5… 4… 3… 2… 1… GO!

Before you consider hiring a consultant, think about spending that money on a prostitute instead. Consultants and hookers are almost indistinguishable when thought about rationally.

1. They get paid by the hour.
2. They work from home, frequently half naked.
3. Expect to hear the sound of crying children if you call them unexpectedly.
4. They only take a shower if they are going to a meeting.
5. They never stop trying to persuade you to pay for extra services.
6. Cheap ones wear too much scent.
7. You’ll believe the expensive ones actually care about you.
8. How much they get paid depends on the quality of their presentation.
9. They all secretly want to settle down when the right opportunity arrives.
10. Whatever the size of your project they’ll swear they’ve seen bigger.

So what’s the difference?

A hooker makes a happy ending their responsibility, an MBA makes it yours.

That’s why this blog exists. I’m a recovering $400 an hour professional who would rather be a prostitute than a consultant. By giving my advice away I can ensure that the only thing you could possibly waste here is a little time.

I worked in the mainstream for many years before hesitantly moving into the world of pornography in the late nineties when it represented the bleeding edge of internet technology.

Things have changed since then. The adult market is suffering from a lack of new ideas, and more people than ever are interested in the bizz we call jizz.

This blog will:

1. Provide free consulting, ideas and advice to anyone who has, or is think of setting up, an adult (or digital media based) website.
2. Attempt to give some insight into the business side of a misunderstood multi-billion dollar industry and where it’s heading.
3. Explain how the website I’m developing will make the internet easier, cheaper and more profitable for producers and consumers of adult material.

This blog will not:

• Catalogue the health of my pets (none), what I like to watch on TV (The West Wing, Family Guy and Alias) or my drunken attempts to bed Eastern European models (too infrequent and depressing to mention).
• Include pictures of me or anyone/thing I’m in an intimate relationship with (unless it’s got a plug on it).
• Contain much actual pornography.

I also promise not to forget that bad blogs are what happens when you give a monkey a megaphone, or that the internet is the result of a typewriter having sex with a TV and a CB radio.

In short this blog will be ‘Business, never personal’ to quote the great EPMD.

Please add my feed to your reader and look for the first real post tomorrow. Email me if you want to say hi.

This Latvian florist should either change their name or start charging for photos.

Talking about naming your site before I’ve had a chance to talk about other reasons for getting into, or avoiding, the business of pleasure might seem like starting in the middle. It is, but if it works with a Jacuzzi full of twins it’ll work for the endless narrative that is a blog.

Naming anything nowadays means choosing a URL. No product or company can function without a website and in the world of porn the internet is arguably the most important channel. There are magazines without movies, movies without magazines and TV channels without stores but everyone has a website.

In the age of the internet names have largely replaced logos. Logos work best in situations when a name couldn’t be read, on the side of a truck seemingly abandoned in the middle of the pavement, or on a racing car selling kids cigarettes at 200 mph.

Count how many trucks you have and how many racing cars you sponsor. If that number is less than one forget about your logo. By the time you need one you’ll be able to overpay an angry man in a black roll-neck to design something you barely understand in colors you hate.

When someone tries to find your company’s website your name does the work of a traditional company’s building and the roads that lead to it. It should be your focus.

You’re limited in your naming options:

• Every useful single English word is owned already.
• Forget using punctuation unless you want to explain what a hyphen is, over the phone, to someone who do not speak the English so good.
• You can’t change spellings. Having a name people can pronounce is pointless if you spell it with a silent ‘qx’ combination.

That leaves words of your own invention, long names containing three or more words and portmanteaus - words made by combining two or more like PowerBook, SugarBank and, of course, MuleSchool.

Inventions are fine as long as the spelling is obvious. Google wasn’t a word until the website came along (though it’s based on one).You can spell Google after hearing it once and it reminds geeks of big things. On the downside, if a man in a Mountie’s hat with pockets full of bacon told you his web-directory was called “A boot” would you type “About” into a search engine? Of course not, you’d run away.

Inventions also tend to date faster than Lindsey Lohan at a wrap party (or that reference). During the dotcom boom every celebrity fronted pet-food delivery service was called Fazoom or Whackosmako.com. There’s nothing worse than whacky that doesn’t involve a trip to the clinic. Whacky names don’t say anything about the company they represent and conjure images of Whoopi Goldberg knee deep in kibble. Don’t do it.

Portmanteus can work really well - if you can find one that fits and hasn’t been used already. Ideally both halves of your name should fit your business and neither should be hard to spell. Portmanteaus great strength is being familiar and new simultaneously, explaining your business while blessing it with favorable associations. It’s also a fancy French word you can slowly explain to people who need to be taken down a peg or two. PowerBook’s the gold-standard example - it’s perfect for what it is. If
you can find a portmanteu which uses short, positive words, UseIt (I’m so, so clever…).

Long names aren’t used as often as they should be. They’re hard to get right, but have advantages shorter names don’t. “I can’t believe it’s not butter” is perfect, advertising copy and neuro-linguistic confirmation simultaneously. Good long names stand alone and their only obvious weakness is the need for punctuation and buy URL’s separated by hyphens and underscores in case AOL users type those into their address bar.

That said you’ll probably still have trouble finding an available URL.

One shortcut to a good URL available which includes the keywords you want is an expiring domains engine. These tools show you a themed list of names other people are allowing to expire. You’d be surprised at what’s out there. Start at DomainsBot (a portmanteau obviously).

Adult websites should be wary of using explicit words in their name. Spam filters, porn filters, nosy bosses and keystroke loggers will automatically flag most words connected to sex and sexuality - in the dumbest way as AIDS and breast cancer charities have long known.

Explicit names don’t do much to drive traffic. The people who search on four letter words are the same people who look them up in the dictionary, and how many times do I have to tell you that you can’t surf the web until your homework’s finished?

The final nail in the coffin of explicit names is they’re hard to live with. When the employer listed on your work VISA is listed as ‘Mister Sister Motherfister’ customs gets interesting. As your business interests grow it’s nice to have a name that’s not mired in the past (unlike all those companies whose names start with ‘i’ and ‘cyber’ because it sounded cool after their dorm’s ‘Lawnmower Man’ marathon.)

Seth’s been talking about stories and good names tell stories (his new book, "All Marketers Are Liars" is succinct and brilliant and his ability to be both consistently is starting to get to me). The adult industry’s littered with great examples: Playboy, Wicked Pictures, Digital Playground, CamContacts all set a tone and tell a story without being obscene.

The name of your website should tell visitors the story you hope they’re going to tell other people when they’ve seen it. If you can do that, you can communicate with people who never bother to click a link.

Of course more people will be more inclined to click your links when they know something of what you do before they see your homepage. That’s a good thing. Like the time my town banned dancing but I managed to persuade them to change their mind in time for the senior prom.

Happy hunting. Email me with any questions, comments or complaints.

This is a metaphor. See what I’ve done here?

Getting into the adult industry is easy (for women). Anyone including your dead grandmother can find someone who will pay to experience their sexuality (burials are easy, cremations are a little more difficult).

There are four reasons people decided to strip, or have sex, on camera.

1. Security
2. Fame
3. Sex
4. Stupidity

They’re the same motivations which drive all human effort, except for dating Tom Cruise which is driven by a publicist’s need to ensure everyone that he’s not gay.

If you’re modeling, launching an adult website, or trying to get into skin flicks you have to make your own mind up why. I’m not going to help you.

Stop crying.

A lot of people have made the choice before you, and anyone who’s spent time in the business can tell you some reasons are better than others. Here’s a brief analysis of the biggies (as my doctor’s so fond of saying).

