots so far.
Oh, well. OK, so you're pretty
new... Yes, I am.
..to the whole thing.
And how's it going for you?
It's going pretty good. Yeah?
Yeah. I like it, I enjoy it.
How old are you? I'm 22. 22? Yes.
So you've done three scenes,
did you say? I did three scenes.
So what were they?
Two scenes was boy/girl scenes
and one was anal.
Yeah.
Had you ever done anal before?
I actually, like, in my real life,
I really don't do much anal,
but on cam I do.
So if you don't do it in private,
that would suggest maybe you don't
enjoy it that much?
I don't enjoy it that much,
but I can make it enjoyable.
I'm not sure that I agree with your
question. Well...
I can think of a lot of things
that we don't do in our personal
life that we do at work.
Yeah.
I really regard models in the adult
industry as sexual athletes
so, you know, I don't think that
you can say
whatever they do on camera
as actresses, you know,
they would necessarily
do in their personal life.
I feel sure that they don't.
How you doing? I'm good,
how are you? All right.
Nice to meet you. What's your name?
Likewise. Barry. Barry? Yeah.
Brandy. Brandy? Louis. Nice
to meet you. Nice to meet you.
You're a performer? I'm a performer.
And are you going out with Brandy?
This is my wife.
You're married. Yeah. And
you're both in the industry?
Yes. And you both have sex on camera
with other people for a living?
Yeah.
She has a certain "yes" list
of dudes she works with
and I have a certain, like, criteria
of things I do and don't do.
What's your list of things
you won't do?
THEY CHUCKLE
I won't do... I don't do gangbangs
any more, blow bangs,
any type of double anal or double
vaginal, anything like that.
And so what are the reasons
for those rules?
I'm just not down with rubbing my
cock up against another dude's cock.
SHE LAUGHS
Any more. Any more, yeah.
You did do it?
THEY LAUGH
Any more than I have done.
When I was here last time,
there were a few guys who I met,
and I'm curious to sort of know
if they're still in the business
and how they've made out.
One was John Dough.
Who you know has passed some
years ago, right?
Do you know what happened?
You mean, to cause his death?
Yes.
If depression is the correct word,
I think it is related to the sort
of struggle of, you know,
the on-set, the industry and,
you know, some years ago, whatever,
2007 or so, you know,
where we...the decline of
the DVD market and...
you know, a lot of studios and
directors sort of found it a struggle
to stay viable.
You think him killing himself had
something to do with the DVD market?
Well, I think that his...
I think that he was one of many
who found their business
in difficulty.
Do you know how he killed himself?
No. Do you?
No.
'With their earnings
in the doldrums,
'porn performers are having to be
creative about how they make money.
'To learn more, I was visiting
the home of LA Direct model
Kagney Linn Karter.'
Hello? Hello.
Can we come in?
I'm Louis.
Kagney. Nice to meet you.
Kagney, nice to meet you.
And you are Montae? Montae.
How you doing? Nice to meet you.
Same here.
I'm going to use the rest room,
I'll be about 20 minutes.
You're going to have a bath?
Is that right? Yeah.
You're going to clean yourself up,
get ready for what's about
to happen?
Yeah, I'm going to get ready for the
live show. What is the live show?
It's just a live webcam that I do
probably like once or twice a month.
And you'll just be a solo
performer in this?
Yeah, just solo.
Montae, you are Kagney's
significant other? Yes.
Husband? No. No.
Not married. Hoping to be?
Yeah, eventually, some day.
What do you do? I am a full-time
assistant to my girlfriend. Mm-hm.
Do you have rules about what
she can't do or, you know,
what you're comfortable with?
I give my input, I give my input
on what I believe that,
you know, she should probably
refrain from doing.
Like?
Er... Like, for example,
her agent called today
and asked her did she want
to do a boy/girl scene,
but after the boy/girl scene, five
guys come and ejaculate on her.
So you expressed a preference that
she not do that?
Of course. I mean, I'd rather...
But what did she say?
DOOR OPENS
She said she was going to do it,
you know?
Montae was saying about this scene
that you had coming up
and about whether you should
let these guys
kind of finish
their business on you.
I mean, he didn't want to talk about
it, so I'm actually surprised that
he brought it up with you guys,
cos, babe, you wouldn't even
talk with me about it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm always going to
have my opinion, so...
especially if your agent says that
he doesn't think that she should
do it.
You saying that I couldn't do it
cuts me out of two grand and that...
No, I didn't say...
..cut us out of money to go on
vacation and do nice things for
ourself. I never did say...
So that I can buy you the clothes
that you wear, Montae. I never did
say that you couldn't do it.
Kagney, you would maybe want to
respect his feelings, though,
if he was upset by something
that you chose to do?
Are you upset, really?
Like, you're upset now?
I didn't say that I was upset. You
didn't, no. I never did say that.
Of course I want to respect his
feelings. That's the thing.
But sometimes he doesn't know
what's best for me
and I know what's best for us
because I've been doing this
for a long time now,
so he sometimes doesn't
understand that the reason why
I do certain scenes is not cos
I'm just a big whore...
No, I know! That's crazy!
..and I would get fucking five
loads on my face.
It's because I know that that's
going to be the type of scene that
might possibly win me an award.
As an outsider to the business,
you know,
and sort of representing
people at home,
what I would see is that Montae
is already taking a lot
by seeing the person he loves
most in the world
performing sex acts
with other people.
OK, but Montae also gets to have
lots of days off
where he sits around the house
and plays video games all day too,
so OK, like, Montae gets
whatever he wants.
He has a really good life
that I have provided for him,
so Montae has it easy.
Hi, everyone.
BEEP
Hi, guys.
BEEP
Sorry, I'm a little late, guys.
BEEP
OK, yeah, that's good.
Fuck, yeah, that's what I want
to hear.
SHE CHUCKLES
My favourite position...
I'm kind of old fashioned.
I just like missionary or,
like, scissors.
How did it go?
It was good. I made 100 bucks.
Do you have a plan as far as how far
you'll go with this?
I definitely want to do,
like, another seven years,
and, by then, I think that me
and Montae will retire and,
I mean, everything that I choose to
do and whatever I might do
is just, you know, to secure
a better future for us.
I'm always thinking about the future
and it's a little bit...
Sometimes it's kind of wearing
and, like, I tell Montae,
you know, like, I'm sorry that
I'm always so concerned about
money and things like that
but, for me, it's just really
important that one day I don't have
to do this any more.
Some of the women that are involved,
they don't have a ten-year plan.
It's more about getting
their pay cheque,
going to buy the new Christian
Louboutins that they could fit
on their feet.
It's not like that with her.
If you were... She actually has
a plan of action.
'Kagney brought an incongruous
professionalism to her commitment
to extreme porn,
'but it was hard not to worry
about the toll it might take
on her relationship.
'In 1997, when I'd made my original
documentary,
'one of the performers I'd focused
on was a newcomer to the business.
'His porn name was JJ Michaels.'
Hi. Hey.
How you doing? All right. Good to
see you. Good to see you.
Can we come in?
Of course. Come on in.
'Don't you think, like, with two
people who are HIV positive,
'it's just a matter of time
before there's more.
I mean, you must be worried.
I mean, you, basically you have
unprotected sex.
Yeah, but I don't think about it
so...I assume I'm safe, you know?
And that way, I don't go home
and worry every night.
If you did that, you'd just quit.
Well, maybe quitting wouldn't be
a bad option in that case.
Well, that's... No, I guess
if you're worried about it, yeah,
whereas I don't so, you know.
'15 years on,
JJ was out of the business
'and now working in I in suburban Missouri.'
I wasn't comfortable
talking about it. I mean, no.
Ah, there, the Jimmy Bone one,
I think I told you about this one.
It was the James Bond spoof that I...
Oh, yeah, you directed that one,
didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was one I directed.
It was a silly James Bond spoof.
That was a two-parter.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, these are like some old, old
just VHSs. Naked Outdoors.
Naughty Little Nymphos.
Is It Wrong To Be Sodomised?
Young And Anal. Gutter Mouths Eight.
When we met, it was in early '97.
You stayed in after that
for three years?
Yes. And how did you find it?
Wasn't bad.
I mean, especially,
like, the second year and, you know,
when I really knew people
and I felt comfortable.
It wasn't like I was meeting new
people every time I went to a set
I knew all the crew.
I was married in '99
to another actress
and my little brother
died at the end of '99,
and when that happened I took,
like, a month or so off and...
How did he die?
Er...drug overdose.
Getting into the business was
caused by the death of my son.
In a way, it kind of shocked me
and did something
and this, in essence,
kind of got me out.
It just made me re-think, like,
"Well, do I really want to do this
for ever?"
You think you got in because
of the death of your baby son?
I think my recklessness
was part of that,
part of that emotion,
and I think that entire
mentality came from that.
I mean, experiencing such a loss
does a lot to you
and, at that point in my life, I was
like, "Well, what do I have to lose?"
How did your son die?
It was from SIDS.
That's is that cot death,
basically? Sudden Infant Death.
Yeah, yeah, it's the same as British
cot death. Yeah, he was seven
and a half months.
I never realised those two events
went together like that.
I wasn't comfortable
talking about it. I mean...
certain things like that, it takes
a long time to even be comfortable
discussing them or relating to them,
understanding them
and, you know, obviously now I can.
So this is the room where
I have my set-up here.
This is where I record my demos.
I use the keyboard.
What kind of lyrics do you write?
Well, this concept for the first
album, it's a main character
who goes into a mental hospital
because he was arrested for killing
his girlfriend.
But, in the end,
he actually didn't do it.
When you lose someone, you know,
when I did,
you feel an overwhelming sense of
guilt about it, like it's your fault,
and the main character in this
believes he killed this girl
that he loves...
..but he didn't.
And it is metal?
Yes.
Yeah, definitely, it's a... I call it
progressive power thrash metal.
MUSIC PLAYS
'One of the things that
happened in the time
'since we taped that show
was that John Dough died.
'What do you know about that?'
I remember when one of my friends
called me and said that he'd...
hung himself, I believe.
It was kind of... I mean,
it was kind of shocking.
You're like, "Well, OK, why?"
I mean, it's a stressful job,
obviously.
It's horribly stressful
and by 2006, er...
I mean, the industry had changed
quite a bit.
Was it the fact that there were
so many new guys coming in,
the industry was spreading out,
it was breaking apart,
the sense of family was gone and
he really felt like he was alone,
you know, spread out over so much?
It's going to have an emotional
impact on you in that business.
Is it a difficult time
for performers now?
Yeah. I mean, the way it is now,
within five years,
I don't see how there could be
a professional porn actor.
