ROCCO STEELE TALKS ESCORTING, SOBRIETY, AND HIS FORMER LIFE AS A FRAT BRO

It begins like the plot of a porno. The head of the frat devises a humiliating set of things his pledges must bring back to the frat house if they want to get in. Item number 5: “Go to the store and buy all the gay porn magazines they have.” The pledges oblige, of course, and return

home with a big stash of Honchos and Mandates. The other frat brothers snicker and mock the pledges, and the pledgemaster commends their loyalty. When everyone’s back is turned, he slips one of the magazines down his pants, brings it back to his room and has his gleeful way with it and a jar of vaseline. Cut to some twenty-odd years later, that frat boy and I are sitting across from each other at a diner on the Upper West Side. He goes by the name Rocco Steele and for the past seven months he has gone from jerking off to porn to being the same kind of object of lust his younger self desired. If it seems like a simple story — “one day I was watching movies, the next day I was in em” — it’s anything but. Along the way there was coming out, 14 years working in corporate America, years of drug and alcohol abuse, and another 16 years of sobriety. After two years of escorting Steele entered the porn world where he’s used his enormous dick to fuck bottoms like Armond Rizzo and Allen King for both bareback and condom-porn companies. He is also, surprisingly, one of the new breed of porn stars who bareback — along with Blue Bailey and others — who are open and honest about their HIV status, and willing to talk about all the moral complexities that come along with that, which we do at length in the following interview.Adam: You’ve been in the industry for seven months, and you were escorting for two years prior?Rocco Steele: I started escorting in the summer of 2012. I had been in corporate America for a lifetime. I started out working in the legal profession. Graduated from law school. Worked at law firms as a research assistant for many years because I never passed the bar exam. I took it twice and on the third try I decided, fuck it. I wasn’t really interested in it any more. Then I went into the fashion and beauty world. I did that for about 14 years. I got a lot of great experience but I just got tired of –
Not having sex with everybody.

Ha. No! I didn’t mind the work but I was sick of paying the dues and not getting to where I wanted to be. I knew I was a very creative person and was contributing a lot to the organizations, but I wasn’t getting the promotions. As I got older I was becoming the oldest person in any office by like twenty years. I was in my forties. I thought, this really isn’t going to happen for me. For the last several years there was a lot of resentment on my part and I also wasn’t performing at a level anymore that I could ever really succeed with. I decided it was best for me to leave. So I left my job and I started escorting just to kind of make ends meet.

When did you think, “Escorting is something I can do”?

When I left my job in May of 2012, I thought I would do all the right things. I was freelancing and doing some set design work on photo shoots, fashion things. I loved it but the jobs just were few and far between. $250 bucks a day, only three days a month. I was dating somebody who was from L.A. and had been in the escorting world. He was like, “You should just try it. I’ll write the ad for you.” I didn’t think I would get hired. I put the ad up and I got three jobs and made a thousand bucks that day. Which was almost my rent. I was living out in Brooklyn so my rent was really cheap at the time.

Cut to this weekend when you were busy with guys all Saturday and Sunday right?

No, no, no. First of all, I try not to take more than a client a day. It’s too exhausting and it’s not fair to the client to not be fresh.

So when you were saying this weekend that your days were filling up and we couldn’t meet?

I just have a lot of other things going on. This weekend was also my first real weekend back after Spain. I was in London two weeks prior to Spain. It was poorly planned on my part. But I had made commitments to studios over there and I had to keep them. Anyway, by the time I got back from Spain, I was exhausted. There was a lot of catching up to do. But with regards to my weekend clients, I will allow myself to see three on Sunday. I don’t know why, maybe everybody wants to get laid before they go back to work, but my phone blows up all day Sunday. So that day only I leave my day open for those appointments. Saturday usually is one, two max.

I got the impression you were just fucking every hour. 

No, no, no. I could never. That just makes me cringe at the thought of it. Just because I don’t think it’s very healthy for anybody to expose yourself that many times a day. Whatever.

I was impressed at your presumed stamina. 