Security
Financial security is the reason that 99% of people get into the adult industry as talent (performers, regardless of contrary evidence, are referred to as talent).

When you’ve got nothing else to sell and you need money, the jizz bizz can pay in cash on the day you start. You can make a lot of money, and you don’t need no stinking white-man’s GED.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Other difficult jobs that require few qualifications and pay well include:

• Airbrushing Jennifer Lopez’s facial hair out of photographs
• Draining liberals of their blood for Anne Coulter to feast on at midnight
• Finding and killing George Bush’s illegitimate children

Security also comes from a sense of place. The adult industry is small. A few thousand people in Southern California represent the majority of it, and most of them know each other (often, but not always, in the biblical sense of the word.)

FACT: There are more astronauts in the US than professional male porn performers.

The porn industry also beat NASA to shooting sex in zero gravity and did it without government funding, or a rocket. The only thing that exploded was Nick Lang.

There is a camaraderie in porn built on shared common experience and outsider status. If you embrace it, the adult industry can provide a uniquely non-judgmental surrogate family who’ll only literally fuck you, leaving the mental fucking over for your blood relatives to continue.

Insecurities are easy to forget in the adult industry. Lack of self confidence is easy to put aside when fans (fans = benign stalkers) send you love letters, marriage proposals and disturbingly large bags of their collected emissions because they adore you. That strangely tacky mail makes you feel good.

Fame
Fame is normally hard earned. It can come from achievement, luck or notoriety.

That’s a problem:

• Achievement requires years of work
• Luck can’t be depended on
• Notoriety too often involves confronting a SWAT team on the six o’clock news

In reality, most people don’t want to be famous. Being famous means not being able to go shopping without being hassled, and having the minute details of your life on public display.

Most of us want to live like the heir to a fortune; doing no real work while living a glamorous lifestyle, going to cool parties and having a name certain people will be impressed by. It’s about being Paris Hilton - minus the blue-contacts, plastic surgery and root-vegetable IQ.

She’s also the exception to the rule of course, a billionaire heiress who chose to make a porn film and then exploit her notoriety (a word she can’t spell or say) and the public’s stunning lack of taste in blondes.

Being in the adult business means instant underground cool, limited fame and sincere adulation. It’s also a chance to find out who’s pretending to be a bohemian and is going to make out with some golfing cretin while you’re on vacation because it’s New Year and I find your job really threatening Sam. What a crock of shit Madeline.

Unlike Angelina Jolie, the most famous woman in porn can dress down, slip back into the crowd and go to the mall when she wants to. Fame on demand is the best kind to have. You can silence anyone hassling you by saying that you’ve only made one movie - an all-transsexual musical set on a riverboat, called ‘The Cleveland Steamer‘.

Sex
The production of gentlemen’s entertainment allows some performers to fulfill certain sexual desires that would be impossible to realize in any other environment.

Those one hundred and twenty men who had dreamed of having sex with Houston, only after she’d had sex five hundred times previously that day, reached for that star on the set of ‘The Houston 620′.

Cum-drunk girls from small towns had a chance to make an instructional DVD about their condition when the director of ‘Teenage Spermaholic’, came calling.

The only unique sexual benefit offered by the adult industry is the chance for wide-scale exhibitionism. Even if you crave being on display, there are downsides to sex on camera.

Everything you see in movies you can do at a swingers club, or after-hours at that Jiffy-Lube on Jefferson (ask for Manny). There’s an increased risk of STD’s and you’re never going to get elected to public office as long as Fox News is still on the air. Worst of all, the mechanical sex performers have on set, stopping to move lights and legs, eventually gets boring for almost everybody.

The softcore end of the adult industry offers no sex at all (but involvement in it means you’ll never be short of offers.)

Sex is a really bad reason for getting into the sex business.

Stupidity
Stupid reasons for making material over which viewers make yoghurt Pollack’s are as common as zits in the McDonalds break room.

A few favorites are:

• “No one will ever find out and I really need the cash.”
• Being pressured by somone else
• To satisfy your self-loathing
• To fund a drug habit
• Because you were drunk
• “Hey Mr! You missed my exit. You said you were driving me to Chicago.”

Getting involved in porn is a decision you can’t undo.

I’ve seen every documentary on porn ever made and been in more than half of them. They’re always about junkies, idiots, abuse, junkie-idiots and abused junkie-idiots. It’s not true. You can be healthy, wealthy and wise and work in the sex trade. You just have to know what you’re getting into, set your own limits and never pay for your boyfriend’s demo. That band’s not going anywhere.

Nick Denton’s feelings about sex are complex.

Heather Green at BusinessWeek has written a great post on blogging. In a nutshell blog posts work best, when, like bowel movements and elections, when they’re easy, brief and regular.

In the article she references Tristan Louis at TNL.net, who got my attention when he wrote:

“…the top three blogs in the Gawker empire (beyond the porn-oriented Fleshbot) are Gizmodo, Gawker, and Defamer.”

Why were they ignoring the porn blog? The wannabe private dick (who’s a sex machine to all the chicks) in me, knew I had to investigate:

"I pulled a cigarette from my hatband, promising myself to never date another dame who wasn’t alive when they bottled my whiskey. Kicking my browser into life I saw that the pageview figures for Fleshbot, unlike those for all the other Gawker sites, aren’t public.

Something smelled fishy, as I had ham for lunch I knew it wasn’t me. The uniforms at the precinct were schmos and the gumshows liked to ask questions I couldn’t answer. I knew I’d have to handle the case of the lost log reports alone. I threw the rest of the whiskey away, enjoyed the burning for a moment, and hit the wires…"

I found the source of Tristan’s information, an interview with Lockheart Steele, the managing editor of Gawker media. Lockheart Steele is the kind of porn name you’d remove from a script for being too obvious, but that’s beside the point. In the interview Steele has  the following exchange:

"Q: Which Gawker Media blog gets the most traffic?

Steele: Would you believe our porn site, Fleshbot? Actually, Gizmodo, our gadget site, is a close No. 2.

Q: Is porn is still the top draw on the Net?

Steele: The guy who does Fleshbot is a genius writer. The whole point of the site is to link to porn in a kind of erudite way. So it’s not as unseemly as it sounds.

Q: Are you saying that people visit Fleshbot for the articles?

Steele: Yeah, exactly. [laughter]"

In the same interview Steele admits the most popular story they’ve ever run anywhere was on Paris Hilton’s Sidekick being hacked - another porn story.

So the guys and girls at Gawker are happy to profit from porn but feel a bit embarrassed to be public about it being the core of their business? Depressingly typical.

I’d guess that the page views for Fleshbot utterly destroy the figures for the other Gawker blogs. People (and you might want to sit down when you read this) are more interested in hot people doing each other than gossip and gadgets.

What’s the moral of this story?

1. Porn looks set to dominate blogging for profit the same way it has the web
2. Never underestimate the appeal of breasts
3. Nick ‘Gawker’ Denton - stop trying to skirt the truth that your biggest profit center is a sex site

Paedophiles love Coca-Cola. Thanks for the warning.

Gapingvoid.com, is not pornographic but sounds as if it should be, and has some pithy thoughts on blogvertising.

Despite being a made up word, and most of them taste like a mouthful of menthols, vinegar and cork to me, blogvertising has some value. Traditional advertising is dead (Email, Web and I did it. We were drunk, things got out of hand) and advertising is going through a process of valmorification.

Most adult websites are stuck in the seventies, hiding content behind tours that look like discos designed by men in floppy shirts for couples on roller-skates.