Back in California,
and on the northern outskirts of LA,
I was off to meet an industry
veteran called Tommy Gunn.
'I was curious to get
to know someone
'who was on the verge of middle age,
'still making a living
performing in adult movies.'
How you doing?
What's up, man?
You can park anywhere, that's good.
How are you? OK. Are you sure?
'I heard Tommy was struggling
with the emotional side
of the business.'
Come on out. Welcome.
Thank you. How are you?
Nice to meet you. I'm Louis.
It's a pleasure. Tommy.
I was collecting for a while there.
HE CHUCKLES
I pretty much won everything
they make.
You're known as a very dependable
performer, is that correct?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not to mention,
I'm not a bad actor, so...
Are there things you won't do?
Do you have rules?
You know, I try to be able to be
well-rounded enough to do it all,
because that's what was going to
separate me
from the next guy who said,
"I only do boy/girl."
Who's comfortable with being next to
a guy this close and a girl?
That's, you know, it is what it is.
Most of the time we know each other
anyway. "How you been?"
"Good." "That's good," you know?
I don't want to show up and I never
met the guy before and he's just
like...
I'd rather know him, like,
like, "Hey,"
cos now it's just like two friends
having sex with a girl, you know,
and it works.
There's some of the movies up there.
These so minimal, these are just...
You've done how many movies,
did you say?
Upward of 1,100,
1,200 at this point.
This was kind of a cool movie,
Vivids To Die For. That was me.
Would that be your penis
on the back there?
No.
Do you feel you have a connection
with the women that you work with?
Once you've, you know,
had sex with them... Well...
..does it then feel as
though you've shared something?
Yeah, for me.
Some people may not think that
but, you know, for me,
there's gotta be some intimacy.
I mean, it's an intimate act,
isn't it?
In terms of timing for me, when
I got into the business, it worked.
I'd just go and I'd have sex with
this girl and then I'm done,
they pay me
and I leave and I go do my thing,
and my heart's not involved.
Well, guess what? Through time
and repetition,
eventually you do have a heart
and it does show its face
and it does call out
for attention, you know?
I love the business,
don't get me wrong,
but, at the end of the day,
I'm getting older,
I'd like to have kids,
it would be nice to raise a family.
It's difficult having
a career like this.
A lot of the performers I've spoken
to won't acknowledge that.
They don't acknowledge that there's
something intimate about the sex act
and that that can take a toll
on your... Sure.
..on your relationships.
Maybe if they were to acknowledge
that, maybe that would show
that they have a human side
of some sort
and there is some sort of
emotional thing there
and the last thing they want to do
is appear to be vulnerable.
And maybe also it would be difficult
to live with themselves,
knowing that there's something about
the business that they've chosen,
intrinsically,
that is...that has a coarsening
effect on the human spirit.
Yeah. Everything you gain,
you've gotta lose something.
What did I lose?
I lost my private intimate sex life
in order to have a job doing sex
and being paid for it on camera.
Is this your vehicle, Tommy? Yeah.
This is a... It looks like a riot
control vehicle.
My friends would say, "Hey, you
know, that van looks like
a zombie van."
I thought, "Wow, that would be
great. Maybe one day we can make
a zombie movie."
Have you put it in a movie yet?
No, not yet. Not at all.
If you're in a zombie situation,
what do you need?
You need something that's tough
and durable, right?
If you have to run over zombies,
you can't run over them without
this stuff, so...
Sure. So I built all this.
In the movie, this will have
all the weapons,
extra gas in case you need gas.
Of course.
So we got this little setup.
You know, I made all this,
and worst case scenario,
when you have to get on the roof
and you can't get outside because
the zombies are out there,
all you do is this.
You can get out right on the roof
like this and fight the zombies.
I made a documentary
in the '90s about the industry,
and one of the guys I followed
at that time was John Dough.
Did you ever cross paths with him?
Yes. Yes.
And he, of course, killed himself
a few years ago. Yes.
Tragically. It's a shame,
but the people who suffer
the most when they leave,
if there is any suffering, you know,
or take it the hardest, are the guys
because the guys, you know, through
time and through these things,
you know,
they detach themselves from this,
from their heart, from themselves
and you know...
Do you think John Dough's death
had something to do
with his being in the business?
Who knows what other underlying
things there were in his life
but, you know, it could possibly be,
you know, it really could.
ENGINE RUMBLING
Will you be careful?
No, of course.
Just keep your feet away from the...
Should I, do I put them
on the thing or is that yours?
No, you can just have them hang out.
You know, nobody wants to
acknowledge... No.
..anything when it's bad,
cos what does that mean?
What does that do, you know?
I don't know, what does that do?
I'm asking you.
Uh...
'Back in the valley, I had
an appointment at another shoot,
'this one a little more low end.'
Hi. How you doing?
'One of the female performers was a
newcomer I'd met at the LA Direct
offices.'
So have you two guys...
Have you met yet?
No. No?
We're meeting now. Yeah.
Tony. I'm Stefania.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you
too. Tony, have you done a few
scenes before?
I've been in one other scene.
Was that recently?
When did you do that one?
That was, like, a week ago.
How old are you?
I'm 23. You're 23? Mm-hm.
And how did you get into this?
A friend referred me and said,
"This might help you get through
school or whatever,"
so I decided to do it.
You're studying? Yeah, directing
and producing at LA Film School.
You're not worried in any way
that this could hold you back
in the future?
Everybody has to do something
at some point in their life
that they may not want to do
necessarily
but they do it because they have to,
they need to.
What are your ambitions, Stefania?
I mean, I do want to stay in this
business for as long as I can,
I'm actually trying to, you know,
be one of the big porn stars,
hopefully,
and then hopefully later on I could,
like, you know, start my own
business, get into, like, TV stuff.
I mean, the other way of looking
at it would be do it a little bit
while you need some money
and you're still young
and then put it behind you,
but if you make a big name for
yourself, that's harder to do.
Well, I'm not... Yeah, I guess
you're right, but still, though,
as long as I'm bringing money home,
that's all that matters.
I'm paying the bills. I mean,
I have a little girl
I have to take care of,
so, really, she's my number one
priority. A daughter? Mm-hm. Do you?
Do you have any kids, Tony?
No. I don't need a kid.
That'd be real bad.
I wouldn't know what to do.
I didn't have parents,
growing up, so... Why not?
Er...
I was, let's say, orphaned at six.
We'll keep it at that, so...
Who raised you?
US Government.
THEY CHUCKLE
I don't know. Foster homes.
I've been everywhere,
all over the place,
so I've gone through my fair
share of bullshit,
so at this point I'm like,
"You either like me or you don't.
"If you don't, keep it pushing
cos you're messing with my vibe."
Yeah.
Is it a little awkward, knowing,
you know,
you've just met Tony,
you've just met Stefania,
knowing that you'll be having
an intimate moment a bit later?
Well, he looks good,
so hey that helps.
Yeah, that's helpful. She's sexy,
so we're good. Oh, there you go.
Can we come in?
It's really touchy with
the new guys. Yeah.
They don't really,
this is his second scene.
Once a new guy gets spooked,
pretty much it's a wrap
pretty much after that.
Have you shot quite a few
porn movies?
Oh, yeah, about over 3,000
probably. Really?
Yeah. I've been in the business
since '98.
Since '98? Mm-hm. Really?
KNOCKS ON DOOR
He spooked? Yeah.
So I just gave him some Viagra
and hopefully that'll work. Shit.
I don't know, maybe if we go in
the house and give him a little more
room, he might... Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry about that.
They're easily spooked.
It's so weird.
Penis is a very tricky animal.
It's a mysterious organ. Mm-hm.
What is happening in the industry
right now?
In this sort of post-PornTube era?
There is a lot of people who are
struggling for work, performer-wise,
cos it's just not as, it's not how
it was in, you know, '05, '06, '07.
It was everyone and their mom
thought they could do a porn site.
They would do 20 or 30 scenes,
they thought they'd make a million
dollars out of their website,
their website didn't make shit
so that content just sits out there,
they don't care about it any more,
then they end up on the tube sites,
so it just pretty much...
killed the business.
Killed it.
Like, I tell guys all the time,
like,
"Man, you guys better just make
this your side gig."
How are you doing?
I'm doing good. How are you?
There was a slightly slow start,
wasn't there?
From what I understand.
To begin with,
I think Tony was having a couple
of problems getting started?
Oh, no, he was fine when we started.
Was he? Yeah. Oh.
Did it feel intimate?
I mean, like, I...I mean, no.
I mean, he has a girlfriend
and I have a boyfriend,
so it's like we're just doing it.
I mean, of course he's good-looking
and he thinks I'm good-looking,
so... Sexy.
You know,
I did three scenes before this one.
I'm actually enjoying this one.
The other ones were like...eh, cos
he's a good-looking guy, you know?
I feel like you two seem like you're
kind of clicking a little bit.
Oh, yeah, we're cool. Yeah.
And that maybe, you know, could you
think about going on a date?
THEY LAUGH
I think you were meant to be
together.
You're so funny. Oh, my God.
You want us to be together?
THEY LAUGH
You keep saying how good-looking
Tony is. Is he better looking than
your boyfriend?
It's totally different.
I actually, I mean, like,
my boyfriend's not like,
he's like a pretty boy
and my boyfriend's
totally not a pretty boy.
What about you, Tony?
It's kind of funny,
I kind of like the good girls.
Nobody's tainted her or made her
look bad about situations or...
I don't know, I like the good girl.
Got it. Mm-hm..
Oh, yeah! Oh!
'After one more scene, plus Tony's
pop shot, the shoot was a wrap.'
What are you doing?
Oh, we're talking.
SHE LAUGHS
We're washing each other.
I mean, obviously we're washing
ourselves off now.
We're getting juices off.
We're getting intimate,
like you told us to do.
You look like you're flirting
with each other.
You said it happens sometimes,
right? Absolutely. I'm just kidding.
Oh, God.
And blow jobs again.
'It had been an oddly touching
encounter.
'The two novice performers seem to
have done a kind of courtship
in reverse,
'starting with the sex and ending
as something like friends.
'I had another re-visit to make.
'Since arriving back in the valley,
'I'd heard several times that
the industry was less extreme now.'
How you doing?
How are you, my friend?
Good to see you.
Come on down. This is...
Oh, how are you? Yeah, good.
This movie we're working on now
is called Forced Entry.
It sounds a little bit, you know,
sounds a little bit naughty.
HE LAUGHS
Yeah, it is. It's just pretty...
It's pretty bad.
It's, like, about rape.
So, yeah...
It's good to see you, man.
Yeah, you too. It really is.
Yeah. It is, it's good.
Yeah. Oh, good.