No, no, no. I mean, three is really the max. The reason why is, a lot of times it’s not just the sex, it’s that you’re the therapist for these guys. You walk in the door and your job is to make your client feel like they’re the most important thing in the world. I get a lot of repeat clients and I get good feedback. I hear from the clients that there are escorts out there and walk in the door and expect the client to worship them, and act like the client is lucky that they even showed up. I just don’t come from that mentality. I really believe that is what I’m there for, to enjoy it. I also pick and choose and vet my clients, so by the time I get there I really know what I’m walking into and I’m looking forward to it.

How long do most of your sessions last?

I often talk my clients out of anything more than an hour especially for first-time clients. If you’re committing yourself for that hour, and really committing yourself, you’re really checked-in for that hour. It’s not just the physical, it’s that you are there and engaged holistically. I know a lot of people in the industry who do the same thing. I also hear about people who don’t do that, and they’re the ones who don’t get called back. That’s why I say I can only take one a day.

When you were growing up did you look at gay porn?

You know the funny thing is, I thought I was straight pretty much through college. I mean, I had feelings in high school, in the locker room and stuff like that. In college I was the president of my fraternity, so I kind of had to keep those feelings under wraps. My first experience with gay porn, that I remember, is when I was in the fraternity. Part of our hazing ritual was that we would send our pledges out to buy gay porn magazines and bring them back to the frat house. Looking back it was super bi-curious –

It’s also super Fraternity X — homoerotic initiation that betrays the homosexuality of the leaders.

Nothing physical took place. We also had them go to a gay bar and get the autograph of the bartender on a bar napkin. We seemed to be so fascinated with things like that. But when the magazines came back to the house, I always was like, I’ve got to get my hands on one of those. One time I was able to do that, and that was my first experience. I was like, “Wow.”

Was that an awakening for you?

In college, even though I dated a couple of girls, it became clearer and clearer that I was gay. It was in college that I came out to my best friend who was a girl. I didn’t come out-out until I was 25 and had just started law school. But in college I came out only to two or three of my close friends and left it at that. It was a relief to be able to tell a few people. At that point I had accepted it. It was the eighties and everybody was very androgynous. Guys weren’t afraid to be a little bit more flamboyant because a lot of our music idols were, like Adam Ant. I was more conservative because I was in a very preppy 80’s fraternity and I would be fascinated with guys who were very comfortable with their sexuality or their appearance, whether it was a sexuality thing or not. There was this one kid who I was just obsessed with in college and I would see him in the student center and I’d be sitting at my fraternity table and I’d just be trying to be cool with my fraternity brothers while also salivating over this guy. My best girl friend in college and I were inseparable and did everything together. She knew that I had this mad crush on him, and then we started going to gay bars. But I went as this voyeuristic, curious person who wasn’t 100% out yet. He would take us and he would be so comfortable in his skin and I was so envious. I maintained that kind of gay-from-a-distance thing throughout college, but the first month after I graduated, I got a job as a waiter in my hometown and I befriended this other guy, Steve, and we became inseparable throughout the summer. Late in the summer, we took a trip to New York City. My sister was living here at the time and we stayed with her. We were hanging out one night, and after the summer of hanging out nonstop, we got really drunk and before I knew it we were making out in the doorway of a building. We became boyfriends for the next couple of months. It was very clear at that point that that was who I was and what I wanted and that’s where I felt comfortable. A couple months later I moved in with my sister and her husband and at that point I was out, I was in New York City, it was 1988 and I was free to be me.

I thought you said, “Free to BB” at first.

Ha. No. I was from a small town and it was a kid in a candy store situation, but not in a crazy slutty promiscuous way. It was the era of AIDS and I was really scared. I remember I went to a gay party in Chelsea as soon as I moved here. It was still a rough area then. At this party the host took me into his bedroom. He fucked me raw and that was one of my first experiences ever being fucked and I freaked out. It was 1988 and it was New York City and a guy in Chelsea just fucked me up the ass raw. It took me a while to get tested, but luckily when I did everything was fine. Anyway my point was, now I was in New York City and that’s when I was really 100% out.