Tours are ads, and anyone born after 1950 doesn’t believe anything said by ads, the government or people born before 1950.

Samples are cool but they don’t make a tour into something else. What impresses customers is a story - a puffed-up testimonial, built on a story that sounds true told by someone you trust.

Tours don’t provide stories or dialogue. They ask you for money. LIKE THIS!!!! They’re a scary porn cliche. Does anything say “Thanks for the creditcard info, now I’m going to rob you” like a flash-laden tour?

There is a better way. Kill the ads/tours, highlight the samples and LEAVE THE SHOUTING TO OWEN MEANY. Blogs are personal and conversational which is why even corporate blogs have more character than traditional websites.

You don’t need a blog in order to learn from them. People visit blogs because they like what they see. Tours are ads you try to force viewers to read against their better judgment. People like porn and seek it out. Advertising is exactly what’s not needed.

Entertain, amuse and talk to your visitors and forget about selling to them. No one needs to be told to ‘click here’ more than once if your site’s well designed, or ‘buy now’ if they want what you have to sell. Dialogue is foreplay and ads are getting felt up by someone shouting “Where’s your money?”

Like the punchline says - be the bull that walks down the hill and fucks all the cows. (Amazingly - my uncle was actually teaching me something when he told that joke.)

If the people you’re talking to like you they’ll trust you, and might believe you and when you tell them something’s worth doing, buying or checking out.

Prison. Where you don’t want to wind up.

The adult industry is dealing with the recent announcement of revised 2257 regulations. ‘2257′ is shorthand used for a set of rules instituted in the late eighties, as a direct result of the Traci Lords scandal and the Meese Commission. The current regulations were drafted without thought for the internet and announced changes are supposed to make them current.

They rules were drafted to make doing what Traci Lords did, faking an ID and making 107 porn movies between the ages of 15 and 18, almost impossible.

They worked. Any casual reading of the news since the Lords story broke will show that the use of underage performers in professional porn production in the US has been consistently kept at zero. A success that’s been the result of the industry policing itself.

Only adult companies need to keep records of course. If you want child pornography look for Traci Lords at eBay, you’ll find plenty of magazines, tapes and photos for sale featuring pornographic images of Lords made when she was a teenager.

The 2257 regulations need revision, but the changes which will become law on July 3rd don’t help make the porn industry, which has an almost perfect track record for protecting minors, any better. They’re a transparent attempt to make producing explicit sexual material harder.

Children are exploited, abused and raped in America every day - most often by their parents. The new regulations are an attempt to punish what some people in power see as immoral behavior by exploiting an imagined connection between porn and child abuse.

The new regulations carry a ten year prison sentence per violation, and the record-keeping requirements need to be met for any material produced since 1995.

Raids will come and people will go to jail; not for exploiting children, but for failing to keep records that weren’t the law when they made the material they own. The government’s telling the adult industry to destroy vast quantities of legal material or go to prison.

The same people are trying to undo two hundred years of scientific progress, and are telling parents that they can’t teach their children non-Christian religious beliefs within their own home.

Freedom of expression, and the freedom not to be indoctrinated, is a right. Some people in our government don’t seem to think so.

I was raised on radio. Then I built this city… on Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Podcasting is not a revolutionary technology, though Neil Dixon and Om Malik disagree with me, and they’re both smart guys. Is it a coincidence that podcasting’s main advocate used to be on MTV, and is now using his online fame to re-launch a radio career? Is Tom Cruise gay?

It’s pretty easy to write a words that are sounding like the good English.

Making a radio show (which is what a podcast is) is hard, even if you have the tools:

• You have to know how to edit
• You have to find original music (or steal it and risk getting caught)
• You have to sound good (unless you present bookworm on NPR, then you can sound as nasal as you like. Michael Silverblatt should lay off the coke.)

If your podcast’s production values are low, people raised on MTV and action movies aren’t going to stick around. Good production values are why I’d rather see Brad Pitt kick someone’s head off, while Angelina Jolie slowly licks her lips in close-up (excuse me - I need a masturbation break) than watch, you know, intelligent movies and shit.

Podnography could be huge.

Sexy letters in porn magazines are great, and women love ‘erotica’ even more than men. There’s got to be a market for downloadable, sexy MP3’s I can listen to on my iPod.

Even with a video capable cell-phone, it’s too embarrassing to be caught watching ‘Eat Me in St. Louis’ on the train to be fun. You’ll be able to discretely listen to Podnography anywhere you want.

It’ll be easy to produce too.

No music is necessary for porn (maybe some solo bass guitar with a wah-wah effect), and anyone with a good voice and a creative streak can write it. Penthouse letters page, for all its other virtues, never got far past ‘I just gave a serious deep-dicking to the twins next door’. What about women? Just throw in a soldier on a horse and talk about what everyone in the castle is wearing before you get to the sex.

So where is it? Where’s my podnography?

It’s a killer promotional tool.

• Edit down the sound from your latest movie and give it away as a ‘Podnographic Preview’ on BitTorrent.
• Record a sexy message and let it circulate promoting you and your website.
• Take requests and sell exclusive mp3’s to ‘collectors’ and other sinners.

Seriously - go make some podnography. This idea’s so good, and came so easy, I kind of think all that "Einstein was a genius" stuff was exaggerated now.

Email me any you make and I’ll review it here immediately (just don’t write to tell me there’s a sex category on ipodder.org - it’s empty).

Seconds after this was taken you couldn’t see the grass for man-fat.

Beautiful Agony, like Slashdot, is a niche fetish site concerned primarily with masturbation.

Two things make it remarkable.

• It eschews nudity for video of people’s faces.
• It features men - uploading DNA, and women - texting themselves to heaven, side by side.

The adult industry has historically believed that women don’t watch porn. The few that do were catered to with attempts to make ‘couples friendly’ material, which has always looked like a collaboration between Stevie Wonder (Director of Photography) and Kenny G (Score).

Porn for straight women was seen as too gay to show men. It’s been assumed that any who accidentally saw it would reach for the off switch faster than a teenage boy caught watching MPEG’s of his grandfather masturbate. By the Pope.

But Beautiful Agony appears to be doing well. Have customers got more open-minded? Smarter? Gayer?

Who cares?

If a site like Beautiful Agony can create adult material which appeals to people of both sexes, without turning most people off, they can sell to women as well as men and therefore sell twice as much.

A smart way to put dollars on the bottom line without doing any additional marketing at all.

Kiss my ass. He wants to kiss you too.

“During a brief orbit of planet smut today, I noticed that, despite being well stocked with ass, the adult world hasn’t caught on to RSS yet.”

(Rimshot. The crowd claps politely)

“Thanks folks but seriously…”

RSS allows you to provide updates of what’s going on at your website, without having to ask for an email address. No one feels good about giving their email to an adult site. RSS makes collecting email addresses redundant.

A year ago RSS was the future, now it’s here and tomorrow you’ll look a little silly for not offering an RSS feed. The more often you update, the more sense RSS makes, and RSS works for any content which changes frequently.

Since I started using an RSS reader, the number of sites I visit regularly that don’t offer RSS has dropped almost to zero. I know I’m not alone and adult websites update all the time. Why isn’t RSS everywhere? It’s free.

Now back to the show.

“FLY ME!… to the moon… Thanks you’re wonderful… Shoot me to the stars…”

If you want people to look you in the eyse without laughing, consider your porn name carefully.

