When things aint what they seem

So now I’ve explained about two of the genres of pornography. Mainstream/generic porn and amateur/reality porn.

There are of course a whole host of other sub categories of porn film. All seem to stick to their own families rarely merging or seeking help from another.


There is the gay and transsexual market. Now although transsexual films can feature gay guys and of course trans gender people they also feature a lot of straight or bi girls. These girls are often but not all the time girls from the mainstream industry.

The gay market is big enough and bad enough to be self sufficient. Indeed in my experience the gay market was so unheard of or talked about in the UK scene I didn’t actually think any gay films were made in the UK until 2004 when I met my first gay adult movie producer at a sexual health conference.


These particular two families seem to look down their noses at each other. Mainly due to the stigma that AIDS is so high risk amongst gay men. The straight market thinks the gay one is dirty and disease ridden but the gay market – especially these days is more open to safe sex in its movies and so thinks of the straight market as the one who is dirty and unconcerned with disease.


Girls found to have worked in gay or transsexual movies are often shunned. I have heard many a porno chick say it’s a fantasy of hers. Porn people often develop some unusual fantasies and fetishes since normal sex becomes mundane when u do it day in and day out. Always looking for some other kink to rock your boat and make you feel like you did the first time you did it in front of a camera. Which is a sexual fantasy in itself isn’t it?


I was talking to a producer friend of mine one day who happened to mention that a model agent that he regularly used for his own films had a transsexual performer on its books. As I also happened to be on this agents books I called them up and asked them to tell this trans gender performer that I’d like to work with her. Turns out she makes her own movies here in the UK and in the USA. Eventually I got a call from Miss Thing and we did our first film together after initially meeting to make sure we both understood each other.


I was hesitant to meet as this is a rare occurrence in pro porn. Producers don’t have time to meet talent and chat over scripts and plot lines. Castings were rare but did on occasion happen. Most performers are simply cast on the fact that they look ok and haven’t been shot by that particular producer before. Or maybe just that they are free that particular day!


If someone asks to meet you pre shoot it’s usually a sign of someone up to no good. A wanna be producer or some porn fanatic trying to con you that they are a producer just to get to spend abit of time chatting and drinking coffee with you. You might ask why they bother going through this rigmarole when they can actually book a porn star through an escort agency and fuck her brains out if they really want but these types of guys actually get off on the facade. They are living out some sort of elaborate fantasy in which they want to play a part of more than just a fan or horny john.


These guys really are a nuisance as some girls are all too keen to work and will go along on the off chance Mr Time Waster is genuine. He just wants to know he can get her to do what he wants. It’s a power trip. Some just use it as an excuse to get to know you abit better. Which is quite stalker-ish really. Some think that all the girls sleep with the producers to get work and therefore if they pretend to be one they will get a free shag.


Anyway I think Miss Thing had just cause to ask to meet me. After all its not every day you get to play with a transsexual and girls are notorious for saying yes to things they don’t really understand and then at the last minute confessing they aren’t comfortable with it.


So I made my first transsexual porn debut.

Porn Genres

It appears everyone makes porn in their spare time these days. With digital this and digital that and the internet meaning booking a girl to perform or model for you is so simple.

The gonzo/amateur fashion set by icons such as Ben Dover where by making his professionally shot porn look like he was just some guy who went out and with the luck of the devil was able to pick up non professional models off the street who amazingly agreed to shoot a porno with this ugly old bastard that they have “never” met before. Reading that back if I was that girl id run to the nearest police station and report the pervert, so how comes so many of you guys believed it?

Do you really think ALL women are nymphos and throw that much caution to the wind with regard to our personal safety???

I remember shooting with a couple of hobbyists a long while ago and despite my attempts to let them in on the inside story, that it was all an elaborate set up, there was no changing their minds. One guy saying “well maybe some of them are but there was one that was real”. Idiot. It’s actually quite scary how some people believe porn and especially porn of this gonzo nature to be real.
Now the distinction between feature porn, or professional porn and gonzo/amateur porn.

In the UK we don’t shoot features. This is a very US thing and basically is a film shot the same way a typical mainstream movie is. With a start a middle and an end. Not to mention a plot and characters.

We tend to shoot vinyets here in the UK. A film made up of four or five separate little stories. Sometimes they all tie in together in a theme but we don’t do features.