Does that unsafe sex put you on guard or does it lead to a downward spiral?

It was definitely like “That’s not what I want to do.” Because it was such terrifying thing at the moment it happened. For many years after I was very careful, and then I came back to my hometown for law school, after living in New York. I met this guy and because we were in a relationship for a couple of years we started having unprotected sex. We were tested together and did that whole thing. But after having that it kind of opened up this thing, like, “Oh my god, I don’t want to go back.” For the rest of my life I just kind of experienced both, because up until last year and the onset of Truvada being so readily available to people, my life was 50% bareback, 50% safe. I only topped ever, so in my mind, ignorantly, I thought I was always okay. Life progressed and I got older and stayed negative, which just reaffirmed that I was okay, and was never going to become positive because I was a top. I can count on six fingers the amount of times I’ve bottomed in my entire life, and it’s only when I’ve been in a relationship and my partner wanted me to bottom. So for the longest time it was true. Being a top you’re obviously less at risk, but I really believed I wasn’t at risk at all. Two years ago, my number was up.

There’s a growing trend of guys who seroconvert later in life in their forties and fifties. 

Yeah. I read an article, as soon as I became positive, one of the gay magazines did an article about the stigma attached to older gays becoming positive because “we should know better.” and we lived through it and now we’ve let our guard down and shame on us. It wasn’t saying that, it was just saying that those are the views that out there.

But at the same time it’s so human and understandable. People spend their whole lives being good and safe and that’s a hard thing to hold up your entire life. Sometimes you want to see what you’ve been missing. 

For me it wasn’t that view. It wasn’t like, “I’ve been a good boy and now I want to be a bad boy,” it was truly that my whole life it was a 50/50 thing. When I was with the guys I wanted to be safe I was happily safe, and when I was with guys who were willing to bareback, I would bareback. It’s just funny that literally the year before Truvada came out – well it’s been out, but the whole PrEP thing, literally a year before it became available and people discovered it was a means to prevent, was when I became positive. But then again I don’t know if I would have taken it because my mindset was that I was not at risk.

Are you bitter about that?

God no. I knew the game I was playing the whole time, so there was no bitterness. Also because of my being in recovery, it was a “life on life’s terms” type of thing. There was nothing I could do about it. So now you just be responsible about it. I think I’m healthier now, not just physically now, but internally my numbers are better than a lot of negative people because I’m very aware. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs. I get lots of sleep. I exercise. I do so many things that are right for me. It’s not saying that something can’t come and take me out anyway. I’m not invincible, but it’s made me more aware of my own health and taking care of myself, which I always did anyway because I’ve been sober for 16 years this week. So when it happened it was just like, let’s get on with it. What do we have to do? The difference between me and people who are negative on Truvada is just the status. We’re both taking the same exact pills, and doing the same exact thing. We’re equally healthy, but I’m undetectable and they’re negative. It’s just funny in this day and age, that I can live. My doctor said something else will take me out, unless I become irresponsible and go off my meds, or by some freak of nature my meds stop working.

Knock on wood that won’t happen. How did you reconcile that with doing bareback porn? I know you didn’t do that by design. You’ve said they were the first people to contact you. A lot of people hold the view that bareback did a lot of damage for the gay community. But I’ve talked to a lot of porn stars over the past year and it seems like many of bareback porn stars I talk to are in the same scenario as you. They’re positive, they’re undetectable and they know that they are not transmitting anything to people. But that information doesn’t necessarily get included on the DVD boxes.

Right. This is my bottom line. I’m pro-safe sex. I believe negative should stay negative. I’m positive, there’s nothing I can do about that. What I can do about it is be responsible. When I’m barebacking in real life or in porn, I bareback with other undetectable people, not just positive but undetectable people, because I can still catch another strain of the virus. It doesn’t mean I’m 100% risk free, but those are ways I can minimize transmission of my strain or somebody else transmitting their strain to me. If I’m having bareback sex with a negative person, its their decision, and I’ve had several negative actors that I’ve been wanting to be able to do scenes with, and they’re bareback negative actors, but they only bareback with negative tops. That’s fine, I respect it. It’s their decision and it’s fine, I wouldn’t want them to put themselves at risk. Because even though I’m undetectable there’s still a slight risk.