We’ve all heard about making up a porn name by combining our pet’s name with the street we grew up on but since 1986 that’s been illegal. Seriously, try it and porn commandos will bury up to the neck in sand and bukkake on you until you apologize.

A professional name is a serious thing. You have to live with it, it’s your calling card and it has to grow as you do. It’s also the first major decision you make on entering the industry, and shouldn’t be made when confronted with a release form in a photographers studio. If you leave it until then you’ll end up with a name the photographer came up with. You don’t want that, get any jizz bizz professional drunk enough and they’ll rattle off a list of ridiculous porn names they’d love to saddle someone with.

A number of European performers use their real names, though it’s rare in the US (a dissertation on guilt and morality is waiting to be written on that). The problems with using your real name are:

1. It may not be memorable.
2. You probably won’t be able to buy it as a URL for your website.
3. You won’t be able to check into a hotel without getting calls from horny fans who know you’re in town.
4. If you have children they’re going to have to justify your lifestyle every day in school. Of course, if you home school your kids and work in the adult industry, your kids are social outcasts already. Go back to worrying about Arab homosexuals with AIDS being paid, with your tax dollars, to take our guns away and force us all to be Buddhists.

Like everyone else in the public eye, including William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (so named because he’ll drop trou’ for a dollar), you also want a porn name to create an impression.

Newcomers frequently try to choose names that sound similar to other performers they admire. That’s a mistake.

The more successful you become, the shorter your name will become. We naturally shorten names because we like the people we’re referring to. It feels friendly and the public’s reliable ability to sniff out killers and pederasts before they’ve done anything obviously wrong is why Michael Jackson, even at the height of his fame, was never just Michael, why O.J Simpson never lost the Simpson, and why Jack the Ripper was never simply Rip.

If I say Jennifer, Brad or Angelina you’ll think of specific individuals (naked, a messy pile of limbs, oil everywhere - or is that just me?). If your chosen name is shared with someone more famous than you it’s a certainty that you’ll be mistaken for them in print. In the porn industry any names which include: Ron, Jenna, Danni, Tera, Nina, Seka, Aria, Veronika (and many, many more) are going to be an uphill battle.

Some amateur website owners try to solve the problem of having a non-unique name, and a decent URL, by tying a description of what they like to do the name they want. It’s where we got ExtremeHolly.com (she’s extreme) and NaughtyAlysha.com (a very naughty lady) from.

NB: If you’re going to visit either of those URLs remember there are some things you can’t un-see.

The problem with descriptive names is that they can be restrictive and give the impression you’re a one trick pony. Flexible names are as desirable as flexible dates.

Unless you’re looking for legal bills don’t choose anything that includes a trademarked phrase. That means you Dr. Whopper (catchphrase - Extra mayo? UARRRGH!)

Most importantly, choose your name before your first professional engagement and choose carefully. Some directors refuse to put ‘cheesy’ names on their boxes and I know models who are called different things according to where they appear because of that. Name changes are a marketing nightmare.

Don’t tell anyone your professional name until you’ve bought a URL, and perhaps started a trademark application. Otherwise when you try to buy that domain you might discover someone else is pretending to be you. Unfortunately it still happens a lot.

Personally, I love names with a touch of retro humor. Beverly Center, Dana Point, Jerry Curl and Bill O’Goods are all high on my list of too-good-not-to-be-used porn names. Which is why I’ll never venture in front of the camera (besides, until wide angle lens technology catches up with my size I’m doomed to appearing blurry.)

The key to picking a great professional name for the adult industry is to forget you’re in the adult industry at all. The best-known nude models and performers have names that would work just as well if they were fronting a rock band or acting in mainstream movies. Your name shouldn’t be something you might ever be ashamed of - you’ll have enough prejudice to counter if you become successful.

Even if you leave the adult world, think how much easier it’ll be to discuss your ‘lost’ past and religious conversion if you don’t have to refer to your former self as ‘Goldie Cumfish’.

Pick something that sounds cool and is non-porn specific. By the time people see your website they’ll be aware of what you’re involved in. If your name sounds ‘porny’ it’ll only make you seem cheesy and out of date.

Rule #1 - Porn and cheese don’t mix.

Mandy Taylor.

SugarBank is a resource for people thinking of getting into the adult business as well as people who’ve already taken the plunge.

The problem with getting into porn is knowing where to start - and where to stop of course (That was unexpectedly deep… heavy, very heavy.)

The best way to find out if it’s right for you is to speak to people who’ve  been through the mill. Unfortunately most adult interviews are either pure titillation or pure hype.

I’ve asked a few people in the industry to talk about their experiences in, and thoughts about, the jizz bizz.

Honestly.

The first person to respond to my request for help, and therefore a hero you should all worship as a divinity, is Mandy Taylor.

Sam Sugar: Thanks for your time Mandy. Firstly who is Mandy Taylor, where’s she from and what should we know about her?

Mandy Taylor: Who am I? Probably what you least expect! I am from Chicago and it’s currently where I reside.

I am a very hard core gamer! And I don’t mean solitaire and Pogo.com! My game of the moment is an online multi-player role-playing game, World of Warcraft.

My list of gaming credentials includes Asheron’s Call, Asheron’s Call 2, Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, EverQuest 2 and Shadowbane among many others. No one can tear me away from my games! In fact I’m marrying the hard core gamer of my dreams in August. You gotta be able to PVP (player vs. player) to marry me!

I am not the typical party girl that many porno girls are. I prefer to stay in and game, or watch DVDs in the comfort of my bed. Why waste the money to sit in a cold movie theater, in uncomfy chairs, when I could be in bed, without people talking, enjoying a smoke?

I am a very independent person and I can hold my own. My father taught me a lot about cars and I can fix just about anything, so I’m not stranded, staring at the jumper cables, wondering "What the fuck are these?"

SS: When did you first get involved in the adult industry?

MT: I first got involved in the industry at 19, after I moved in with my first boyfriend and realized men jack off! I was young had no fricken’ clue it was so common. His poison was webcam shows. I would sit and think… how perfect for those girls, they cum and get paid for it. It’s not fair!

So I "stalked" some girls online, grilling them about how to start doing it myself. Eventually I got offers from amateur sites.

SS: What’s the story behind your porn name?

MT: I started out doing some amateur stuff and picked a name at random. I started as Vanessa but when I worked for pantyhoseaddict.com and they decided I looked more like a Mandy. So I then I was Mandy, and I wanted a normal last name and, well… Taylor sounded cute!

SS: What was your first experience in the industry like?

MT: My first experience in the Pro industry, in California, was scary! I had a horrible suitcase pimp, James Dominic, whose specialty was making girls cry, threatening to break girls legs, and sending porno tapes home to their parents. He was very strict. He wouldn’t let me talk to other talent and made sure I knew nothing.

My first scene was a boy boy-girl-girl anal, double vaginal scene. I had no clue till I got there what I would be doing.

(NB: that means two men and Mandy in a scene that includes anal sex and simultaneous vaginal penetration from two men)

I had never done anal before. I didn’t even know how much I was getting paid.

I pretended to be sick because James would not let me fly back home. He went out to eat, I stayed in, and Leonard from Pretty Girl International (PGI) came to rescue me. I’m truly thankful for all their help. They kept me in-the-know and booked me (on) some jobs. (They also) returned me home safely.

SS: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started?

MT: I wish I had more common sense when I first started. Maybe learned a bit more about the industry before heading out to LA. Now that I know the industry, I love it.

SS: How did your friends and relatives react to knowing you work in the industry?

MT: My dad is actually pretty cool with it. He thinks his little girl is going to be famous - HAHAHA, sure Dad!!!

