The Pop
My Dad and I Visit a Porn Set

Day 1, Dec. 4, 2001

"So, as you know, I’m supposed to be guest-director," I say, shyly. "I understand that’s to be a loose term." "I’ll probably mostly observe," I say, immediately capitulating.

"That’s a good idea," he says.

"But if it’s all right I’ll ask you questions, and sort of follow you around."

"Fine, ask whatever you want."

"So what does a director do?" I ask, stupidly, but you have to start somewhere.

"Fuck the chicks."

"Really?"

"Nah, you think I want to fuck these girls after they’ve been getting fucked all day? What do I do? A director has to know who to put on the bottom and who not. You have to know that this one guy, if he gets on his back, he loses wood. You have to know what people can do."

We are in the lounge, which has a table filled with snacks. Robby D eats a pop tart.

"There are some things in the scripts I was wondering about that don’t make sense," I say. I had read the screenplays–two movies are going to be shot in three days–on the plane ride out. Robby D cowrote them with a porn-writer named Beth Ann Rafael.

"That’s because it’s porn," he says. "I purposely leave holes in the script. Better to let the guy at home wonder what’s going on, fill in the spots himself. If you make it too clear, they don’t get it."

•

In the first film, three superheroes are under attack from four female villains who look like cats. If a regular man makes love to one of these "bad pussies" he’s turned into a stuffed animal. The superheroes don’t get turned into stuffed animals, though, because of their superpowers, but they are in danger, and so they make all the bad pussies disappear when they ejaculate on them, and then in the film’s climax they make the bad pussy’s leader, Kitty Kat, blow up when one of the superheroes farts on her. In the second film, there are again villainous women, and in this one they look like pigs. After a man makes love to one of these pig-women, she aims her ass at him and his head blows up. The superheroes don’t blow up immediately–because they’re superheroes–but they get Tourette’s-like symptoms and eventually their heads will blow up unless they use their super-semen and superpowers to make the evil women, led by Panting Patty, turn into smoke.

•

"How’d you get into porn?" I ask. "My wife, Wendy Divine, got into it. So I was like if you’re doing it, I’ll do it." "Is this industry hard on you and your wife?"

"We just care about each other so much that we make it work. She leaves in the morning or I leave and we know what the other person is going to be doing–having sex with somebody else–and we say, ‘Have a good day.’ We’re just really in love."

"Do you ever work together?"

"Yeah."

"How’s that?"

"Good and sometimes not good. Good because we get into it, but then sometimes, like if I know she’s sore, I’ll feel bad about us having to do it, whereas with another girl, though I wouldn’t want to hurt her, I’m more like, ‘Well, this is what we have to do.’ But I feel bad if it’s my wife."

"Do you like doing porn?"

"For a guy it’s not easy. You have to be able to get wood when they tell you to get wood. But I get paid to get off, so I can’t complain."

"Do you worry about STDs?"

"We all get tested for HIV every 30 days. And for the bigger companies, like Vivid, it’s condom only. So I try to work mostly with places like Vivid... But sometimes someone will come up HIV-positive. So then they do a family tree to figure out who the person was with. And if you were with the infected person, you get quarantined and can’t work until the tests are all clear."

Mark the Saint, the skinny, rough-looking but kindly production assistant, walks up to us. "What are you guys talking about?"

"STDs," says Eric.

"We’ve all got ’em," says Mark. "I got one right here." He doesn’t indicate where, but it’s a good joke.

•

April is 23, been in the business three years and has done hundreds of porn films. "I stopped counting after 200," she says. She has a beautiful lean body and a pretty face, though she has bad skin, but the makeup covers her acne pretty well.

"What do you think of today’s script?" I ask.

"Haven’t read it," she says, "but it should be easy. I only have a love scene."

My heart breaks a little when she says "love scene."

Robby D comes in the room and tells the makeup woman that April can’t have pigtails–they’re too suggestive of a young girl, which is illegal. The pigtails are undone and Robby has April try on her pig-snout. Pigtails: not okay. Pig-snout: okay.