'In 1997, the more outrageous
and gruesome side of the business
had been personified
'by a 23-year-old director
named Rob Black.'
How you feeling, Lexi?
Kind of weird.
'Since then, he'd lost a fortune
and gone to prison,
'but now he was back directing.'
I created a genre of porn
that nobody had seen.
Assholes stretched open
and just all that just crazy shit.
And now, we're in
the post-shocking era.
Yes. Parody, a huge thing.
Oh, well, here, example - here, this
is part of the armour from Iron Man.
And for porn, that's actually
a pretty good prop.
Dude, the suit cost,
like, four grand.
Look, I mean,
these are, like, the legs.
Mmm.
So, yeah, so this is,
this is, like, the prop.
Fucking thing.
Go into the warehouse.
This is like a monster company that
puts out 20, 30 different lines.
Rodney's Birthday, but this is shit,
you know? It's jerk-off stuff,
but then he puts out
the stuff that we do...
Well, it's all jerk-off stuff,
isn't it? Yeah, but this is stuff...
Here's the thing.
Here's the thing, Mr Thorax.
Where the business is going now
is it's acceptable to watch
pornography.
It's acceptable to sit down with
your girlfriend or your wife
and introduce her to pornography,
but the pornography that you're
introducing her to
is stuff that I'm doing now,
not, you know,
have a Birthday Blast.
Here we go, this is what we do.
This is what I do. OK, here we go.
Captain America. In two discs.
XXX.
Iron Man, look at that.
Just look at that.
Come on, that's a porno.
How's it doing?
It's doing fucking fabulous.
Is it? Yeah. Look at this.
Here's mine. 3D.
You directed that one?
I direct all of them.
This ain't no bullshit.
This isn't anal fisting.
Supergirl. Look at that. Nice.
So what happened to you?
They sent you to prison. Yeah.
And your wife too. Yeah!
What was that like?
It's prison. Yeah. Yeah.
What you want to know about it?
I was raped every day.
What were you convicted of?
I was raped and sodomised.
What were you convicted of?
Obscenity?
Yeah, yeah.
You took a plea. You seemed very
confident of winning.
Yeah. Yeah.
So what went wrong?
At the end of the day,
it wasn't just me.
Lizzie was involved,
you know what I mean? Your wife.
Yeah, so I think if we went to
trial and we had lost,
I think it would have really sucked
if I had my wife in prison for four
years.
How long did they give you
in the end? A year and a day.
Each of you got a year and a day?
Each of us got a year and a day.
That you served? Ten months.
In a way, you got what you wanted,
didn't you? Cos you wanted to be
a provocateur,
you wanted to shake things up
and be outrageous. Yeah, of course.
Yes. So was it worth it?
At the end of the day,
my main focus was
to be the biggest and baddest
provocateur of pornography.
I accomplished that
and was it worth it?
Hmm. Was it worth it?
I would say yeah. Yeah.
Do you miss the days of being kind
of the most outrageous guy
on the block?
No, because this is most outrageous
now. It's not outrageous, Rob.
Shhh, listen to me.
I feel like you've been through a
lot and you've landed on your feet
and you are back directing
and that's great,
but that in a way they've tamed you,
haven't they?
No, no. Why?
Why? I don't see... Absolutely not.
You gotta move on. You gotta evolve.
Part of evolving is looking back
and thinking, "You know what?
"I thought that was
funny at the time,
"now it seems kind of crass,"
or insensitive or whatever it is.
Definitely.
Do you feel that at all?
I don't find anything crass or
insensitive, because that's taste,
but, yeah, stretching anal orifices
with multiple cocks and stuff like
that, it's silly.
You know what I mean?
It's, like, silly.
Do you think now, looking back,
that there was a time when maybe
you took it too far
or maybe it wasn't appropriate
to make that film? No.
No, no, no, no. Or maybe the woman
felt pressured or...
Absolutely not, because we weren't
an under... See, we weren't
underground.
It was all staged.
All right, dude, here's what's going
to happen. The guy's going to come
in, you're going to act scared.
What the fuck did you think, we just
got random girls from the street,
threw them in a room
and it was like, "OK, are you ready?
Here we go. Boo!"
What the... I mean... It's retarded.
The films were,
you know, kind of gloried
and revelled in the fact that they
were degrading women.
Would you agree?
Everything wasn't degrading
to women.
Watch these sluts get...come on
and... OK.
And then later on... OK.
You wouldn't think those women
might find it embarrassing?
It's all subjective up to
that person.
Degrading somebody
and that whole thing is all,
it's all up to that person -
how they felt, you know?
Is there a part of you that misses
the old days? Not at all.
Why not?
Cos I outgrew it.
I used to have steak every day
for six years
and now I decided that, you know,
I'm going to change it up.
I don't miss that era of who I was,
cos it was just different
sections of my life.
'I was in Las Vegas.
'Tommy Gunn had been booked on a
shoot for an internet porn company.
'Since seeing him, I'd been
intrigued by his sense of loneliness
'amid the abundance
of available sex.
'He'd agreed to let me
see him at work.
'Also in the wings was another
male performer.'
You are?
Marco Banderas.
Marco Banderas? Yes.
From Spain?
From Spain.
Do you know who you're
doing a scene with?
Sometimes I forgot the names
because there's too many
English name for my mind.
I doing a lot girls. Yeah.
40 girls a month.
That's more than one a day.
I have the record.
Last two, three months ago, I did ten
pop shots in three hours and a half.
What was that like? Was it nice?
Yes.
How you doing, Tommy? Good.
Good to see you. Likewise.
I'm Louis. Hi, I'm Tasha. Nice to
meet you. Nice to meet you.
Are you are you doing a scene
today? Yeah, with Tommy.
Have you worked with Tommy
before? I have, yeah. Yes.
Do you know what kind of scene it
is? Just a standard boy/girl
vaginal? Nothing...
Yeah, yeah, just plain vanilla
boy/girl.
No extra anal or...
Eww, no. Not yet.
None of that nature.
Do you have a long-term plan?
Yes, I do. I go to school full time.
I'm almost done with my Bachelors at
UCLA... Studying?
Women's Studies and Psychology,
so...
Women's Studies? Yes. Interesting.
Actually, I think it led me
to do adult because... Yeah.
..adult is the only industry in
America where women get paid
more than men.
Tasha, you're comfortable separating
sex from emotional connection?
Oh, yeah. I mean, most of the guys
I know that are my age,
around 22 years old,
are having sex with girls all
the time and I don't think that
they're looking at it
like they're going to be with that
girl for ever. I think it's more...
But there's still something
emotional that has to happen.
Of course.
When you have a conversation with
somebody, there's still some sort
of intimacy in it. You know? Yeah.
Mmm. Hmm. I gotta go do my pretty
girls. Yes. Yes. OK, bye.
Nice to meet you, Tasha. We'll see
you on set. Nice to meet you too.
OK, bye. Thank you for that.
Remember today, right now.
Remember right now. Yeah.
You will blink your eyes and you'll
remember this conversation. Yeah.
And you'll be 40 and you're going to
go, "Holy fuck, I was wrong,
"life isn't long, life is short."
Yeah.
So don't go settling
for something like,
"Oh, well, you know, life is long,
I got plenty of time." You don't.
Maybe...maybe I'm just another
dumb girl.
THEY CHUCKLE
Jackie's awesome. She's a cutie.
So what does that mean, exactly?
You know, "Fuck a pretty girl every
day." Like, what does that mean?
Is that what she said to you? Yeah.
It's a compliment, saying
that you...
You were successful. OK, great.
But what is that?
So what does that mean?
I'm trying to wrap my head
around it.
You're interested in striking up
a relationship with her?
No, it's just, you know,
the truth of the matter is
would these girls be fucking me if
they weren't getting paid to do it?
Well, some would and some wouldn't.
Right, so... Right?
You know?
How long have you been single for?
I've been single now four years.
Really? Describe your ideal woman.
Self-sacrificing and caring
and nurturing and, you know,
wants to have children and...
Honestly, I'm not going to find her
in this business.
What's stopping you from leaving
the business now to find that?
A financial issue.
You still gotta make the money.
Hey, guys, I'm still here on set,
just updating you every five seconds.
Here's Marco.
So what did you do today?
I did a anal scene.
With who? With er... We're ready.
I don't remember the name.
OK. I have to go. OK.
Thank you.
Do you feel you've got good
chemistry with Tasha?
Yes, and part of that comes with
dealing with many girls over time.
She doesn't seem that
interested in you.
Do you ever comment on that?
No. That would just create
even more of a...you know?
I just kind of just...
see what I can do about it.
And just look out cos I'm going to
go to a wide shot how.
We're going, stroking the whole
time, so it's already happened
out there.
And from there right up
against the wall, OK?
Rolling, action.
SHE GROANS AND MOANS
Oh, fuck.
You know you like my customer
service.
It's hard to think of other things to
say about customer service though.
Your experience shopping here is
good. Hopefully your experience
shopping here is good.
I said that five times. Oh, you did?
I just kind of do my job.
Smile, put on that face, whatever.
All right, Tommy, you're going
to go from that position.
Gotcha. Will you be able to?
Oh, yeah. Cool.
You're going to say something like,
"I hope your shopping
experience was easy for you,"
or something wonderful or...
"I hope your experience at ZZ Video
was memorable." That's easy.
OK, are you ready? Yep. OK.
I'm rolling, and action.
SHE GROANS AND MOANS
I hope that your experience
at ZZ Video was memorable.
It was.
Nice. All right, ready?
So you did it. I did it, yeah.
Again, I don't know what
number that would be.
I've kind of lost count.
Without sounding creepy, you seem
to be doing an excellent job.
I have to. That's my job.
You don't think for a moment
in that scene today
I was in love with that
girl in my mind?
I shared something with her she
didn't even know I shared with her.
Have you had relationships
while you were in the business?
I mean, serious, long-term
relationships
while you've been in the business?
Have I? Yeah.
Yeah.
And was it a strain?
Was it a struggle in any way?
Yeah.
The human side of it
in terms of realising that
it's not...
..normal...
to leave somebody you love to go and
have sex with somebody you don't.
That's not normal.
I try not to let the past
affect my future,
but when the heart gets hurt,
that's a difficult thing.
I have a tendency of wearing
your heart on the sleeve.
You never heard that expression?
What does that mean, when you
wear your heart on your sleeve?
It means that you give love very
readily and you make yourself
vulnerable.
Yeah. I do that.
A lot.
So maybe that's why this job
works for me so much,
cos my heart's not
involved in this, in this.
My heart's home, safe in a box
where nobody can touch it.
But I get to go to work
and breathe heavy
in some chick's ear
and perform a sex act...
and, at the end of the day,
I have my release
and that's healthy.