My mom just shakes her head but understands I do what I wanna do.

Everyone else thinks it kicks ass!

SS: What’s the best thing about the industry?

MT: All the traveling I get to do. I have been to 34 states, mostly by plane, but I love those long road trips with my model friends.

SS: What’ the worst thing about the industry?

MT: The lack of information available to the new girls. AIM Health Care Foundation has a tape that everyone gets when they enter the industry and tests (with) them. At least they’re trying to educate people.

And, of course, all those damned suitcase pimps!

SS: Where do you see yourself in five years?

MT: I don’t see my self in front of the camera. I am starting to do more behind the scenes now and have started a fetish business with my friend Jeff.

We’re shooting content and getting ready for our site opening. It’s very exciting! I also help find other girls work in the Midwest, and help girls starting in the business. I make sure they don’t do the same twity things I did.

SS: Who do you think is the most influential/important person in the adult industry and why?

MT: I would have to say Shane, Beth and Leonard at PGI. They were so kind to me and showed me a different side of the industry. Whenever I am at their house it feels like a home away from home!

SS: Which piece of work are you most proud of and why?

MT: Tough choice. Either ‘Babydoll BodyGuards’ - because my ass looks rocking as I am walking up the stairs in my cop uniform, or American Bukkake 24 simply because… 59 loads!!!

My favorite shoot was MouthMeat 2. Insane. I love the crazy stuff.

SS: What in your adult career do you wish you hadn’t done?

MT: Hmmm…. I wish… Oh hell I don’t know… I never took a job I didn’t feel comfy doing.

SS: What would you tell someone considering a career in the adult business?

MT: STDS! STDS! No one wants to tell you that half the people in porn have herpes. No one tells you that your 90% likely to get an STD in the first couple of weeks (laughing).

Be sure you know what your doing, and know the reality of being in porn. It’s not all pretty. Giving yourself an enema before every anal scene - which could mean 3-5 times a week… IS NOT FUN! (laughing). It’s not all glam.

SS: What do you think is the biggest myth about the adult industry?

MT: That it’s all so easy and perfect. Like I said before. It’s not glam, and if you’re in the industry count on catching something at some point in time! I don’t know how many times I am sitting down talking to porn whores and hearing what itches and what antibiotics they had to take.

SS: What’s surprised you most about working in the industry?

MT: People are twisted. But twisted is good for sex (laughs). JM Productions… Gotta love those men!

SS: When and how do you plan to leave the industry?

MT: I have already stopped doing most Pro work. I am working on a new business as I stated earlier (crosses fingers).

If all else fails - back to school!

SS: What are you working on currently?

MT: I am working on www.mandyxxxtaylor.com and www.headscizzor.com

MandyXXXTaylor is for the webcam shows I do. I have always done cam shows and have no plans to quit.

HeadScizzor is my new business venture.

I am learning how to build websites - you should have seen them when I first started. Horrible! I am getting better and am actually learning new stuff. Trial and error right?

SS: Right, trial and error works for me. Thanks Mandy.

Flame on…

The sex industry has a crappy reputation and gets appalling press. A lot of that’s due to prejudice and misrepresentation. The rest is due to stupidity.

Misrepresentation we can’t do anything about. Stupidity we can. Here are ten things to avoid is you want to get better publicity, more often.

(Flame on)

Don’t endanger performers: The BDSM community handles people’s wildly different sexual fetishes, without being judgmental, by saying anything’s okay if it’s safe, sane and consensual:

• Safe = People shouldn’t put others at risk
• Sane = People shouldn’t put themselves at risk due to stupidity or naivete
• Consensual = Everyone involved has to agree to everything they’re involved in

Consent alone isn’t enough. Consenting to some things doesn’t mean consenting to anything. I consented to seeing ‘Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace’ back in 1999. Sure I knew it was going to have some kids stuff in it, but I didn’t know how bad a movie could be back then - I was young. No one told me about Jar Jar Binks.

In every other branch of the entertainment industry, what appears to be dangerous is simulated. The adult industry has to start doing the same.

Don’t lie: I recently read a piece in which a well known adult performer discussed being too busy to follow through on the mainstream movie offers that land on her doorstep, every week apparently.

Bullshit.

To expect people to believe than a porn actress turned down a speaking role in a (real) movie, so they could film spend the day in a warehouse in San Fernando shooting ‘Put It All In There Right Now - 14′, is ridiculous.

If good offers of real parts existed they’d be going to Jenna Jameson and she’d take one occasionally. The roles adult performers get offered are cameos as porn stars and strippers. They pay $250 for the day and you have to date the director. I know - I used to get the calls.

Don’t lie. Didn’t Mr. T teach you anything?

Don’t steal: If you’re going to advertise that your website’s free, and say you need a credit card to authenticate age, and you later charge people who’ve signed on for a free trial for a membership, you are a liar and a thief.

It’s the seller’s responsibility to make things clear, not the customers job to analyze the fine print.

The enduring popularity of ‘fine-print scams’ are the reason people begin think that browsing adult websites is a leading cause of cancer.

Anything that damages customers trust costs you, and everyone else, money.

Don’t copy (as much): The world’s not out of ideas but the adult world can seem as if it is.

Sex is at the center of porn in the same way that violence is at the center of ‘action’ movies. It provides space for limitless variation. Where’s porn’s Alias? Die Hard? Stanford and Son? (actually I think I saw a porn take on Stanford and Son once, it wasn’t pretty).

Do something new, people want to be entertained and the things being copied were new ideas once. Get some.

Don’t pretend it’s real: Reality porn is now less convincing than the pizza-delivery scenario so well-loved in the seventies and eighties. What’s the point of labeling things ‘reality’ when everything’s been staged? How does that differ from badly acted drama?

If you want to shoot reality work out a way to do it that works. Stop pretending that you’re picking people up people too stupid to ask why the guy who’s talking to them goes by the name ‘MILF Assassin’ and is holding a camcorder.

Don’t call women sluts and whores: The current popularity in the porn industry for calling female performers sluts, whores and tramps is as misguided as rappers calling each other nigger. (Don’t believe me? Think that ‘nigga’s’ okay now? Shout it at some black people and see if anyone’s offended. I don’t care who you are. If Justin Timberlake called Snoop nigger, Snoop would fuck him up.)

There’s nothing empowering about encouraging people who think you’re worthless, to refer to you as if you are.

Verbal degradation is a particular fetish some people share and many don’t. When did the industry decide that most of us were into it?

Don’t become obsessed with sodomy: Women have entirely different genitals from men. That’s good. The vagina is the perfect reproductive and sexual organ - why trade it for an orifice women share with your grandfather.

I’m not homophobe but if I want to watch a close-up or a penis entering an asshole I’ll watch gay porn - ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ or something.

At one time wasn’t an emphasis on sodomy the difference between straight and gay porn anyway?

Don’t piss on people: Penthouse famously led us down this golden pathway, ostensibly satisfying a fetish of Bob Guccione (Bob if that’s not true - apologies).

It’s not that peeing is horrifying or even particularly gross (though drinking it’s a bit odd). It’s just why? When I see a beautiful women in a bar I don’t think ‘Hmmm, she’d look great with her mouth full of my lemonade’ - I’m not R Kelly.

Taking a pee is not a sexy event for most people.

Don’t pretend you’re a pimp: You know who you are webmasters.

You spend your life in front of a keyboard. As a teenager dates were a problem. The most attractive woman you know pays you to run her website. You like Linux. You go online to play computer games with other chubby men. You have never been arrested. Any competent tarmac technician could, and would, kick your ass. You’re white. You are not a pimp. Shut up about it.