"I look silly," she protests. "I can’t wear this."

"You have to wear it," Robby says. "It’s your character. You’re a bush piggy."

Robby D leaves the room; I follow him. He says to me, "The things you can get these girls to do."

"You mean put a pig nose on?"

"And take a dick in the ass."

Robby likes to be gruff, to shock, but mostly he’s joking around, playing a part–a coarse porn director.

•

Eric is in a superhero outfit–blue and white cape, white tights and a blue tunic. April is wearing 6-inch heels and a fishnet body stocking–her fat pink nipples protrude through the fishnet and there’s a large hole cut out for her pussy. She’s wearing her snout and her pink pig makeup. She looks very sexy.

April says to Robby, "You using my favorite filter?" This must be a filter that doesn’t show the bumps on her face.

"Yeah, but you’re looking better. Just don’t pick your skin," he says sweetly. Then he feels her pussy to see if she’s wet.

April gets on the bed and has "pretty girl" pictures taken. These are still photos that are done before the girl’s makeup or hair is messed up or she has come on her. The photos are used for the video boxes, magazines, posters, etc.

Eric opens a small toilet case and pops a Tic-Tac. In the case are condoms, lube, Tic-Tacs, desensitizing cream and other items, probably some Viagra. It’s his kit that he takes on all shoots. He’s very professional.

The sex begins. Eric and April kiss. Then Eric goes down on April’s pussy; he’s still in costume.

"Give me some oinks," Robby D says to April. He’s manning the camera, which is propped on his shoulder. Several lighting crew guys stand around. Mark the Saint hovers with paper towels. Jim, a big building of a man, watches the action on a monitor, letting Robby know if things are in focus.

"I don’t know how to oink," she says.

Eric keeps eating her pussy.

"You have to oink," Robby says. "And put your fingers in your pussy and then in your mouth." She makes some good oinks and fingers herself while Eric licks her.

For a few minutes they shoot Eric eating her pussy at "soft" angles–for the softcore release of the film, which goes to Playboy and other outlets, so you only see the back of Eric’s head or April moaning; no genitals in soft. Then they shoot it for hardcore, with a big lamp, held by Jim Fillmore, the head of lighting, shined right on April’s pussy and the camera zooming in so you see everything–pink lips, clit, juice, saliva, Eric’s tongue.

"Open her up," Robby D tells Eric. "Let’s see the meat."

They finish the pussy-eating and Eric has to get out of his costume. April sits on the bed waiting. Robby D farts a couple of times. Everybody laughs. The farting aspect to C-Men 2, it occurs to me, is perhaps partly autobiographical.

Eric is struggling with his costume. April is bored.

"Jonathan," Robby D, says to me. "Go keep April’s pussy wet."

Everybody laughs. April smiles at me. If only. Then Robby D asks me, "What position do you want them in?" He’s playing along at my being a guest-director, but I’m at a loss.

"Well, I think it would be hot if they’re doing missionary and her arms are above her head and he could gently hold her wrists down."

"Can’t do it," Robby D says. "Can’t show a woman being restrained. And at that angle we wouldn’t get penetration. This isn’t like the sex you have at home. You have to know the laws and you have to think of camera angles."

Eric gets out of his costume. April gives him a blowjob. He doesn’t wear a condom for the blowjob. Robby shoots at hard and soft angles. Eric’s cock is pretty big, but not too big, which I find reassuring. Robby D asks April for a stringer–a line of spit that runs from her mouth to Eric’s cock.

After the blowjob, Robby D tells April to do a "reverse cowgirl." This means she sits on his cock with her back to him. Eric puts on a condom and lubes it up. April sits on him and I watch his cock slide right in her, no resistance.

After a few minutes of this, they go to doggie-style, but April has to stop.

"It hurts," she says.

"You sound like my wife," says Shylar. He’s a skinny, longhaired, unshaven fellow.

"How is Catherine?" Jim, the monitor guy, asks Shylar.

"Her back is fucked up," says Shylar.

