My Life in Porn

A couple of months ago I had an offer that I had no choice but to refuse. Oh, it was complimentary at the time, and slightly funny, and it gave me another story to tell at parties. Simply put, I was asked to be in porn.

“That makes twice this lifetime!” I joked with someone online. Later that day, though, I added it up in my head and realized how totally wrong I’d been. I’ve had four offers to appear naked and screwing on camera.

The first was from a handsome fellow who who wanted to make a living traveling around the country, taping random encounters of himself with all sorts of guys, and then editing them together and selling them. I saw one of his tapes and they’re just awful things, production-wise. Grainy, badly-lit, poorly shot. Sure, there’s hot sex going on somewhere in there, but when you’re too busy peering through a murky puddle of shadows to see it, or getting seasick at the hand-held camera, or staring at the guy’s luggage sitting open on the table and wondering why he stuffed his dirty socks with his neatly folded shirts, you’re not really noticing it.

Then a few years ago I was extended an invitation to appear a more professional production, but again I turned it down. Then I had two invitations this year to take roles in what I can only describe as professionally produced niche market porn, shall we say. A niche market of the sort that, were I to appear ever in a reality television show or run for office, would basically guarantee me a long-running front page spot on The Smoking Gun.

I turned them down. Yes, I turned them all down. There’s something immensely flattering about the offers. Who wouldn’t appreciate heroin for the ego like that? I seriously doubt, though, that anyone wants to see my pasty body on their television screens. It’s obvious to anyone who looks at me that I’m not the gym-obsessed, tanned, twinky boy type who usually appears in these productions, or even the hunky muscle daddy type that so many men seem to wish I were.

It’s been a long stretch between the latest offer to display my talents on film and the first time I was asked to star in porn. True story: I was seventeen and still blond. A freshman in my first semester of college. I was six feet and three inches tall and a beanpole who weighed between one hundred and one hundred and five pounds. When I stepped out even into weak sunlight, I turned a deep brown.

I was sitting on a grassy bank, studying, when a man approached me. He sported long, shaggy blond hair that would be fashionable now in some circles, but back then just looked unkempt. His shirt was open to his navel, exposing a chest so dense with hair that it resembled Velcro. When he smiled, his teeth were startlingly white. “Whatcha doing?” he asked me.

“Studying,” I said, trying not to stare down his shirt. He had squatted down in front of me so that we were at face level.

“I was hoping you’d rather be doing something else,” he said. “Like fucking.”

Of course I exerted every ounce of common sense I had at the time before deciding how I should respond to so audacious and blunt a suggestion from a total stranger who might be a psychopath, rapist, or worse.

In other words, I thought about it for about a millisecond and then said, “Okay!” and blithely hopped into his van and went back to his apartment. Hey, what can I say? I've always been a fan of the direct approach.

“Oooo, you’re so tight,” he hissed the moment the door was shut, once he’d stripped me down and jammed his fingers in me. “Have you been fucked before?”

I’d already lost my virginity several hundred times by that point. I probably could have pulled it off again, but for some reason I decided to be honest. “Oh yeah,” I told him. “Lots.”

“Mind if I take some photos, then?” he asked, pulling out a Polaroid. In answer, I just spread my legs, looked lazily at the camera, and then saw a flash and heard a whirr as the instant photo came spooling out. I let him take a lot of photographs of me that day and on the other days I’d meet him. Posed photos, photos of me in action, always nude photos. I just didn’t care. I'd let Earl and his buddies take photographs all the time. (Though I have to admit that today there’s always a certain trepidation when I’m faced with vintage porn snapshots, certain that one day I’m going to see my skinny teen ass appearing somewhere.)

A couple of weeks later, by which time I’d ascertained that the guy’s name was David, he climbed off me, huffing and puffing. “I’ve been showing your photos to a buddy of mine in L.A.,” he said. “He does porn and he’s interested in meeting you.”

I had never even seen a professional porn movie, back in 1981. “Okay,” I said.

“No seriously, look, he’s interested in you.” He opened up the porn drawer by his bed and pulled out some color promotional materials. “See? These are his. Hot guys, huh? You could be one of them.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, not really taking it seriously. I was a freshman and had a stunning career as a B student ahead of me. Besides, my parents would have absolutely killed me if they found out I dropped out of school to do porn.

“No, he’s really interested. You could just go out there for a couple of weeks, that’s all it would take.”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” I kept telling him.

Once when I arrived, David immediately started dialing the phone. “He’s here,” he said to the guy on the end of the line. “Talk to him.”

“This is William Higgins,” a voice announced. “I think my friend David’s told you about me. I make adult entertainment for men.”

The only reason I remembered his name so vividly is because for a moment I thought he called himself “Henry Higgins,” and the thought of Rex Harrison as a porn director just amused me. “Oh yeah,” I said in my most blasé manner.

“He tells me you’re a great fuck.”

“Yeah?” I replied, showing off my Advanced Placement English skills.

“I'm wondering if you'd be a good fit for one of my upcoming films,” said Mr. Higgins.

“Yeah? Well, nah, I don’t think so,” I said. “Thanks though.”

To be fair, I didn't really believe a word David was telling me. I didn't believe there was such a person—and if there were, I didn't believe David knew him, living as he did in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. I thought he'd gotten one of his buddies on the phone pretending to be a director, for some nefarious purpose. For all I know, that could've been the case. But most of all, I didn't believe I was porn-worthy.

I handed the phone back to David, who seemed mightily disappointed in me. He never had me back to his place again, after that day. I used to wonder if he was some sort of porn bounty hunter who lived on commission he earned by shipping boys west.

After a couple of weeks, the only reminder I had that I’d known him was a steady itching sensation below my waist. Baby’s first case of crabs.

I finally saw my first genuine porn film in 1987, when I finally had my own apartment and my own VCR and my own credit card to order one. I forget the title. It was some two-hour extravaganza that takes place mostly in a locker room after the big football game. When the words Directed by William Higgins flashed up on the tube, though, I was impressed—David and his friend had been for real, after all. Whenever I watched the movie after the first time, I stared at all the skinny blond twinks up on the screen and thought to myself, That could’ve been you, kiddo. That could’ve been you.

But I’m awfully glad it wasn’t.