You know?
And yeah, I'll do it again.
I'll get my heart broken again.
I thought your heart was in a box.
It is, but I'll take it out.
It's OK, I'll take it out,
do it again.
'It was hard not to
sympathise with Tommy.
'I sensed he'd been an outsider
before coming into porn
'and that porn was in turn making a
normal life ever more unattainable.
'Back in Los Angeles, and I was off
to see Kagney Linn Karter.
'She'd just returned from the
outlandish shoot involving six men
'that her boyfriend Montae
had been unhappy about.'
Hi. Hi, guys.
Shall we come in?
Yes, please.
Are you OK? How did it go?
I have to admit, I was nervous
this morning, I was really nervous,
but once I got to set, everything...
was fully the way that it was
supposed to be,
so I did the scene and then the guy
that I do the scene with leaves
and then the other guys, they just
basically ejaculate on my face.
It was perfect, actually.
From the outside world perspective,
they see most of the people in
the porn industry, the performers,
that they've got some
kind of damage in their life.
For sure. I've got a lot of damage.
I mean, my father has been
incarcerated my whole life
and, you know, he had a major
drug problem and er...
Do you think maybe your dad having
not been in the,
you know, in the picture,
that he was in prison
all these years,
had something to do with you
perhaps going into porn?
Absolutely not.
SHE CHUCKLES
I don't think that at all.
Everyone has problems.
Everyone.
I went into porn
cos I wanted to get into porn.
I mean, after what
we talked about, Montae,
you know, about how you felt and
what your opinion was of this scene,
was it strange for you today,
thinking about the scene going on?
No, not at all. I mean, I really
actually, I didn't think about it
at all.
I asked her, "How did the scene go?"
And she said, "It went great"
and I said, "Great, perfect."
Because that makes me feel...
ecstatic, elated
that she went to work
and, you know, things went well.
You feel ecstatic and elated
about you doing this scene
and it going well?
No, I felt ecstatic and elated
that... That it went well.
..that it went well. I'm not happy
and ecstatic that she had sex acts.
With those guys.
Right, and which is, you know,
it's not...it's not a big deal,
you know what I'm saying?
So many people I've spoken to have
said it's very difficult to maintain
a stable relationship
when you're working in adult movies,
so...are you saying you're
the exception to that?
Definitely one of the exceptions,
for sure.
How come? At least for right now.
I mean, I would say four years,
almost five years now, is quite
an exception.
Given that he's not in the industry,
I think it's impressive how Montae's
able to take a kind of back seat.
Is that part of what's
happening here?
He's this beautiful man.
I mean, he's just a beautiful
person, like, inside and out.
Maybe he's TOO relaxed.
So you think he's lazy? I'm not
saying that he is, I'm just... No.
THEY CHUCKLE
Now, if me and Montae aren't
together, heaven forbid, in ten
years, you know what?
Say what you will, whatever,
we're not together any more,
but you know what?
We've had a fucking great
five years now
and whatever more we can get,
I'll take.
'I had one last appointment
in the world of porn.'
Hangs the doll by the neck. OK? OK.
And that's porno! Huh?!
'In 1997, John Dough -
real name Chet Anuszek -
'had been at the top
of his profession.'
Do you get a lot of people
coming up to you saying,
"Hey man, I want to do your job,"
that type of thing?
Oh, yeah, you gotta go to work.
Right. You gotta go to work, sure.
Ah, right.
It must get kind of irritating in a
way, like, people don't regard you,
take your work seriously,
like, they don't, they say,
"Oh, you just have sex."
No, it isn't irritating.
I just stay home more.
'He'd married a fellow performer
known as Monique DeMoan.'
Hi. Hello.
Cheyenne? Hi.
I'm Louis. Hi, Louis.
'I'd tracked her down, 800 miles
from LA, retired from porn.'
Well, this is a picture of little
Breena.
That's your daughter? This is
our daughter. With Chet.
Breena was about three years old,
and that's up in Mammoth.
That's Chet on his motorcycle.
This is, I mean, after we'd been
together for quite a few years.
Do you have copies of the films that
you and Chet made together?
I do still have Doctor Butts 3,
of course.
Doctor Butts 3, with a kind
of Hannibal Lecter thing going on.
Why have you hung onto that one
in particular?
It's sentimental.
If you're able to capture something
that hot on camera, you know,
and it's your first encounter with
your husband, your baby's daddy,
you're not going to get rid of it.
What worked about the relationship?
What was it that you liked?
Er...
He took me out
and we had a good time.
It was life in the fast lane,
though.
Fast lane meaning?
Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
To a civilian like myself,
the idea of having sex on camera
and then being faithful off camera
and being committed
seems like it would be very
difficult.
It's really not that hard. What's
hard is active addiction - drugs.
That's what's hard.
You know?
If you want to have a good, happy
life, you have to give up the drugs,
and Chet did, many times,
and so did I.
But unfortunately there are those
relapses and unfortunately...
..it ended with his suicide.
How would you feel about
talking about
how you came to find out
that he'd killed himself?
I...
..I was out getting...some drugs...
..and I came home
and thought that it was very strange
that I couldn't find Chet,
seeing as I had drugs.
I knew something was wrong
and I started looking for him.
I looked throughout the whole house,
I looked through the back yard...
and it was so quiet.
SHE SOBS
It was so quiet...
and I heard a...a creak
in the closet...
..and that's when I found him.
Chet was really, truly, honestly,
he was a really good dad.
He was a good dad,
but he felt that he had failed
as a husband and as a father.
He felt that he had failed in life.
He felt that he was
failing as a man.
He felt... He just, he was...he was
broken.
This is my spelling test and, like,
I got four wrong on it.
Which is pretty good.
Were you good in school, Cheyenne?
No, I wasn't that great in school.
It must be nice to see Breena
do so well. Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. You're proud.
Very. I'm very proud of her.
Do you know what you'd like to be
when you grow up?
I want to be a police officer.
You do?
Mm. How come?
Because I like to stop
people from doing the wrong thing
and, like, cos I want everyone
to do the right thing a lot.
'I'd gone in search
of adult performers,
'trying to understand
the price they pay
'for taking the most intimate
human act and putting it on camera.
'I'd found an industry that,
15 years on,
'was more demoralised and still
taking the privacy of its young
cohorts while paying them less.
'And yet, the world of porn
is also a refuge -
'somewhere people fleeing lives of
chaos can blend in and feel valued.
'Though it can inflict
wounds on those who work in it,
'it could also occasionally
surprise with its tenderness.'
scenes of a sexual nature
This programme contains
very strong language
That's the price we pay
for being cheerleaders. Yeah.
Oh, my God!
'In 1997 I made a documentary about
the world of male porn performers
'in Los Angeles...'
I don't want to cause offence
when I say that I look at him
and I don't automatically think,
"There's a porno performer".
Are you John Dough? Hey. What's up?
How's it going? Louis from the BBC.
Break a leg.
'..finding out how difficult
and stressful it can be
'having sex on camera for a living.'
Action.
Let's cut. Cut! Let's break.
It seems like the easiest job in
the world, really. Let's face it.
It's not. Really?
Many, many men have tried
and very few have made it.
And action!
'Fifteen years on, I'd heard about
big changes in the industry.
'Porn was struggling, under threat
from piracy on the internet.'
PornTube sites pretty much...
killed the business.
Killed it.
If you've got a guy who's
seen 500 porns, you know,
whatever you're gonna do isn't
gonna particularly astound him.
How you doing?
How are you, my friend?
'And so I'd returned to LA, curious
how my old friends were faring...'
Good to see you.
'..and to meet the new performers
pursuing a dream of porn stardom
'in an industry where a stable
career was more elusive than ever.'
You like girls, you like boys,
you like getting tied up.
The only thing...
Actually, you like everything.
Everybody has to be something
at some point in their life
that they may not want to do, but
they do it because they have to.
I am someone that does blow bangs,
I am someone that does anal scenes.
That's who I am. That's...who
I'm becoming and I'm OK with that.
'My journey was starting
in the San Fernando Valley,
'America's capital of porn.
'Faced with competition from free
YouTube-style porn sites,
'studios have responded by making
films with higher production values
'for the couples market.
'I'd been invited to the latest
shoot by Wicked Pictures.
'The male lead was the rising star
Xander Corvus.'
How we doing? Nice to meet you.
Good. Nice to meet you too.
I'm Louis. Xander.
Xander.
You're a performer in the business.
I am.
How long have you been doing this?
About a year...
A little over a year and a half.
You will be having sex with someone
this afternoon on camera? I will.
Erm... I feel like an asshole.
Alex... Alexa I think her name is.
Have you seen her yet? No.
Have ever you done a scene
with her before? No.
Is it important that you
find her attractive?
I've had to do scenes with girls
I wasn't particularly attracted to
but, you know, I'd get it up anyway.
I mean, I'm 23... I just turned 23,
so it's usually not a problem,
and if it is, it's like,
"OK, Cialis. Cool, we're good".
Cialis? Boner pill.
It's like Viagra?
Yeah. You get it at any doctor.
But we go to, like,
the porn doctor, basically.
So what is this called, this movie?
Erm... I don't know.
I forget.
We have the white virginous
kind of look here. Mmm.
'The film's director,
Brad Armstrong,
was also an occasional performer.'
Brad, have you worked with Alexa
before? I have indeed. Yeah.
Let me just say that Alexa's
a lot of fun.
I mean, you've directed her,
but did you mean that you've
also performed with Alexa?
Oh, we've made the sweet love a
number of times. Yeah. She's fun.
Step.
Step. Step.
Step.
Step. Look deep into each other's
eyes without touching.
Is it set in a period,
a certain period of history, Brad?
It's not so much a specific period,
but it's period-esque.
You know, in the romance novel,
there's always that guy
with the open pirate-esque shirt
and the girl in her little
kind of Spanish...
It's just sort of in romance land.
Romance land.
And kiss.
Do you recommend it as a lifestyle,
because it's a very particular kind
of a business to be in, isn't it?
It depends on the person.
If you're straight
and business minded,
like Nicole's going for her
Bachelor's right now. Who's Nicole?
Sorry. Erm...
What's the chick over there?
What's the girl's name?
LAUGHTER
Alexa, sorry.
Alexa or Nicole? Alexa Nicole.
Her first name is Alexa and her
last name is Nicole? Exactly.
So you very much get
a wide variety...
You've had sex with her
a couple of times
and you didn't remember her name.
No, I just blanked.
And action.
Michael...
I can't.
My father will never allow this,
you know this.
Do that line one more time.
Which one?
Hers. "I know that my father will
never allow it. You know this".
Not "this" and "this'. OK.
And go from there, and action.