Mark the Saint brings April some lube. Eric remounts her. They keep shooting. Then Robby D tells Eric to do a FIP–a fake internal pop–for the softcore sequence, which means he pretends to come inside April. Then Robby tells him for the hard to pull out and "jack and pop on her back and ass." Eric pulls out, struggles with the condom, but then successfully jacks and pops on April’s ass. The photographer takes a few quick pictures of the come, then Mark the Saint gives Eric a paper towel. Eric cleans himself and April, which seems very nice to me.

Then they have to do some dialogue from the script. This is when April is supposed to aim her ass at Eric and give him Tourette’s. Robby D instructs April: "You’re a villain. Be animated."

"I can’t," says April.

"Yes, you can," says Robby D.

"I’m a porn star, not an actress," says April.

"Just be animated."

"I don’t know what animated means."

I’m not sure if April is joking or not. They shoot the scene.

Afterward I ask April if she enjoyed the sex.

"It was all right," she says. "I like sex with my boyfriend better. I like to grind. But for the camera you can’t grind. You have to show penetration and sometimes the angles hurt."

"What’s your boyfriend think of you being in porn?"

"He’s a mainstream actor. He doesn’t like it. We don’t talk about it."

I ask her how much longer she wants to stay in the business. She says five years and then she wants to start a family. She goes to take a shower and Mark the Saint says to me, "This is your first time on a porn set, right?"

"Yes."

"Did you have to leave when they were fucking?"

I figure that he thinks I might have needed to vomit, like someone going to a morgue for the first time–it was strange to see another man’s cock sliding in and out of a pussy. And the pussy looked so vulnerable–stretched open, punctured. "No, I didn’t have to leave," I say.

"I can’t believe you didn’t get wood," he says and walks away.

Oh, that’s what he meant, I think. I wonder if something is wrong with me that I didn’t get wood. The sex didn’t affect me at all. I just felt bad for April. There was nothing erotic about it for me. But if it was my penis going in April, then that would have been erotic. Then I would have gotten wood. At least I hope so.

•

"Do you like working in porn?" I ask. "Hell yeah," he says, smoking a cigarette. "I get to have sex and I get paid for it. Women hardly sleep with me in the real world, but here I get to fuck somebody like Cheyenne."

"Do you ever worry about not being able to perform?"

"Nah, I love sex. And if I need to I can always take a Viagra. But with Cheyenne I won’t need shit. Some guys shoot cayberjack in their dicks. If I did that I could fuck the whole crew."

"What’s cayberjack?"

"This shit that makes your dick hard."

"How do you spell it?"

"I don’t know." (It’s actually calledcaverject.)

"Are your friends like, ‘I can’t believe you’re a porn star’?"

"I’m not a porn star."

"You’re a porn actor?"

"Yeah."

"How come you’re not a star?"

"I’m not good-looking, I’m out of shape, I don’t have a big dick and I’m covered in tattoos."

•

Shylar, the production manager, has a sex toy: a white, plastic dildo with a viewer and a light–a periscope that you can put up a girl. He’s a shaggy-haired, unshaven fellow and he’s walking around the lounge with the thing. He’s a little depraved, but also sweet. He spots April.

"Hey, April, I want to look inside you," Shylar says.

"No way," says April. "That’s gross."

"Come on, I give you work all the time," whines Shylar–he hires the actors and the crew.

April goes with Shylar to the bathroom and Robby D joins them. They don’t fully close the door. I see Robby D kneeling in front of April and looking in the viewer. He sees me spying on him from between her legs and closes the door. On a porn set it’s hard, I imagine, for girls to complain about sexual harassment; it would be a kind of oxymoron.

Later, I spot Shylar. "What it look like inside April? Pink?"

"Yeah, but I couldn’t see much. But I can put that thing on eBay now and make some money if I wanted, especially with her pussy-juice on it."

•

Cheyenne is a wholesome, pretty brunette. They’re on a set meant to look like an auto shop. The auto shop is where Cheyenne and her evil bush piggies hang out. Marty is just a guy who comes to the shop; he’s not a superhero; after he has sex with Cheyenne he will blow up.

