Ok, I know some of you are fucking sick of SGT. COACH’s Dale & Colby posts… but I LOVE these guys. They’re both fucking hot and more importantly… fucking smart. This Q&A with Sarah McClean really delves into the politics of being in porn, sex work, unions, money & illusion. Here are a few bits to give you an idea. Check it out in full. Smart read.
Sarah: So what do you think those distinctions are between porn and other types of sex work?
Dale: Well I guess just based off in terms of what the actual, physical, job requires, porn as a genre has very specific types of scripts that go along with it. It has things like cameras, it has things like microphone, the actors, the producers. There is a script that you follow, not necessarily like a paper script, but there is a ritual that everyone involved goes through in creating porn…
Colby: It’s like a lot of other forms of film, there are tropes that get replayed over and over, and it just goes from like, well in gay porn, sucking, eating ass, fucking, three positions, come. And who in real life has sex like that? (laughs)
D: That being said, the other larger category of sex work is prostitution, which I also personally do not do, I’ve dabbled in it, it wasn’t my thing. I mean, it’s kind of hard to describe. In that the relation between the person (at least for me personally), between the person who is paying money to someone who is prostituting themselves, there’s a very different power dynamic and there’s a very different sort of feeling of control that you have in that environment or at least that I’ve felt personally. Versus being on a a porn set where I am conscious of this as a performance, I have agreed to do this willingly…
C: …and both you and your scene partner are getting paid money by a third party. It’s a very different…
S: …the person who’s paying you the money isn’t the one who’s receiving sexual favor…
D: Exactly. And there’s forms, and there’s certain codes of conduct, I mean, we’re not unionized, I wish to hell we were…
S: Right. Do people assume then that you also do escorting? Do you get a lot of assumptions?
C: A lot of people do, yeah.
D: And it can also be…I feel like part of the problem I’ve had too, I think Colby and I, well and there are many other porn performers that are like this, but you know, we do a good job of sharing maybe parts of our personalities that are not that performance aspect of porn. Whether with the fan base, or our friends, or acquaintances that we meet as Dale Cooper or as Colby Keller or what have you. I feel like that distinction is still kind of there…I guess because the porn work is just my occupation, it’s very easy for me to separate it. But I noticed that even with close friends, or with people who know me as Dale Cooper, we’ve bonded over other things. But they still will just come back to that, in a way. Me personally, I’m like “you haven’t gotten over that yet?”
S: Over the fact that you do porn?
D: Over the fact that I do porn. And not necessarily in like a really blatant way, but it’s almost like it’s constantly this nagging thought in the back of this other person’s head. In a really bizarre way. I’ve had a few people who I would call, maybe like close acquaintances as Dale, just like feel the need almost, or at least I feel like, to constantly reference the fact that I do sex work. As if I’ve forgotten. You know, “I’m well aware of it.”
S: Alright, well I’m gonna try to wrap it up, but I’m gonna be cheesy at the end and ask you what is the best and worst thing about being a porn performer?
C: Best and worst? Possibly the same thing. And that’s the main reason I do it which is money. I can’t set my own schedule so sometimes you really have to work to find work. Which can be very frustrating. But it’s also nice when it comes and I can do other things, like I said, I’m an artist with an art practice so a lot of free time to do that. Or not free time, but time to do that. And that’s really important to me. And porn allows me to do that. So it’s difficult, bad in that sense, but also good.
D: I’ll have to concur. I think for me, particularly as someone who had a full-time, professional “real” job, at the same time that I was a practicing porn performer, really there’s nothing worse than sitting at a desk .
C: Yeah, I’ve had really physically demanding blue collar jobs that don’t pay you shit! And I worked for a company, I worked for Nieman Marcus for two years and they worked me 70 hour weeks, they didn’t even consider me a full-time employee because they didn’t want to pay me health insurance! And they paid me half of what they paid everyone else and I did more work than everyone else. Horrible company. So porn is a lot better than that situation.
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE!
(picture stills from Cooper’s recently self-shot and directed B&W art porno @ Make Love Not Porn . It features Cooper & Keller in a really HOT silent loving fuck session. To rent the film, all you have to do is sign up at Make Love Not Porn, and pay $5.
Colby: www.colbykeller.com or www.bigshoediaries.blogspot.com
Dale: www.daledoesporn.com
cool
HOT. I totally agree with SGT. COACH, these guys are smart and sexy!
It was an interesting article too…. as an escort I can totally relate to a lot of what they are talking about, but it;s interesting to see where I disagree too.
THANKS FOR SHARING
Actually, the one I miss the most is Ed.
I think that they make some good points and I disagree with some points but that is my right as a gay man not every body will agree with me . so that is why the world we live in is so great.
For those outside L.A. County, Measure M, mentioned in this interview, passed this last November by 56% of the vote. It now requires all porn producers to obtain a filming permit, the fees paying for County health inspectors to do random checks(condom police). Though a local measure, the San Fernando Valley is the porn capital of the world…think “Boogie Nights”, where at least 90% of commercial porn worldwide is produced. The industry was self policing for HIV/STD already. The measure was promoted/funded by the Aids Healthcare Foundation(AHF). Like most sex associated things, there’s other agendas afoot. AHF’s president,Michael Weinstein, referred to porn workers as “bottom feeders”, so we know where he’s coming from. The Measure is currently being enforced while Steven Hirsch, pres. of Vivid Entertainment, and porn stars Kayden Ross and Logan Pierce sue the County on First Amendment(free speech) grounds. At that point, the legal arguement becomes content or worker’s safety. For content, the government has to prove there is a compelling argument that the rate of disease is so high in the porn industry as to influence the public’s behavior in such a negative way that there is a compelling public interest to modify how sex is portrayed…use condoms always. Or the worker safety issue, that the industry has indifference to workers safety as exposing them to various diseases that are preventable. Here the burden is on the government to prove the necessity of the law. They’re on the losing side of this arguement so far. In the mean time, State Assemblyman Isadore Hall( Dem/ Compton) is proposing a similar statewide law as to keep filming from just moving over the county line to avoid the law. He’s a good Baptist Democrat with 2 Doctorates in Theology and Religious Studies. I think we know his motivations aren’t as purely in the public good as he says…the Baptists were a major group against gay marriage, etc. This is a good example of the danger of always assuming religious are always right wing/Republican fanatics. There are plenty of Fundies in both parties. Also, as the porn industry looks for new states to move to, they’re finding that those states are considering similar laws. More overstepping government laws…
this is such an old issue…old…old. eve gave it up for a piece of fruit. its here, its us, accept it, deal and get to the important stuff that scares the shit out of religions and governments to tackle.
NEVER enough Colby Keller!