I know...
Fuck! And I too.
I know, and I you.
As in, I love you too.
Are you enjoying the scene?
Yeah, dude, she's great.
I'm really feeling her.
I think we have a pretty good
chemistry going so that's good.
It's work, isn't it? Yeah, it's
work. It's not sex for pleasure.
It's fun, but it's definitely
not sex for pleasure.
How you doing, Brad?
So far, so good. Are they OK?
Are they just moving... He's
walking around with his willy out.
Yeah, it's...
Isn't that... look at that.
Some people are a little more...
..flamboyant than others
with their penis out.
Yeah! Oh!
Oh!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh!
No, less porno.
"Yes, yes, yes".
Yes, yes.
Cool. You got it and I got it.
How did that go? Do you feel closer
now that you've just had sex?
It was a pretty romantic scene.
We're not gonna run and get married
but it definitely, like,
opens a lot of doors to a person
we're more comfortable around. Yeah.
There's something quite touching
about seeing you there like that,
how your legs are crossed over
like that.
It's almost like you've just had
a romantic moment. We did. Yeah.
Sure did.
Do you have a boyfriend, Alexa?
Yeah. Yes, I do.
Who you live with? Yes.
Kids? No.
Would you like to have kids one day?
Definitely.
You're not worried about your kids
seeing something,
seeing one of your scenes?
Not at all. And if they were to,
I think sex is perfectly natural,
so I don't think it's anything
that someone should be ashamed of.
'My next stop was the offices
'of one of the industry's leading
talent agencies, LA Direct.
'Its founder and CEO is the
performer known as Ben English.
'His real name, Derek Hay.'
Louis. Hello. How you doing?
Ah, how are you?
Nice to meet you. Yeah, good.
Now, you've got a busy day.
What have you got going on?
I'm not sure how many shoots
but there's today's schedule.
She's doing an unusual shoot,
actually.
She's doing a gangbang,
which a lot of people say 'gangbang'
when you're talking about
the porn industry,
but actually it's pretty rare.
Is there a rate for a gangbang?
Would there be a going rate
for something like that?
Anywhere from...
3,000 to 8,000.
I don't know if people consider that
a lot or not.
I don't know. Yeah.
For a gangbang, is it a lot?
I don't know.
'A few doors down from Derek
is his number two, Fran Smidor.'
Hello. Hello. You must be Fran.
I might be. Who wants to know?
Louis. Louis? How do you do?
So is that what you pay
the talent with?
Erm... some of it is for the talent,
yes.
Most of them are cheques.
How's business?
Could always be better.
Do you think the internet and piracy
and free porn on the internet
has had an impact?
Yes. Devastatingly.
How has that had a knock-on effect
on the industry and the performers?
Less work.
There's less work and there's an
abundance, because of the economy,
of performers.
There aren't enough people shooting
to give everybody a day's work.
You see a lot of people coming
in here and saying that, you know,
they want to be in adult movies,
right?
Do you give them a talk where you
explain what the consequences are
and how it's likely to affect them
and have they thought it through?
No. Why not?
Because I would talk half...
three quarters of the girls
out of the business
and we wouldn't be in business.
I'm here to promote the adult
industry, not put a curse on it.
Jinx, Jinx, Jinx.
Fran, do you get on with Jinx pretty
well? Can't stand the sight of her.
Can't stand the sight?
She's a good earner for you.
Is she? Are you a good earner?
What have you got? Because you're
always trying to short me.
This is what they do.
They think I was born yesterday.
Well, she's come in to give you
the money, Fran. Here you go.
Are you working this week, Jinx?
Yeah, I'm working tomorrow.
What are you doing? I'm getting
a pound in my ass tomorrow.
Do you have respect for what
they do, the performers?
Because it's a lot of work,
isn't it? Or it can be.
I think working 64 hours a week
in an office is hard work.
I don't think going to set
and fucking someone is as hard
as we have to do on a daily basis.
It's not something I would want
for my child. Why not?
Because it fucks with their heads
and I don't want to be the mother
of a whore.
I take care of...
Hi.
Hi. Brownie cam.
I'm Louis. I'm Stefania. Stefania?
Stefania is another of your clients?
Yes.
Performers? Yes.
And how long have you been doing it,
Stefania? I just started.
I did, like, three shoots so far.
Oh, well. OK, so you're pretty
new... Yes, I am.
..to the whole thing.
And how's it going for you?
It's going pretty good. Yeah?
Yeah. I like it, I enjoy it.
How old are you? I'm 22. 22? Yes.
So you've done three scenes,
did you say? I did three scenes.
So what were they?
Two scenes was boy/girl scenes
and one was anal.
Yeah.
Had you ever done anal before?
I actually, like, in my real life,
I really don't do much anal,
but on cam I do.
So if you don't do it in private,
that would suggest maybe you don't
enjoy it that much?
I don't enjoy it that much,
but I can make it enjoyable.
I'm not sure that I agree with your
question. Well...
I can think of a lot of things
that we don't do in our personal
life that we do at work.
Yeah.
I really regard models in the adult
industry as sexual athletes
so, you know, I don't think that
you can say
whatever they do on camera
as actresses, you know,
they would necessarily
do in their personal life.
I feel sure that they don't.
How you doing? I'm good,
how are you? All right.
Nice to meet you. What's your name?
Likewise. Barry. Barry? Yeah.
Brandy. Brandy? Louis. Nice
to meet you. Nice to meet you.
You're a performer? I'm a performer.
And are you going out with Brandy?
This is my wife.
You're married. Yeah. And
you're both in the industry?
Yes. And you both have sex on camera
with other people for a living?
Yeah.
She has a certain "yes" list
of dudes she works with
and I have a certain, like, criteria
of things I do and don't do.
What's your list of things
you won't do?
THEY CHUCKLE
I won't do... I don't do gangbangs
any more, blow bangs,
any type of double anal or double
vaginal, anything like that.
And so what are the reasons
for those rules?
I'm just not down with rubbing my
cock up against another dude's cock.
SHE LAUGHS
Any more. Any more, yeah.
You did do it?
THEY LAUGH
Any more than I have done.
When I was here last time,
there were a few guys who I met,
and I'm curious to sort of know
if they're still in the business
and how they've made out.
One was John Dough.
Who you know has passed some
years ago, right?
Do you know what happened?
You mean, to cause his death?
Yes.
If depression is the correct word,
I think it is related to the sort
of struggle of, you know,
the on-set, the industry and,
you know, some years ago, whatever,
2007 or so, you know,
where we...the decline of
the DVD market and...
you know, a lot of studios and
directors sort of found it a struggle
to stay viable.
You think him killing himself had
something to do with the DVD market?
Well, I think that his...
I think that he was one of many
who found their business
in difficulty.
Do you know how he killed himself?
No. Do you?
No.
'With their earnings
in the doldrums,
'porn performers are having to be
creative about how they make money.
'To learn more, I was visiting
the home of LA Direct model
Kagney Linn Karter.'
Hello? Hello.
Can we come in?
I'm Louis.
Kagney. Nice to meet you.
Kagney, nice to meet you.
And you are Montae? Montae.
How you doing? Nice to meet you.
Same here.
I'm going to use the rest room,
I'll be about 20 minutes.
You're going to have a bath?
Is that right? Yeah.
You're going to clean yourself up,
get ready for what's about
to happen?
Yeah, I'm going to get ready for the
live show. What is the live show?
It's just a live webcam that I do
probably like once or twice a month.
And you'll just be a solo
performer in this?
Yeah, just solo.
Montae, you are Kagney's
significant other? Yes.
Husband? No. No.
Not married. Hoping to be?
Yeah, eventually, some day.
What do you do? I am a full-time
assistant to my girlfriend. Mm-hm.
Do you have rules about what
she can't do or, you know,
what you're comfortable with?
I give my input, I give my input
on what I believe that,
you know, she should probably
refrain from doing.
Like?
Er... Like, for example,
her agent called today
and asked her did she want
to do a boy/girl scene,
but after the boy/girl scene, five
guys come and ejaculate on her.
So you expressed a preference that
she not do that?
Of course. I mean, I'd rather...
But what did she say?
DOOR OPENS
She said she was going to do it,
you know?
Montae was saying about this scene
that you had coming up
and about whether you should
let these guys
kind of finish
their business on you.
I mean, he didn't want to talk about
it, so I'm actually surprised that
he brought it up with you guys,
cos, babe, you wouldn't even
talk with me about it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm always going to
have my opinion, so...
especially if your agent says that
he doesn't think that she should
do it.
You saying that I couldn't do it
cuts me out of two grand and that...
No, I didn't say...
..cut us out of money to go on
vacation and do nice things for
ourself. I never did say...
So that I can buy you the clothes
that you wear, Montae. I never did
say that you couldn't do it.
Kagney, you would maybe want to
respect his feelings, though,
if he was upset by something
that you chose to do?
Are you upset, really?
Like, you're upset now?
I didn't say that I was upset. You
didn't, no. I never did say that.
Of course I want to respect his
feelings. That's the thing.
But sometimes he doesn't know
what's best for me
and I know what's best for us
because I've been doing this
for a long time now,
so he sometimes doesn't
understand that the reason why
I do certain scenes is not cos
I'm just a big whore...
No, I know! That's crazy!
..and I would get fucking five
loads on my face.
It's because I know that that's
going to be the type of scene that
might possibly win me an award.
As an outsider to the business,
you know,
and sort of representing
people at home,
what I would see is that Montae
is already taking a lot
by seeing the person he loves
most in the world
performing sex acts
with other people.
OK, but Montae also gets to have
lots of days off
where he sits around the house
and plays video games all day too,
so OK, like, Montae gets
whatever he wants.
He has a really good life
that I have provided for him,
so Montae has it easy.
Hi, everyone.
BEEP
Hi, guys.
BEEP
Sorry, I'm a little late, guys.
BEEP
OK, yeah, that's good.
Fuck, yeah, that's what I want
to hear.
SHE CHUCKLES
My favourite position...
I'm kind of old fashioned.
I just like missionary or,
like, scissors.
How did it go?
It was good. I made 100 bucks.
Do you have a plan as far as how far
you'll go with this?
I definitely want to do,
like, another seven years,
and, by then, I think that me
and Montae will retire and,
I mean, everything that I choose to
do and whatever I might do
is just, you know, to secure
a better future for us.
I'm always thinking about the future
and it's a little bit...
Sometimes it's kind of wearing
and, like, I tell Montae,
you know, like, I'm sorry that
I'm always so concerned about
money and things like that
but, for me, it's just really
important that one day I don't have
to do this any more.
Some of the women that are involved,
they don't have a ten-year plan.