Marty and Cheyenne are on a couch doing reverse cowgirl. Shylar comes alongside me.

"Watch Robby D," he says, "he’s got a bad habit. He always grabs his dick."

Robby, while hoisting the camera with one hand, is massaging his dick with the other. It must be the way he stays interested.

Shylar and I watch Cheyenne move up and down on Marty, who doesn’t seem to have any balls.

"Is Marty castrated?" I whisper to Shylar.

"I don’t know," says Shylar. "There are a couple of guys in the industry with no balls."

Marty and Cheyenne switch to doggie-style and one of the crew whispers that Marty has acne scars on his ass. Poor Marty. He and Cheyenne keep fucking. Mark the Saint is sitting on the floor, his back against the wall–he’s sleeping.

Cheyenne is really screaming and moaning. Then Robby stops filming. Blood is pouring down Cheyenne’s leg. She’s having her period. Somebody wakes up Mark the Saint and he rushes over to her with a paper towel. Somebody says that towel could go for a lot on eBay.

I hear Cheyenne say to Marty, "You made me come and that opened things up, that’s why the blood came out." She has the same speaking voice as the actress Geena Davis. She goes to the bathroom to put in a new sponge. I learn that a lot of the girls, like Cheyenne, have orgasms. It’s not just the guys who enjoy the sex.

Cheyenne and Marty resume doggie-style. It’s time for the pop, but Marty can’t do it. The whole crew is waiting for him to come. The pop is kind of holy–the set always goes silent for the pop. Marty’s really struggling. Cheyenne tries to help him. She blows him, jacks him. At one point he just hugs her. He needs some tenderness.

The still photographer takes some pictures; he’s kneeling by Marty and Cheyenne. Robby D farts explosively on the squatting photographer’s head and the guy leaps up like he’s been electrocuted. Everybody laughs and moans, "Robbbbyyyyy..."

"I parted your hair with that one," Robby says.

"Fucking burned off my hair," says the photog.

Finally, after about 40 minutes, Marty’s ready. Robby D tells him to shoot on Cheyenne’s left ass-cheek and tells Cheyenne to arch her ass and give him a good target. Marty explodes. There’s a hell of a lot of sperm, which seems to make up for the delay. I figure that Marty must have balls somewhere to come that much.

Summary of the rest of Day 1.

•

Cheyenne, despite having her period and being sore, has sex scenes with two more guys and has several orgasms, she tells me. One of the guys, T.J. Cummings, is a young blond fellow. "I always play the delivery boy," he says.

Everyone badmouths T.J. behind his back because supposedly he’s appeared in gay porno films. "It’s just not socially acceptable to do gay films and straight films," says a cast member, who asks to not be identified.

Cheyenne’s other sex scene is with a big, burly fellow named Steven St. Croix, who laments that his porn career has ruined his chance to do mainstream work. Hours before their sex scene, Steven keeps going down on Cheyenne while they are shooting some dialogue. Robby D, who has been trying to set up the action, says, "What are you doing? Do you know how many dicks have been up there today?"

The whole crew laughs at Steve, but he smiles and keeps licking her. I happen to be standing right behind Cheyenne and can’t see her face, but from her posture she doesn’t seem offended by Robby D’s remark. Then Dale DaBone, one of the superhero porn stars, who looks just like Rob Lowe, says, "That’s why he keeps eating her pussy. He really wants to suck cock."

The whole day’s shooting lasts 14 hours. Around 9 p.m., Mark the Saint asks me again if I got wood. I lie and say that I did.

Day 2

9:10 a.m. Today they are shooting C-Men; same superheroes, but new female villains. Conversation in the dressing room with Fujiko, Mikotan and Mina, the three "bad pussies."

•

Fujiko, bad pussy #1, is a Japanese porn actress. I’ve been told that she’s only recently arrived in the U.S. She’s quite lovely, with a gorgeous oval face and very large, natural breasts. She’s wearing high heels and a fishnet body-stocking, and her cat makeup is already on.

"How long have you been in the U.S.?" I ask her.

"Two months. I have visa."