Don’t court bad publicity: The two groups of people who say ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’ are idiots and incompetent publicists (these groups crossover). Don’t believe it and remember that you can say no occasionally.

If you’re unsure what bad publicity might be, think about anything that gets you attention without making you money or more popular.

Don’t defend everything: The adult industry won’t succeed in protecting its right to free speech by trying to force the public to accept whatever the most degenerate people in the industry can think up. Even the NRA distance themselves from people who use guns to shoot people at random from their car.

When people are hurt the free-speech argument is superseded, in the same way it is when a protest against a minority group devolves into a physical attack.

Some things, like the fifth season of the West Wing, aren’t worth defending. Let them rot.

(Flame off)

Sexy isn’t it?

I was having a conversation with a friend recently who made the fatal mistake of complimenting my web-coding skills (not as deadly a mistake as killing my Sensei but that’s another story).

I’m proud to say that I have no skills at all.

I can throw together a site if I need to, but only because I have to. I teach myself what I need to know whenever it’s necessary. Wax on, wax off.

I believe that we’re at the same point with websites as we were before word-processors went to a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) model.

I’m barely old enough to remember, but there was a time when all word-processor documents looked the same. If you wanted to make a piece of text bold you wrote something like:

[Start bold] Hello [End bold]

That’s exactly how web design is now. It’s about to go WYSIWYG, and knowing all those codes is going to be something to bore strangers with at Star Trek conventions.

A lot of software claims to offer a WYSIWYG web design interface now but I challenge anyone to build a website using that alone. Even if you can, you still have to geek-out uploading what you’ve made and the software costs $400.

The stuff going on at 37 Signals is a sign of things to come. You can use their websites to build good-looking web-pages without having the faintest idea what you’re doing technically. The resulting pages look great.

I told my friend not to bother to learn anything. She should hire a geek for the next year and wait for the software to improve. I told her that learning to code HTML/CSS is a waste of energy unless you want to be a professional web designer.

Then I told her she’d die in the arms of a man called Nathaniel Drake. That was pretty spooky.

Building web-pages is going to get as easy as Paris Hilton. Learn what you need and leave the geeking to specialists.

Bound, gagged, free?

Yesterday the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the creation of a ‘.xxx’ domain.

This is a transparent attempt by ICM Registry, who’ve spent $1.5 million lobbying for ‘.xxx’ since 2000, to make a lot of money. They have sponsored and created the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR) to collect the cash.

The idea is that ‘.xxx’ webmasters will voluntarily sign a charter regulating their behavior and therefore behave more responsibly.

More responsibly than what?

I’ve worked with a number of adult websites which turn over $5 million per anum, and could therefore be considered major players in the online adult industry. Without exception they don’t send spam email, are run professionally, and don’t exploit their employees or customers.

In order to protect their brands they will have to buy ‘.xxx’ domains to mirror their ‘.com’ holdings. They will continue to behave as exemplary corporate citizens. ICM knows this.

Thieves, scumbags, liars and pedophiles will look at the regulations attached to ‘.xxx’ domains, laugh, and continue to do all their business in the .com arena as they always have. ICM knows this too.

Companies like AOL, will start boasting of a commitment to ‘protect the children’ by filtering out ‘.xxx’ domains. Conservative groups will campaign to make accessing ‘.xxx’ domains from government or library computers illegal. Hosting companies will choose, or be compelled by the law, to restrict any adult content on their servers to ‘.xxx’ domains.

Some states will attempt to make hosting ‘.xxx’ domains illegal within their borders.

The price of owning ‘.xxx’ domains will rise from tens, to hundreds of dollars per year. ICM will make millions taxing adult webmasters for doing business, running what can only be described as a protection racket.

The ‘.xxx’ ghetto, inhabited entirely by companies trying to do the right thing, will wither as it becomes increasingly difficult for customers to find.

While this happens, the companies ‘.xxx’ was ostensibly designed to regulate will be free of competition from the legitimate adult industry. The reward for their poor corporate citizenship will be higher profits than they’ve ever seen.

Somewhere a politician will utter the phrase ‘War on Pornography.’

‘.xxx’ is stupid, short-sighted and will ultimately exacerbate the problem it’s designed to counter. Prohibition gave us Al Capone. ‘.xxx’ will create its own monsters.

Of course there is a smarter choice.

In the real world, we don’t ban adult things that might harm children. We create safe havens for minors and then regulate what can happen within them.

A ‘.kids’ domain would do that online.

Concerned parents could limit their children’s surfing to ‘.kids’ domains. As all the ‘,kids’ websites would be new, controlling their distribution would be easy. Disney would get a ‘.kids’ domain, Private wouldn’t. Parents would know that ‘.kids’ websites are safe.

If the internet is a vast library containing everything from Shakespeare to Hustler magazine, and you want to protect children’s access to explicit material, which of the following scenarios seems smarter to you?

A: Building a children’s section within the library, screening all the books in that section for suitability, and allowing your children to browse that section freely? (the ‘.kids’ domain idea)

B: Asking the authors of unsuitable material to pay a fee for the privilege of moving their books to a ‘pornography’ section, and then letting your children freely browse any books that haven’t been moved? (the ‘.xxx’ idea).

Would your children more likely find the art of Roy Stuart or writings of the Marquis de Sade in library A or B?

Of course, the ‘.kids’ solution does nothing to step on the rights of the adult industry, and therefore has no appeal to the Christian right (who’d always rather punish sinners than solve problems).

ICM are less interested in a ‘.kids’ domain because profiteering would be far more difficult (Disney spend more on lunch than the average adult company can afford to pay its lawyers). That puts a bomb under their protection racket.

‘.xxx’ is a triumph of idiocy, self-interest and ignorance. It will fail in its stated aim (to protect children online) and sadly succeed in its true aim (making ICM Registry millions). Fight it.

Mmmm… gold…

Friends of mine own TGP.com and are interested in selling it. As far as adult domain-names go it’s at the very top of the heap. I’ve been trying to help them sell it for a while now, it turns out that the world is full of people who find emailing me so fascinating they’ll find any excuse to do it.

If you’re interested and serious drop me a line. Offers in the six-figure range are realistic. If you have an equally lucrative but more creative deal for the owners to consider, let me know.

(For anyone scratching their head regarding the phrase TGP, it ‘officially’ stands for Thumbnail Gallery Post. It’s a phrase used to describe all those websites that post free pictures. They make a lot of money by giving stuff away.)

Hot chocolate bunnies taste good.

There was a time when porn magazines were important, but in thanks to the Internet and nipples in Maxim their influence has faded.

There are very few models who do magazine modeling exclusively, and it’s effectively impossible to build a career modeling for magazines alone.

Maxim, FHM, Loaded and many other non-porn magazines regularly publish pictures of adult performers. A magazine layout’s value is as a publicity vehicle. You’ll get more, and better, publicity in a mainstream magazines than in porn ones. If you’re involved in another aspect of the adult industry getting into porn magazines is easy, if increasingly pointless. Getting into mainstream magazines depends on how attractive you are to men under 35 and the story you have to tell.

But you want to be in Playboy don’t you?

Playboy is undoubtedly the most important porn magazine being published and is arguably the only one worth bothering with.

Being a Playmate will open the bedroom door of every ‘producer’ and development executive in LA, and  puts you at the top of the adult entertainment tree. You’ll be able to pick who you work with and what you do if Playmate’s on your resume.

Getting into Playboy isn’t easy.