It's more about getting
their pay cheque,
going to buy the new Christian
Louboutins that they could fit
on their feet.
It's not like that with her.
If you were... She actually has
a plan of action.
'Kagney brought an incongruous
professionalism to her commitment
to extreme porn,
'but it was hard not to worry
about the toll it might take
on her relationship.
'In 1997, when I'd made my original
documentary,
'one of the performers I'd focused
on was a newcomer to the business.
'His porn name was JJ Michaels.'
Hi. Hey.
How you doing? All right. Good to
see you. Good to see you.
Can we come in?
Of course. Come on in.
'Don't you think, like, with two
people who are HIV positive,
'it's just a matter of time
before there's more.
I mean, you must be worried.
I mean, you, basically you have
unprotected sex.
Yeah, but I don't think about it
so...I assume I'm safe, you know?
And that way, I don't go home
and worry every night.
If you did that, you'd just quit.
Well, maybe quitting wouldn't be
a bad option in that case.
Well, that's... No, I guess
if you're worried about it, yeah,
whereas I don't so, you know.
'15 years on,
JJ was out of the business
'and now working in I in suburban Missouri.'
I wasn't comfortable
talking about it. I mean, no.
Ah, there, the Jimmy Bone one,
I think I told you about this one.
It was the James Bond spoof that I...
Oh, yeah, you directed that one,
didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was one I directed.
It was a silly James Bond spoof.
That was a two-parter.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah, these are like some old, old
just VHSs. Naked Outdoors.
Naughty Little Nymphos.
Is It Wrong To Be Sodomised?
Young And Anal. Gutter Mouths Eight.
When we met, it was in early '97.
You stayed in after that
for three years?
Yes. And how did you find it?
Wasn't bad.
I mean, especially,
like, the second year and, you know,
when I really knew people
and I felt comfortable.
It wasn't like I was meeting new
people every time I went to a set
I knew all the crew.
I was married in '99
to another actress
and my little brother
died at the end of '99,
and when that happened I took,
like, a month or so off and...
How did he die?
Er...drug overdose.
Getting into the business was
caused by the death of my son.
In a way, it kind of shocked me
and did something
and this, in essence,
kind of got me out.
It just made me re-think, like,
"Well, do I really want to do this
for ever?"
You think you got in because
of the death of your baby son?
I think my recklessness
was part of that,
part of that emotion,
and I think that entire
mentality came from that.
I mean, experiencing such a loss
does a lot to you
and, at that point in my life, I was
like, "Well, what do I have to lose?"
How did your son die?
It was from SIDS.
That's is that cot death,
basically? Sudden Infant Death.
Yeah, yeah, it's the same as British
cot death. Yeah, he was seven
and a half months.
I never realised those two events
went together like that.
I wasn't comfortable
talking about it. I mean...
certain things like that, it takes
a long time to even be comfortable
discussing them or relating to them,
understanding them
and, you know, obviously now I can.
So this is the room where
I have my set-up here.
This is where I record my demos.
I use the keyboard.
What kind of lyrics do you write?
Well, this concept for the first
album, it's a main character
who goes into a mental hospital
because he was arrested for killing
his girlfriend.
But, in the end,
he actually didn't do it.
When you lose someone, you know,
when I did,
you feel an overwhelming sense of
guilt about it, like it's your fault,
and the main character in this
believes he killed this girl
that he loves...
..but he didn't.
And it is metal?
Yes.
Yeah, definitely, it's a... I call it
progressive power thrash metal.
MUSIC PLAYS
'One of the things that
happened in the time
'since we taped that show
was that John Dough died.
'What do you know about that?'
I remember when one of my friends
called me and said that he'd...
hung himself, I believe.
It was kind of... I mean,
it was kind of shocking.
You're like, "Well, OK, why?"
I mean, it's a stressful job,
obviously.
It's horribly stressful
and by 2006, er...
I mean, the industry had changed
quite a bit.
Was it the fact that there were
so many new guys coming in,
the industry was spreading out,
it was breaking apart,
the sense of family was gone and
he really felt like he was alone,
you know, spread out over so much?
It's going to have an emotional
impact on you in that business.
Is it a difficult time
for performers now?
Yeah. I mean, the way it is now,
within five years,
I don't see how there could be
a professional porn actor.
Back in California,
and on the northern outskirts of LA,
I was off to meet an industry
veteran called Tommy Gunn.
'I was curious to get
to know someone
'who was on the verge of middle age,
'still making a living
performing in adult movies.'
How you doing?
What's up, man?
You can park anywhere, that's good.
How are you? OK. Are you sure?
'I heard Tommy was struggling
with the emotional side
of the business.'
Come on out. Welcome.
Thank you. How are you?
Nice to meet you. I'm Louis.
It's a pleasure. Tommy.
I was collecting for a while there.
HE CHUCKLES
I pretty much won everything
they make.
You're known as a very dependable
performer, is that correct?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not to mention,
I'm not a bad actor, so...
Are there things you won't do?
Do you have rules?
You know, I try to be able to be
well-rounded enough to do it all,
because that's what was going to
separate me
from the next guy who said,
"I only do boy/girl."
Who's comfortable with being next to
a guy this close and a girl?
That's, you know, it is what it is.
Most of the time we know each other
anyway. "How you been?"
"Good." "That's good," you know?
I don't want to show up and I never
met the guy before and he's just
like...
I'd rather know him, like,
like, "Hey,"
cos now it's just like two friends
having sex with a girl, you know,
and it works.
There's some of the movies up there.
These so minimal, these are just...
You've done how many movies,
did you say?
Upward of 1,100,
1,200 at this point.
This was kind of a cool movie,
Vivids To Die For. That was me.
Would that be your penis
on the back there?
No.
Do you feel you have a connection
with the women that you work with?
Once you've, you know,
had sex with them... Well...
..does it then feel as
though you've shared something?
Yeah, for me.
Some people may not think that
but, you know, for me,
there's gotta be some intimacy.
I mean, it's an intimate act,
isn't it?
In terms of timing for me, when
I got into the business, it worked.
I'd just go and I'd have sex with
this girl and then I'm done,
they pay me
and I leave and I go do my thing,
and my heart's not involved.
Well, guess what? Through time
and repetition,
eventually you do have a heart
and it does show its face
and it does call out
for attention, you know?
I love the business,
don't get me wrong,
but, at the end of the day,
I'm getting older,
I'd like to have kids,
it would be nice to raise a family.
It's difficult having
a career like this.
A lot of the performers I've spoken
to won't acknowledge that.
They don't acknowledge that there's
something intimate about the sex act
and that that can take a toll
on your... Sure.
..on your relationships.
Maybe if they were to acknowledge
that, maybe that would show
that they have a human side
of some sort
and there is some sort of
emotional thing there
and the last thing they want to do
is appear to be vulnerable.
And maybe also it would be difficult
to live with themselves,
knowing that there's something about
the business that they've chosen,
intrinsically,
that is...that has a coarsening
effect on the human spirit.
Yeah. Everything you gain,
you've gotta lose something.
What did I lose?
I lost my private intimate sex life
in order to have a job doing sex
and being paid for it on camera.
Is this your vehicle, Tommy? Yeah.
This is a... It looks like a riot
control vehicle.
My friends would say, "Hey, you
know, that van looks like
a zombie van."
I thought, "Wow, that would be
great. Maybe one day we can make
a zombie movie."
Have you put it in a movie yet?
No, not yet. Not at all.
If you're in a zombie situation,
what do you need?
You need something that's tough
and durable, right?
If you have to run over zombies,
you can't run over them without
this stuff, so...
Sure. So I built all this.
In the movie, this will have
all the weapons,
extra gas in case you need gas.
Of course.
So we got this little setup.
You know, I made all this,
and worst case scenario,
when you have to get on the roof
and you can't get outside because
the zombies are out there,
all you do is this.
You can get out right on the roof
like this and fight the zombies.
I made a documentary
in the '90s about the industry,
and one of the guys I followed
at that time was John Dough.
Did you ever cross paths with him?
Yes. Yes.
And he, of course, killed himself
a few years ago. Yes.
Tragically. It's a shame,
but the people who suffer
the most when they leave,
if there is any suffering, you know,
or take it the hardest, are the guys
because the guys, you know, through
time and through these things,
you know,
they detach themselves from this,
from their heart, from themselves
and you know...
Do you think John Dough's death
had something to do
with his being in the business?
Who knows what other underlying
things there were in his life
but, you know, it could possibly be,
you know, it really could.
ENGINE RUMBLING
Will you be careful?
No, of course.
Just keep your feet away from the...
Should I, do I put them
on the thing or is that yours?
No, you can just have them hang out.
You know, nobody wants to
acknowledge... No.
..anything when it's bad,
cos what does that mean?
What does that do, you know?
I don't know, what does that do?
I'm asking you.
Uh...
'Back in the valley, I had
an appointment at another shoot,
'this one a little more low end.'
Hi. How you doing?
'One of the female performers was a
newcomer I'd met at the LA Direct
offices.'
So have you two guys...
Have you met yet?
No. No?
We're meeting now. Yeah.
Tony. I'm Stefania.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you
too. Tony, have you done a few
scenes before?
I've been in one other scene.
Was that recently?
When did you do that one?
That was, like, a week ago.
How old are you?
I'm 23. You're 23? Mm-hm.
And how did you get into this?
A friend referred me and said,
"This might help you get through
school or whatever,"
so I decided to do it.
You're studying? Yeah, directing
and producing at LA Film School.
You're not worried in any way
that this could hold you back
in the future?
Everybody has to do something
at some point in their life
that they may not want to do
necessarily
but they do it because they have to,
they need to.
What are your ambitions, Stefania?
I mean, I do want to stay in this
business for as long as I can,
I'm actually trying to, you know,
be one of the big porn stars,
hopefully,
and then hopefully later on I could,
like, you know, start my own
business, get into, like, TV stuff.
I mean, the other way of looking
at it would be do it a little bit
while you need some money
and you're still young
and then put it behind you,
but if you make a big name for
yourself, that's harder to do.
Well, I'm not... Yeah, I guess
you're right, but still, though,
as long as I'm bringing money home,
that's all that matters.
I'm paying the bills. I mean,
I have a little girl
I have to take care of,
so, really, she's my number one
priority. A daughter? Mm-hm. Do you?
Do you have any kids, Tony?
No. I don't need a kid.
That'd be real bad.
I wouldn't know what to do.
I didn't have parents,
growing up, so... Why not?
Er...
I was, let's say, orphaned at six.
We'll keep it at that, so...
Who raised you?
US Government.
THEY CHUCKLE
I don't know. Foster homes.
I've been everywhere,
all over the place,
so I've gone through my fair
share of bullshit,
so at this point I'm like,
"You either like me or you don't.