"I have a Citibank Visa," quips Mikotan, bad pussy #2, who is Asian-American, very beautiful, and is having her cat makeup applied. Mina, #3, sits quietly in another chair, waiting her turn.

I laugh at Mikotan’s remark, but keep talking to Fujiko. "How do you like doing porn here in the States?"

"Having so much fun here," she says, in her accented, more or less fluent English. "Japanese dick is purple. I like pink. Caucasian is pink. I can smell the difference between black, Caucasian, Asian."

"What do they smell like?" I ask.

"White like butter. Japanese–soy sauce. Korean–kimchi. Chinese–miso. Black like baby powder. I smell under the balls."

Then she says to me, pointing at my white eyebrows, "You’re so blond."

"It’s good for jogging at night," I say. "Natural reflector strips."

"But what color are you down there?" she says.

"Orange," I say.

All the girls shriek. Fujiko leaves the room. I ask Mikotan if I can interview her.

"Okay. But I don’t have to suck your cock. Unless I want to see your orange pubes."

I feel some wood developing, but I press on with my questions.

"So are you Japanese?"

"Half Japanese, quarter Chinese, quarter Samoan."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"How long have you been in porn?"

"Three years part-time. I’m really a computer programmer. Java, e-commerce, normal Asian girl stuff. Yada yada yada."

"Do you enjoy doing porn?"

"Yeah, I’m divorced and I don’t feel like dating, but I like to get laid once in a while, so if I’m going to have mindless sex, I might as well get paid."

Mikotan leaves the room and I’m left with Mina, who is very petite, less than 5 feet. She is adorable. She has full round breasts from implants, but they look good on her.

"How long have you been in the business?"

"This is my first film since 1995," she says.

"Why did you drop out?" I ask.

"It was very hard on my system, because I’m so small down there. I had lots of yeast infections–all that thrusting gets all the bacteria up there. So I only do girl-girl now."

"What have you been doing the last few years?"

"Just being married."

"Does your husband mind you doing porno?"

"No, he likes to watch me."

11:30 a.m. My dad comes to the set.

•

My dad shows up and I introduce him to the three bad pussies. He gets his picture taken with Mikotan and she puts his hand on her breast. He’s smiling broadly. He’s 73 years old, has a white beard like Hemingway’s and he’s wearing his dirty, yellowed baseball cap with pins from all the places he’s visited. With his hand on Mikotan’s breast, he says, "You’re warm."

"I’ve been working," she says.

We go and watch Kira–the star of C-Men–have sex with T.J. on a medical gurney. My dad is very quiet and respectful. It doesn’t seem too weird to be with my father–the sex is so clinical, impersonal.

Robby D is on a ladder above T.J. and Kira.

"Open up...say ahhh," Robby tells Kira, indicating she should spread her legs more and expose more of her vagina.

"Stop fucking like a pussy," he tells T.J. Everybody picks on T.J. His face is beet red. Probably from Viagra.

"I like girl-on-girl," my dad whispers to me.

Damn, I think, my dad likes what everybody likes. How typical.

"He should touch her breasts," my dad whispers.

"Yeah," I say. Kira’s breasts are unnaturally large from implants. She looks like the actress Tia Carrere.

Later, when they’re done, my dad says, "I’m exhausted just from watching. Your mother told me not to come home with any strange ideas." He sits down on the bed where Eric screwed April the day before.

I introduce my dad to Jim Fillmore, the head of lighting who could be Kris Kristofferson’s twin–he has iron-gray hair tied in a ponytail. "If anybody asks," Jim says to me, "tell them your dad is senior correspondent."

This gives me an idea: my dad should also write something about being on a porn set. I suggest this to him and he agrees to give it a try. "It’s role reversal," I say to my dad and Jim. "Father comes with son to work."

"Yeah, father comes with son," my dad says, and Jim laughs.

Later, my dad gets his picture taken with all three bad pussies. Mikotan says to the other girls, "He’s a married man. We can’t get him in trouble."

"Get me in trouble," says my dad. "Get me in trouble."