In 2005 Playboy is a company which makes most of its money selling hardcore sex movies via its TV division. They make about $10 million a year in profit on about $300 million in turnover. To put that in perspective, a lot of adult websites you’ve never heard of make $10 million a year too.

The magazine sells 3.1 million copies in the US each month, and a million copies, combined, overseas. The average reader is 55. The only men’s magazine that outsells Playboy in America is Sports Illustrated (3.3M copies) but Maxim at 2.5M has an average reader thirty years younger than Playboy and is undoubtedly more influential.

Playboy publishes a number of ‘Specials’ (e.g. ‘Playboy’s Lingerie Special’). You’re only a Playmate if you appear in Playboy magazine (the ‘Specials’ don’t count), and you can only appear in Playboy magazine if you’ve not done any other nude work, anywhere for anyone, ever.

The ‘Specials’ publish a lot of models who have websites or who have been in other magazines which is why appearing in a ‘Special’ isn’t very… well… special.

Playboy pay $25,000 for a shoot and, unless things have changed radically since 2000 (the first and last time I dated a Playmate - the others kept escaping), they require that you work for them exclusively for 2 years. That means no adult website work, no other magazine work and no porn movies.

If Playboy don’t give you other work, $25,000 over two years makes Walmart look comparatively  lucrative. I know they were paying $25,000 five years ago - I guess the only inflation they recognize concerns breast implants.

On the plus side, Playboy’s about the only nude modeling that the American public accepts as reasonably ‘normal’, and a single appearance can provide you with a lifetime of fun signing autographs at fan conventions. Go stalkers!

Still want to be a Playmate?

Hef still has a big say in who makes the cut and we all know what he likes. If you don’t have what it takes to make his Viagra kick in you’re probably out of luck.

Unless you lived in the wilderness, if you’re Playboy-hot you know it, which means you’re already modeling or getting offers. If you’re not, you’re not "va-voom…mmmmnnn, c’mere!" enough, or you need to remove your burka.

Don’t kid yourself. If you’re a hair overweight, have a great body but an average face, have a great face but an average body, or are otherwise normal your chances of getting into Playboy are zero.

If you’re a perfect ten but you’re not white, have short hair, have more than one tattoo or need dental work your chances of getting in are slim to none.

Playboy’s all about conforming to an ideal devised in 1953. Don’t be upset if they don’t get excited about your uniqueness (the people who claim to just want to get you into bed anyway).

How to get into Playboy

Officially you’re supposed to send a few photos to the editors. That’s strictly amateur hour.

Playboy employs professionals, who ensure that selecting Playmates for the magazine is a more scientific process than asking Hefner for the names of women he’s met recently and wants to fuck. These people are the enemy.

Getting into the Playboy mansion is a good first step. You have to send photos if you want to get into a party at the mansion. If they won’t invite you to get felt up and be scenery there, give up.

Parties at the mansion are the obvious way to meet Hef. Too obvious. At a party Hef plays host and is surrounded by women - all of whom would dive on his cream-cheese and prosciutto wrap for a chance at being a centerfold. It’s easier to corner him elsewhere. Use the mansion for reconnaissance and meeting younger celebrities (just don’t let Hef see you - he’s the jealous type).

Finding Hef out in Los Angeles isn’t hard. Pick up a copy of Los Angeles magazine and go to anywhere they mention. Good bets include The Sky Bar, The Sunset Room and Prey.

When you run into Hef, you’ll find him at the back, with a bunch of bored looking blonde women sitting in a roped off area.

He is that short, don’t let it surprise you.

Don’t laugh when he starts dancing.

Picking him up’s not difficult. Make sure you’re looking gorgeous, lose any men you might have been spending time with, make eye contact and smile.

You may experience nightmare visions of your beautiful naked body being assaulted by Hef’s plastic girlfriends as he watches and wanks, his eyes flicking between you and some gay porn playing on the muted TV behind you. Relax, that’s just how he likes it. Visualize your power animal.

Make conversation. Talk about jazz, being lost in the LA, what an average mid-western girl you still are at heart (hide the $24 dollar cocktail you’ll be drinking at this point). Talk about and how guys your age are really immature. If you manage to interest him you’ve bypassed the editing process entirely, Hef knows who you are (and you’re doing better than 99.9% of applicants).

If he’s hot for you he might invite you to come home with him. Don’t go. Arrange to meet him again later.

If he invites you over for movie-night (on a Tuesday) he likes you, and will try to fuck you after the screening. Watch the movie. Don’t fuck Hef.

If he’s not that interested in you, or wants to know more about you, he’ll invite you to a party and encourage you to nail one of his geriatric friends. It’s how he stays popular. Avoid James Caan - the man’s a freak, one night with Jimmy and tampons feel like traffic cones.

If he introduces you to Fred Durst he clearly hates you.

Once Hef has you on viagra-dial it’s all down to you. The key is to maintain his interest and give him reasons to want to impress you. If he keeps seeing you he’ll either ask you to become one of his girlfriends (this is a suckers deal - can you name any of them?) or he’ll give you a shot at a layout.

Do you have to fuck Hef to get into Playboy? No. Does it help? Depends.

The woman I dated never let him touch her and made Playmate of the Month (i.e. she was ‘Miss Month’). She also suspects she didn’t make Playmate of the Year because she wouldn’t have sex with him. Your mileage may vary.

Good luck.

If you see a film camera on a porn set stick around. You’ve arrived.

When people think of, what I like to call, ’stag-loops’, they normally imagine that DVD they borrowed from Malcom at bible study, or whatever they could find on their sons computer last time he was out. In fact the range of movies the Vatican objects to is vast, and falls into six broad categories:

1. Cable Thrillers. E.g. “Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure”
2. Art Porn. E.g. “The Villa”
3. Studio Porn. E.g. “Space Nuts”
4. Avant Porn. E.g. “Kill Girl Kill”
5. Gonzo porn. E.g. “More Dirty Debutantes #160”
6. Stunt Porn. E.g. “Max Extreme 4“

The money made by adult performers varies greatly across movie types and it’s impossible to predict based on the type of movie being discussed.

Sometimes the people producing the most graphic material pay ‘danger money’ to willing performers, making it highly lucrative, sometimes a major Hollywood production pays $250, all the M&M’s you can eat and a date with Charlie Sheen.

Erotic Thrillers
An erotic thriller is any movie which contains any topless nudity, the words ‘Dangerous’, ‘Erotic’ or ‘Lethal’ in its title and/or Shannon Tweed.

Some might question my inclusion of these movies as porn but wannabe performers should think of them that way. If ’some nudity is required’ you’re going to be labeled as a ‘porn star’ and it’s the label that you have to bear, not the reality of what you did. Depictions of sex are always precisely as offensive as the attitude of the person giving you their opinion.

The movies shown late at night on HBO and Cinemax are often plot driven porn films which have been re-cut for cable, (on porn sets they’ll announce they’re going to shoot the scene again from a less revealing angle for cable TV. Obviously if you can’t see it going in it’s ’simulated sex’ and ‘acting’)

If you rent an erotic thriller, at best you’ll pick up something by Brian de Palma by mistake - Femme Fatale is a masterpiece and they always file his stuff with the crap. At worst you’ll see something that makes Desperate Housewives look like a realistic and sensitive examination of suburban life by comparison.

How do you get in? Move to LA, pick up ‘Backstage West‘ and start hitting the audition circuit.

Art Porn
Often shot on film, art porn is frequently, but not always, softcore (meaning it involves no male-female sexual contact).