"If you don't, keep it pushing
cos you're messing with my vibe."
Yeah.
Is it a little awkward, knowing,
you know,
you've just met Tony,
you've just met Stefania,
knowing that you'll be having
an intimate moment a bit later?
Well, he looks good,
so hey that helps.
Yeah, that's helpful. She's sexy,
so we're good. Oh, there you go.
Can we come in?
It's really touchy with
the new guys. Yeah.
They don't really,
this is his second scene.
Once a new guy gets spooked,
pretty much it's a wrap
pretty much after that.
Have you shot quite a few
porn movies?
Oh, yeah, about over 3,000
probably. Really?
Yeah. I've been in the business
since '98.
Since '98? Mm-hm. Really?
KNOCKS ON DOOR
He spooked? Yeah.
So I just gave him some Viagra
and hopefully that'll work. Shit.
I don't know, maybe if we go in
the house and give him a little more
room, he might... Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry about that.
They're easily spooked.
It's so weird.
Penis is a very tricky animal.
It's a mysterious organ. Mm-hm.
What is happening in the industry
right now?
In this sort of post-PornTube era?
There is a lot of people who are
struggling for work, performer-wise,
cos it's just not as, it's not how
it was in, you know, '05, '06, '07.
It was everyone and their mom
thought they could do a porn site.
They would do 20 or 30 scenes,
they thought they'd make a million
dollars out of their website,
their website didn't make shit
so that content just sits out there,
they don't care about it any more,
then they end up on the tube sites,
so it just pretty much...
killed the business.
Killed it.
Like, I tell guys all the time,
like,
"Man, you guys better just make
this your side gig."
How are you doing?
I'm doing good. How are you?
There was a slightly slow start,
wasn't there?
From what I understand.
To begin with,
I think Tony was having a couple
of problems getting started?
Oh, no, he was fine when we started.
Was he? Yeah. Oh.
Did it feel intimate?
I mean, like, I...I mean, no.
I mean, he has a girlfriend
and I have a boyfriend,
so it's like we're just doing it.
I mean, of course he's good-looking
and he thinks I'm good-looking,
so... Sexy.
You know,
I did three scenes before this one.
I'm actually enjoying this one.
The other ones were like...eh, cos
he's a good-looking guy, you know?
I feel like you two seem like you're
kind of clicking a little bit.
Oh, yeah, we're cool. Yeah.
And that maybe, you know, could you
think about going on a date?
THEY LAUGH
I think you were meant to be
together.
You're so funny. Oh, my God.
You want us to be together?
THEY LAUGH
You keep saying how good-looking
Tony is. Is he better looking than
your boyfriend?
It's totally different.
I actually, I mean, like,
my boyfriend's not like,
he's like a pretty boy
and my boyfriend's
totally not a pretty boy.
What about you, Tony?
It's kind of funny,
I kind of like the good girls.
Nobody's tainted her or made her
look bad about situations or...
I don't know, I like the good girl.
Got it. Mm-hm..
Oh, yeah! Oh!
'After one more scene, plus Tony's
pop shot, the shoot was a wrap.'
What are you doing?
Oh, we're talking.
SHE LAUGHS
We're washing each other.
I mean, obviously we're washing
ourselves off now.
We're getting juices off.
We're getting intimate,
like you told us to do.
You look like you're flirting
with each other.
You said it happens sometimes,
right? Absolutely. I'm just kidding.
Oh, God.
And blow jobs again.
'It had been an oddly touching
encounter.
'The two novice performers seem to
have done a kind of courtship
in reverse,
'starting with the sex and ending
as something like friends.
'I had another re-visit to make.
'Since arriving back in the valley,
'I'd heard several times that
the industry was less extreme now.'
How you doing?
How are you, my friend?
Good to see you.
Come on down. This is...
Oh, how are you? Yeah, good.
This movie we're working on now
is called Forced Entry.
It sounds a little bit, you know,
sounds a little bit naughty.
HE LAUGHS
Yeah, it is. It's just pretty...
It's pretty bad.
It's, like, about rape.
So, yeah...
It's good to see you, man.
Yeah, you too. It really is.
Yeah. It is, it's good.
Yeah. Oh, good.
'In 1997, the more outrageous
and gruesome side of the business
had been personified
'by a 23-year-old director
named Rob Black.'
How you feeling, Lexi?
Kind of weird.
'Since then, he'd lost a fortune
and gone to prison,
'but now he was back directing.'
I created a genre of porn
that nobody had seen.
Assholes stretched open
and just all that just crazy shit.
And now, we're in
the post-shocking era.
Yes. Parody, a huge thing.
Oh, well, here, example - here, this
is part of the armour from Iron Man.
And for porn, that's actually
a pretty good prop.
Dude, the suit cost,
like, four grand.
Look, I mean,
these are, like, the legs.
Mmm.
So, yeah, so this is,
this is, like, the prop.
Fucking thing.
Go into the warehouse.
This is like a monster company that
puts out 20, 30 different lines.
Rodney's Birthday, but this is shit,
you know? It's jerk-off stuff,
but then he puts out
the stuff that we do...
Well, it's all jerk-off stuff,
isn't it? Yeah, but this is stuff...
Here's the thing.
Here's the thing, Mr Thorax.
Where the business is going now
is it's acceptable to watch
pornography.
It's acceptable to sit down with
your girlfriend or your wife
and introduce her to pornography,
but the pornography that you're
introducing her to
is stuff that I'm doing now,
not, you know,
have a Birthday Blast.
Here we go, this is what we do.
This is what I do. OK, here we go.
Captain America. In two discs.
XXX.
Iron Man, look at that.
Just look at that.
Come on, that's a porno.
How's it doing?
It's doing fucking fabulous.
Is it? Yeah. Look at this.
Here's mine. 3D.
You directed that one?
I direct all of them.
This ain't no bullshit.
This isn't anal fisting.
Supergirl. Look at that. Nice.
So what happened to you?
They sent you to prison. Yeah.
And your wife too. Yeah!
What was that like?
It's prison. Yeah. Yeah.
What you want to know about it?
I was raped every day.
What were you convicted of?
I was raped and sodomised.
What were you convicted of?
Obscenity?
Yeah, yeah.
You took a plea. You seemed very
confident of winning.
Yeah. Yeah.
So what went wrong?
At the end of the day,
it wasn't just me.
Lizzie was involved,
you know what I mean? Your wife.
Yeah, so I think if we went to
trial and we had lost,
I think it would have really sucked
if I had my wife in prison for four
years.
How long did they give you
in the end? A year and a day.
Each of you got a year and a day?
Each of us got a year and a day.
That you served? Ten months.
In a way, you got what you wanted,
didn't you? Cos you wanted to be
a provocateur,
you wanted to shake things up
and be outrageous. Yeah, of course.
Yes. So was it worth it?
At the end of the day,
my main focus was
to be the biggest and baddest
provocateur of pornography.
I accomplished that
and was it worth it?
Hmm. Was it worth it?
I would say yeah. Yeah.
Do you miss the days of being kind
of the most outrageous guy
on the block?
No, because this is most outrageous
now. It's not outrageous, Rob.
Shhh, listen to me.
I feel like you've been through a
lot and you've landed on your feet
and you are back directing
and that's great,
but that in a way they've tamed you,
haven't they?
No, no. Why?
Why? I don't see... Absolutely not.
You gotta move on. You gotta evolve.
Part of evolving is looking back
and thinking, "You know what?
"I thought that was
funny at the time,
"now it seems kind of crass,"
or insensitive or whatever it is.
Definitely.
Do you feel that at all?
I don't find anything crass or
insensitive, because that's taste,
but, yeah, stretching anal orifices
with multiple cocks and stuff like
that, it's silly.
You know what I mean?
It's, like, silly.
Do you think now, looking back,
that there was a time when maybe
you took it too far
or maybe it wasn't appropriate
to make that film? No.
No, no, no, no. Or maybe the woman
felt pressured or...
Absolutely not, because we weren't
an under... See, we weren't
underground.
It was all staged.
All right, dude, here's what's going
to happen. The guy's going to come
in, you're going to act scared.
What the fuck did you think, we just
got random girls from the street,
threw them in a room
and it was like, "OK, are you ready?
Here we go. Boo!"
What the... I mean... It's retarded.
The films were,
you know, kind of gloried
and revelled in the fact that they
were degrading women.
Would you agree?
Everything wasn't degrading
to women.
Watch these sluts get...come on
and... OK.
And then later on... OK.
You wouldn't think those women
might find it embarrassing?
It's all subjective up to
that person.
Degrading somebody
and that whole thing is all,
it's all up to that person -
how they felt, you know?
Is there a part of you that misses
the old days? Not at all.
Why not?
Cos I outgrew it.
I used to have steak every day
for six years
and now I decided that, you know,
I'm going to change it up.
I don't miss that era of who I was,
cos it was just different
sections of my life.
'I was in Las Vegas.
'Tommy Gunn had been booked on a
shoot for an internet porn company.
'Since seeing him, I'd been
intrigued by his sense of loneliness
'amid the abundance
of available sex.
'He'd agreed to let me
see him at work.
'Also in the wings was another
male performer.'
You are?
Marco Banderas.
Marco Banderas? Yes.
From Spain?
From Spain.
Do you know who you're
doing a scene with?
Sometimes I forgot the names
because there's too many
English name for my mind.
I doing a lot girls. Yeah.
40 girls a month.
That's more than one a day.
I have the record.
Last two, three months ago, I did ten
pop shots in three hours and a half.
What was that like? Was it nice?
Yes.
How you doing, Tommy? Good.
Good to see you. Likewise.
I'm Louis. Hi, I'm Tasha. Nice to
meet you. Nice to meet you.
Are you are you doing a scene
today? Yeah, with Tommy.
Have you worked with Tommy
before? I have, yeah. Yes.
Do you know what kind of scene it
is? Just a standard boy/girl
vaginal? Nothing...
Yeah, yeah, just plain vanilla
boy/girl.
No extra anal or...
Eww, no. Not yet.
None of that nature.
Do you have a long-term plan?
Yes, I do. I go to school full time.
I'm almost done with my Bachelors at
UCLA... Studying?
Women's Studies and Psychology,
so...
Women's Studies? Yes. Interesting.
Actually, I think it led me
to do adult because... Yeah.
..adult is the only industry in
America where women get paid
more than men.
Tasha, you're comfortable separating
sex from emotional connection?
Oh, yeah. I mean, most of the guys
I know that are my age,
around 22 years old,
are having sex with girls all
the time and I don't think that
they're looking at it
like they're going to be with that
girl for ever. I think it's more...