Both these styles are shot with high quality production values and in a 3rd person perspective so the end result is the viewer is observing the film from an outside point of view.

These types of films are expensive to make and you’re more likely to find some twat claiming “it’s not porn its art.” Arty porn is known as erotica.

Now what we do well and in abundance here in the UK is gonzo and amateur porn. More modernly known as reality porn or POV (point of view).

Much like the Ben Dover synopsis I gave earlier amateur porn is about real life. No makeup artists, no dressed sets, no acting and no gloss. Except it’s not really real because no porn is real. Its fake real. We like making amateur reality porn here because it’s cheap to do and being British we do the camp, tongue in cheek thing well. The Europeans are to kinky for this and the Americans are too serious.

Gonzo is not a character in the Muppets, well he is but in adult films it’s a style of shooting. Rather than shooting the action in flat 3rd person perspective the cameraman is a part of the action too. This gives an interactive feel or a 1st person perspective. It’s a genius idea really. It works on so many levels from giving the film a grittier more real yet slightly unbelievable feel, to one that encompasses the viewer to feel he is part of the film as well.
These days gonzo has been re branded as POV.

It’s this amateur and gonzo work that has gotten so many guys thinking “I can do that. I can pick up my little consumer camcorder and book a porn star and fuck her and then I’ve made my own porn film”. Why watch it when you can make it yourself. Everything is interactive these days so why not porn.

It’s this appeal that is starting to jump up and bite the professional film world in the ass as people would rather watch something genuinely amateur or DIY. The makers of porn are dying as people realise they don’t need them anymore.
Porn will never die out completely but there isn’t such a need for an industry to provide consumer demand. It’s meant the industry here in the UK is on very rocky road at the moment.

Rose Tinted Glasses

So I’d been for my first sexual health screen that was necessary for me to work within the industry.

The only trouble was that even though all my test results were returned two weeks later as negative the NHS clinic I visited wouldn’t give me the HIV certificate I needed to be able to do unprotected sex scenes.
Initially id been directed to this fancy private clinic in central London for my test but I couldn’t see what they did that any government clinic couldn’t to justify the £150 fee.

I now had no choice but to part with my cash to ensure I got my ticket to work.
I had to go through all the tests again. Not that I minded. They were a little uncomfortable and I’ve never been a fan of needles but I didn’t have the worry of the unknown this time as I already knew my results.

That anxiety would return in three months time when I had to update my certificate and go through the whole process again. Infact it probably took me a whole year of having these tests before the panic and paranoia became completely absent from my mind during these health checkups. Either that or I had effectively managed to train myself not to think about it. You’re so confident your OK but you can’t help thinking if you’re sitting in this clinics waiting room it must be for a good reason and you know exactly what that reason is. You’ve been shagging people without using condoms for the last three months with your fingers so tightly crossed that they have the same level of respect for you that you have for them. They have the same piece of paper saying they’re free from a list of specific diseases as you but accidents can always happen.

I was in my young teens when the AIDS message was being promoted. It had been discovered about 5 years earlier.
I remember watching some US event on MTV that was aimed at young people and using dance music to get the message across. I was only about 12 or 13 but this fatal virus scared the hell out of me despite me naively still thinking this could never happen to me.

I was now, nearly ten years later, in the same group as intravenous drug users and gay men. People who pay for sex or are paid to have sex are in the high risk category. The fact that we get regular HIV and STD tests is just damage limitation and we as a group of people usually chose to turn a blind eye and lock it up safely in the back of our minds. Is it any wonder we become alcoholics and drug users?

Had I really thought about what I was doing or had the insight I now have I probably wouldn’t have ever agreed to have unprotected sex for a living. All the people around me were doing it and explaining that as long as I got these tests done everything would be ok. They were romanticising the whole thing and portraying things through rose tinted glasses. I don’t feel angry at them though. They’ve spent so long numbing themselves to the dangers they were just trying to reinforce this in their own minds by trying to fool me too. If I bought it that would suppress any surfacing worries they had. A bit like how an alcoholic sometimes goes and sits in the park with the winos in a last bid attempt to try and convince himself he doesn’t have a problem. He just likes a drink. The winos are the real alcoholics.