My dad comes away with a Polaroid of him and the girls. I walk him out to the parking lot. He’s going to make color xeroxes of the picture and send them to all his buddies in New Jersey. He calls my mom on his cellphone. "I’m all worn out," he tells her, "but I’m still alive. There were a lot of cables I could have tripped on."

4:20 p.m. Fujiko’s sex scene with Steven St. Croix.

•

Fujiko is giving the most incredible blowjob to Steven. She spits on it, rubs it up and down, twists it, just really goes at his cock with incredible gusto, and Steven is writhing in a chair, trying not to come. Robby D is playing with his cock vigorously the whole time. When it’s over he says to Fujiko, "What are you doing the rest of your life?"

"I’m available," she says, and wipes spit off her chin.

"Where’d you learn to suck cock like that?" Robby asks.

"In school. We train in Japan. I paid 400 American dollars to learn how to do this."

"I would have taught you for free," says Robby.

"Maybe she can teach Cheyenne," says Steven.

For the rest of the day everybody talks about Fujiko’s blowjob, and I think it’s interesting how in Japan they train their porn stars the way they train sushi chefs or sumo wrestlers–all very Zen.

Day 3

3:30 p.m. Conversation with Shylar while Kira has sex with Cheyne Collins, a big beefy guy, who will turn into a stuffed animal when they’re done.

After oral sex, Kira refuses to do anal with Cheyne, says he’s too big. Robby films them having regular intercourse.

"It’s in her contract to do anal every movie," Shylar tells me, "but she backs out almost every time. She’s only done two out of eight. So next year she’ll owe six anals, but you can’t force a girl. She’s got her own mind."

"How would you characterize the girls in the business?"

"All different kinds. All fucked up in the head, they have to be. Half are on drugs, a quarter have fucked-up childhoods, a quarter are normal and just like sex, but what’s normal? They get $800 for a boy/girl scene and $1000 for anal... These Asian girls are great, though, real slutty."

"Your percentages are low," says Jim the monitor guy, listening to us. "Seventy percent are fucked up from childhood, 20 percent are on drugs, 10 percent are normal."

Shylar nods in agreement with Jim’s adjusted tally.

"What about the guys? Are they fucked up?" I ask him.

"Yeah, they’re sex addicts. But we’re all fucked up in this business. We have to be. We’re all undedicated filmmakers. If we weren’t crazy we’d be in the mainstream. We’re right in Hollywood. We could be making good money... But I do like porn. You don’t have to be anal, you can be yourself, let it all hang out... Last night it got crazy, though. Steven was getting another blowjob from Fujiko and Dale was fucking Mikotan and Mina. And we weren’t even shooting. That usually doesn’t happen. I saw Mina’s husband looking for her. I tried to run interference. But he said he was going to watch Dale fuck his wife. He wanted to watch."

•

This scene really gets to me. Anne Marie is 20 years old and has only been in the business a few months. She looks like she’s 16. She’s utterly angelic–a beautiful, sweet face, large brown eyes, soft lush hair, olive skin and one of the prettiest, most perfect bodies I’ve ever seen. She’s a Latina from the Valley, just over the mountains from where we are shooting. She told me she wants to stay in the business a year, pick up some good money and then quit. She’s a bush piggy in C-Men 2.

"Do your parents know you do porn?"

"My mother knows. But what can she do? I’m on my own. My dad doesn’t know. He would freak."

"Do you date?" I ask her.

"Not really. It’s kind of lonely. Guys freak out. But I like porn. It’s pretty fun. You go to different locations, meet different people. I like the acting. And for a couple of hours I make really good money."

"Do you enjoy the sex?"

"It’s hard with people watching, but it feels good. And I always wondered about going with a girl and never would have if it wasn’t for porn."

Anne Marie tells me all her friends from high school already have one or two kids, so by comparison she’s not too wild, or at least she wasn’t in high school when they all started getting pregnant.

Anne Marie and Dale start their sex scene. They begin with a blowjob. Just as he turns on the camera, Robby turns to those of us watching and says in a sad, sincere whisper, "She’s too young. Somebody save this girl from herself."

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