But there's still something
emotional that has to happen.
Of course.
When you have a conversation with
somebody, there's still some sort
of intimacy in it. You know? Yeah.
Mmm. Hmm. I gotta go do my pretty
girls. Yes. Yes. OK, bye.
Nice to meet you, Tasha. We'll see
you on set. Nice to meet you too.
OK, bye. Thank you for that.
Remember today, right now.
Remember right now. Yeah.
You will blink your eyes and you'll
remember this conversation. Yeah.
And you'll be 40 and you're going to
go, "Holy fuck, I was wrong,
"life isn't long, life is short."
Yeah.
So don't go settling
for something like,
"Oh, well, you know, life is long,
I got plenty of time." You don't.
Maybe...maybe I'm just another
dumb girl.
THEY CHUCKLE
Jackie's awesome. She's a cutie.
So what does that mean, exactly?
You know, "Fuck a pretty girl every
day." Like, what does that mean?
Is that what she said to you? Yeah.
It's a compliment, saying
that you...
You were successful. OK, great.
But what is that?
So what does that mean?
I'm trying to wrap my head
around it.
You're interested in striking up
a relationship with her?
No, it's just, you know,
the truth of the matter is
would these girls be fucking me if
they weren't getting paid to do it?
Well, some would and some wouldn't.
Right, so... Right?
You know?
How long have you been single for?
I've been single now four years.
Really? Describe your ideal woman.
Self-sacrificing and caring
and nurturing and, you know,
wants to have children and...
Honestly, I'm not going to find her
in this business.
What's stopping you from leaving
the business now to find that?
A financial issue.
You still gotta make the money.
Hey, guys, I'm still here on set,
just updating you every five seconds.
Here's Marco.
So what did you do today?
I did a anal scene.
With who? With er... We're ready.
I don't remember the name.
OK. I have to go. OK.
Thank you.
Do you feel you've got good
chemistry with Tasha?
Yes, and part of that comes with
dealing with many girls over time.
She doesn't seem that
interested in you.
Do you ever comment on that?
No. That would just create
even more of a...you know?
I just kind of just...
see what I can do about it.
And just look out cos I'm going to
go to a wide shot how.
We're going, stroking the whole
time, so it's already happened
out there.
And from there right up
against the wall, OK?
Rolling, action.
SHE GROANS AND MOANS
Oh, fuck.
You know you like my customer
service.
It's hard to think of other things to
say about customer service though.
Your experience shopping here is
good. Hopefully your experience
shopping here is good.
I said that five times. Oh, you did?
I just kind of do my job.
Smile, put on that face, whatever.
All right, Tommy, you're going
to go from that position.
Gotcha. Will you be able to?
Oh, yeah. Cool.
You're going to say something like,
"I hope your shopping
experience was easy for you,"
or something wonderful or...
"I hope your experience at ZZ Video
was memorable." That's easy.
OK, are you ready? Yep. OK.
I'm rolling, and action.
SHE GROANS AND MOANS
I hope that your experience
at ZZ Video was memorable.
It was.
Nice. All right, ready?
So you did it. I did it, yeah.
Again, I don't know what
number that would be.
I've kind of lost count.
Without sounding creepy, you seem
to be doing an excellent job.
I have to. That's my job.
You don't think for a moment
in that scene today
I was in love with that
girl in my mind?
I shared something with her she
didn't even know I shared with her.
Have you had relationships
while you were in the business?
I mean, serious, long-term
relationships
while you've been in the business?
Have I? Yeah.
Yeah.
And was it a strain?
Was it a struggle in any way?
Yeah.
The human side of it
in terms of realising that
it's not...
..normal...
to leave somebody you love to go and
have sex with somebody you don't.
That's not normal.
I try not to let the past
affect my future,
but when the heart gets hurt,
that's a difficult thing.
I have a tendency of wearing
your heart on the sleeve.
You never heard that expression?
What does that mean, when you
wear your heart on your sleeve?
It means that you give love very
readily and you make yourself
vulnerable.
Yeah. I do that.
A lot.
So maybe that's why this job
works for me so much,
cos my heart's not
involved in this, in this.
My heart's home, safe in a box
where nobody can touch it.
But I get to go to work
and breathe heavy
in some chick's ear
and perform a sex act...
and, at the end of the day,
I have my release
and that's healthy.
You know?
And yeah, I'll do it again.
I'll get my heart broken again.
I thought your heart was in a box.
It is, but I'll take it out.
It's OK, I'll take it out,
do it again.
'It was hard not to
sympathise with Tommy.
'I sensed he'd been an outsider
before coming into porn
'and that porn was in turn making a
normal life ever more unattainable.
'Back in Los Angeles, and I was off
to see Kagney Linn Karter.
'She'd just returned from the
outlandish shoot involving six men
'that her boyfriend Montae
had been unhappy about.'
Hi. Hi, guys.
Shall we come in?
Yes, please.
Are you OK? How did it go?
I have to admit, I was nervous
this morning, I was really nervous,
but once I got to set, everything...
was fully the way that it was
supposed to be,
so I did the scene and then the guy
that I do the scene with leaves
and then the other guys, they just
basically ejaculate on my face.
It was perfect, actually.
From the outside world perspective,
they see most of the people in
the porn industry, the performers,
that they've got some
kind of damage in their life.
For sure. I've got a lot of damage.
I mean, my father has been
incarcerated my whole life
and, you know, he had a major
drug problem and er...
Do you think maybe your dad having
not been in the,
you know, in the picture,
that he was in prison
all these years,
had something to do with you
perhaps going into porn?
Absolutely not.
SHE CHUCKLES
I don't think that at all.
Everyone has problems.
Everyone.
I went into porn
cos I wanted to get into porn.
I mean, after what
we talked about, Montae,
you know, about how you felt and
what your opinion was of this scene,
was it strange for you today,
thinking about the scene going on?
No, not at all. I mean, I really
actually, I didn't think about it
at all.
I asked her, "How did the scene go?"
And she said, "It went great"
and I said, "Great, perfect."
Because that makes me feel...
ecstatic, elated
that she went to work
and, you know, things went well.
You feel ecstatic and elated
about you doing this scene
and it going well?
No, I felt ecstatic and elated
that... That it went well.
..that it went well. I'm not happy
and ecstatic that she had sex acts.
With those guys.
Right, and which is, you know,
it's not...it's not a big deal,
you know what I'm saying?
So many people I've spoken to have
said it's very difficult to maintain
a stable relationship
when you're working in adult movies,
so...are you saying you're
the exception to that?
Definitely one of the exceptions,
for sure.
How come? At least for right now.
I mean, I would say four years,
almost five years now, is quite
an exception.
Given that he's not in the industry,
I think it's impressive how Montae's
able to take a kind of back seat.
Is that part of what's
happening here?
He's this beautiful man.
I mean, he's just a beautiful
person, like, inside and out.
Maybe he's TOO relaxed.
So you think he's lazy? I'm not
saying that he is, I'm just... No.
THEY CHUCKLE
Now, if me and Montae aren't
together, heaven forbid, in ten
years, you know what?
Say what you will, whatever,
we're not together any more,
but you know what?
We've had a fucking great
five years now
and whatever more we can get,
I'll take.
'I had one last appointment
in the world of porn.'
Hangs the doll by the neck. OK? OK.
And that's porno! Huh?!
'In 1997, John Dough -
real name Chet Anuszek -
'had been at the top
of his profession.'
Do you get a lot of people
coming up to you saying,
"Hey man, I want to do your job,"
that type of thing?
Oh, yeah, you gotta go to work.
Right. You gotta go to work, sure.
Ah, right.
It must get kind of irritating in a
way, like, people don't regard you,
take your work seriously,
like, they don't, they say,
"Oh, you just have sex."
No, it isn't irritating.
I just stay home more.
'He'd married a fellow performer
known as Monique DeMoan.'
Hi. Hello.
Cheyenne? Hi.
I'm Louis. Hi, Louis.
'I'd tracked her down, 800 miles
from LA, retired from porn.'
Well, this is a picture of little
Breena.
That's your daughter? This is
our daughter. With Chet.
Breena was about three years old,
and that's up in Mammoth.
That's Chet on his motorcycle.
This is, I mean, after we'd been
together for quite a few years.
Do you have copies of the films that
you and Chet made together?
I do still have Doctor Butts 3,
of course.
Doctor Butts 3, with a kind
of Hannibal Lecter thing going on.
Why have you hung onto that one
in particular?
It's sentimental.
If you're able to capture something
that hot on camera, you know,
and it's your first encounter with
your husband, your baby's daddy,
you're not going to get rid of it.
What worked about the relationship?
What was it that you liked?
Er...
He took me out
and we had a good time.
It was life in the fast lane,
though.
Fast lane meaning?
Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
To a civilian like myself,
the idea of having sex on camera
and then being faithful off camera
and being committed
seems like it would be very
difficult.
It's really not that hard. What's
hard is active addiction - drugs.
That's what's hard.
You know?
If you want to have a good, happy
life, you have to give up the drugs,
and Chet did, many times,
and so did I.
But unfortunately there are those
relapses and unfortunately...
..it ended with his suicide.
How would you feel about
talking about
how you came to find out
that he'd killed himself?
I...
..I was out getting...some drugs...
..and I came home
and thought that it was very strange
that I couldn't find Chet,
seeing as I had drugs.
I knew something was wrong
and I started looking for him.
I looked throughout the whole house,
I looked through the back yard...
and it was so quiet.
SHE SOBS
It was so quiet...
and I heard a...a creak
in the closet...
..and that's when I found him.
Chet was really, truly, honestly,
he was a really good dad.
He was a good dad,
but he felt that he had failed
as a husband and as a father.
He felt that he had failed in life.
He felt that he was
failing as a man.
He felt... He just, he was...he was
broken.
This is my spelling test and, like,
I got four wrong on it.
Which is pretty good.
Were you good in school, Cheyenne?
No, I wasn't that great in school.
It must be nice to see Breena
do so well. Yes.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. You're proud.
Very. I'm very proud of her.
Do you know what you'd like to be
when you grow up?
I want to be a police officer.
You do?
Mm. How come?
Because I like to stop
people from doing the wrong thing
and, like, cos I want everyone
to do the right thing a lot.
'I'd gone in search
of adult performers,
'trying to understand
the price they pay
'for taking the most intimate
human act and putting it on camera.
'I'd found an industry that,
15 years on,
'was more demoralised and still
taking the privacy of its young
cohorts while paying them less.
'And yet, the world of porn
is also a refuge -
'somewhere people fleeing lives of
chaos can blend in and feel valued.
'Though it can inflict
wounds on those who work in it,
'it could also occasionally
surprise with its tenderness.'