Art porn pays performers well ($2-5,000 a day is possible) because it only involves the most photographically perfect bodies and faces. If you’ve got the look for art porn, and you’ve ever been nude anywhere, they will call you.

At best it’s living sculpture. At worst it’s an Enya video with tits.

How do you  get in? Work for a major nude photographer (e.g. Suze Randall). Wait for the phone to ring.

Studio Porn
If ‘Good old porn’ exists this is it. Studio porn (as I’m defining it here) has a plot. It used to be about a Pizza delivery guy and/or a cheerleader. Now it’s about a troubled relationship, a witch and/or a hit-man. Production values are better than ever and bleeding edge studio porn epics can include CGI and explosions, which don’t involve semen, nowadays too.

Studio porn can pay well but is dominated by ‘contract stars’ (porn studios are Hollywood circa 1935 and maintain a studio system). Contract stars are generally paid $75,000 or more a year (the biggest names can break the $200,000 mark) and are contracted to make a numer of movies (one a month is common) in return.

At best, you will actually want to know how the story ends. At worst, it’s still more fun than an erotic thriller which is missing graphic close-ups of the performers carnal gymnastics.

How do you get in? Go directly to a studio and ask for a contract. Work on non-studio porn films and wait to be asked.

Avant Porn
This is porn staring art students/women with tattoos/women with piercings/women who cut themselves/long periods of non-porn in black and white/bad experimental music and or symbolism.

Sometimes Avant porn includes a pretentious voiceover or onscreen graphics. It is made and watched by people who mistakenly think many things are ‘ironic’.

At best it’s MTV meets the mattress mambo. At worst it’s a goth-chick-art-school-dripping-tap-I-hate-myself-hurt-me-student-film punctuated by disturbingly violent sex acts.

How do you get in? Hate something enough to write about it on the web. Get tattoos. Be ‘that Goth stripper’. Work for Suicide Girls.

Gonzo Porn
Also referred to as ‘Wall-to-wall’ (technically gonzo is shot from a performers point-of-view and wall-to-wall is a title without plot. They’re now effectively the same). No plot, no reality - but often an attempt to make unlikely circumstances seem real.

People meet, people undress (but the men leave their shoes and socks on) and people play doctor.

At best, two hours of hot bodies and hot action. At worst, two hours of people who look like your friends parents polluting your long-term memory.

How to get in? Stand in front of Ed Powers until he offers you a role in a movie. Sign with Jim South’s ‘World Modeling’.

Stunt Porn
The stuff you see in documentaries designed to make you shit your pants and vote Republican. The vanguard of a sexual arms-race that a section of the industry is involved in because shocking people is easier than coming up with new ideas.

Lot ’s of stuff you can’t do, can’t believe someone would do and wouldn’t want to do.

It only ever contains performers who are truly into the extreme, new to the industry or desperate for cash.

At best no one will ever know you watch it. At worst your children are in it.

How do I get in? Run an amateur website and get a reputation for being un-be-fucking-lievable. Ignore the advice of people who tell you not to do it. Send your pictures to Kahn Tusion and/or Max Hardcore.

So now you know. Have fun. As always write to me to shout, rant or ask for advice.

Space is awsome.

That was a total lie of course, but it’s a useful lesson in a fundamental truth. On the Internet a word is worth a thousand pictures.

When you’re designing or editing your website, spend at least as much time thinking about the text as you do the images. Generally speaking, your images never leave your website but the words you use cause ripples throughout the web.

Despite all the Flash and video out there, the web remains a written medium.

I guess I’ll get a nasty letter from Lucasfilm about this title, so I may as well earn it.

So… I found this script fragment from the next Star Wars movie on the web. I think it might be real, the dialogue just has the George Lucas feel to it.

STAR WARS: EPISODE 0 - RETURN TO MY BROWN-EYE

FADE IN

Luke Skywalker enters. He’s humming ‘Too Legit to Quit’ by M.C. Hammer.

LUKE SKYWALKER
Chewy, how long’s it going to be before she’s ready to fly?

CHEWBACCA
Growl

LUKE SKYWALKER
Yeah, I wanna fuck too. Get your sweet ass over here

(Luke makes a parting in the fur at the base of Chewbacca’s back and makes sweet love to the 200 year-old Wookie. As he enters Chewy he starts to sing ‘Can’t Touch This’ to himself, quietly.)

(Han Solo enters fresh from the shower carrying his shirt, his hairless chest glistening and wet.)

HAN SOLO
Chewy! Luke! What the hell’s going on!

CHEWBACCA
Growl

HAN SOLO
Really Chewy? Me too?… Damn I’m horny. Open your mouth you hot Wookie bitch. Luke, let’s try and get a rhythm going.

Lando enters. He’s wearing a t-shirt that reads ‘The Coolest Kids Buy the Most Official Merchandise’ . When he sees the primal man-man-Wookie cluster-fuck his pants visibly tighten.

LANDO
Chewy! Luke! Han! What the hell’s going on!

CHEWBACCA
Growl

Wordlessly, Lando reaches for his belt buckle…

Pray you’re not wide awake and screaming when you see this guy.

I continue to be amazed by the generally poor standard of plastic surgery. Los Angeles is the world epicenter of body worship and modification and stars with bottomless pockets often end up looking like carefully arranged road-kill. The best surgeons spend 75% of their time correcting the work of others. These people want to look good and spend months reseaching the best doctors and the newest procedures. Then this happens:

Click here and weep.

These people are spending more money than you’ll earn this year and they look like animatronic afterbirth. Trust me on this, plastic surgery is about as sophisticated as the application of leeches.

I’ve seen a lot of mistakes. I know a woman who’s had nine breast ‘enhancements’ (she’s a TV presenter and they don’t look good). I know a model who’s had so many surgeries her doctors say they can’t operate anymore, and that she’ll just have to live with what I’d call the balloons-full-of-mince look.

You don’t need it. Natural is better than fake and the best work is expensive. It’s addictive too, Brooke Burke is married to one of the best Surgeons in LA (Garth Fisher) and she’s just had a facelift at 33. Brooke Burke (who’s a solid ten). Facelift. 33. Damn.

Your boobs are fine. It’s a cute nose. Just work out more often, that’ll burn right off.

Don’t do it. People die having plastic surgery. Who wants ‘She died for bigger tits’ as an epitaph?

(If you’re still thinking about it, email me your picture and I’ll give you an honest opinion - and the names of a couple of good surgeons if need be.)

Tiana Lynn

Tiana Lynn is a contract performer with Elegant Angel.

She’s taken the time to answer a few questions about her experiences in the adult industry for SugarBank readers. I’m flattered. Seriously.

SS: When did you first get involved in the adult industry?

TL: I first got involved when I was 18.

SS: What’s the story behind your porn name?

TL: Well I figured I wasn’t going to answer to anything like Becky or Michelle, so I picked something that sounds similar to my real name.

SS: What was your first experience in the industry like?

TL: I was told I had to do certain things, even if I didn’t enjoy them, or else I wouldn’t make it "big". I worked with guys with enormous cocks, bigger than I’d ever had in my pussy before, and they made me do anal and gangbangs which I’d never done. I was in and out of the doctor’s due to swelling, bleeding and rips. They told me I still had to work anyway.

I left the biz, and decided to gather myself, get my head together. When I came back I said, this is what I do enjoy doing, and this is what I’m prepared to do.

I’ll still do an occasional anal here and there, but only when my ass is hungry for cock.

SS: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started?
TL: I know now to only shoot what I enjoy. My fans enjoy watching me get off for real, so there’s no faking it. Elegant