I thought the recent study showed that undetectable couldn’t transmit at all. 

I don’t know. I keep hearing 1-2% risk. Even though that’s small. There has to be so many variables lining up for that to happen. I don’t want to be the person to say there’s no risk at all. I was that person who used to say there’s no risk at all, and look what happened. I became positive. I don’t ever want to be that person again. I just want to stay respectful of other’s people’s views and sensitive to other’s peoples habits. I’ve also told studios that I will not be part of videos that outright promote the transmission of HIV.

Viral Loads.

Yeah. I mean I’ve done scenes for certain studios that do stuff like that, and I’ve made it very clear that my scenes cannot be part of anything that promotes the transmission of HIV or promotes drugs, partying, chems, whatever you call it. I won’t even allow poppers to be seen in my scenes. I don’t do poppers. But some bottoms do, but I refuse to allow them to show it on camera.

I’m sure your bottoms need them in deluxe Costco size.

Ha! I don’t know if that answers it clearly.

Well let’s play devil’s advocate. Some people would counter that, which it’s admirable that you’re conscious who you do scenes with and you tell the companies how you want the scenes to go and what they can’t do, which is more than I hear from most people, some people would say, “Okay, if you’re so committed why don’t you ask the companies to put something at the top of the videos to just say, ‘This is what this is,” or  or at least clarify the nature of the risks involved. So that people watching at home – kids or other men your age, whatever, don’t watch it and say, I want to go out and do that. I think in all honesty, people do pick up their cues from porn.

I was educated by society. It was the eighties. I knew what you were and weren’t supposed to do, so to put it on gay  porn actors, to say, it’s their responsibility to educate the young is a lot, I’m not saying it’s not our responsibility at all, but I think that I learned in the eighties what you weren’t and were supposed to do. When the nation didn’t want to talk about it. But if I was able to get that from society, what risky behavior is. Everybody in and out of the gay community has a responsibility to educate but are we doing it perfectly? NO. There are so many ways to educate and thus learn what is risky and safe behavior. But the messages are out there. I think by the time you turn on MachoMoe.com, or whatever free porn site – and by the way Macho Moe does have a disclaimer “Bareback sex is risky behavior. Always practice safe sex.”- but I think by the time you get to watching the porn actor put his raw penis in the hole, you’ve been bombarded with enough messages at that point to make up your own mind.

It’s that old thing about glorifying something. 

And I understand that because I have young followers, and I block everyday people that I perceive to be younger than 18. I’ll block them. No questions asked. It’s not worth it for the extra followers. But I want to go back to that because I don’t want to be glib about it in my response. You’re digging deep which is good. I don’t want to just brush it off and say it’s not our responsibility.

Like some kid sitting in the midwest where they can’t by law teach about condoms. If he watches a video he may – not always – but he may be inspired to go out and do it, no?

Where is it against the law to educate about safe sex? Maybe I’m naive but they do teach about condoms everywhere now. I went to a Catholic school in the midwest in the early eighties and we talked about penis and vagina and STDs back then. I mean maybe the nuns told us that abstinence was the way to avoid it but the dialogue was happening.

Not in the deep South. 

Come on this is 2015, in the age of the internet and social media.. I think everywhere they do. I don’t think in the US nowadays anybody doesn’t know. The message is out there. Definitely in the US.

I think it’s not what it was. 

Meaning.

In the 1990’s. 

It’s not bombarding us as much?

I used to turn on every talk show and even if the topic was “My Slutty Daughter” somebody would stand up and say “Don’t you worry about AIDS?” And demonstrations of condom use were on MTV and stuff like that.

Look, we may not have Jerry Springer sensatiionalism anymore but the messages are out there. Look, at the end of the day I don’t want to say I don’t have any responsibility because I do. Am I doing this perfectly? No. I’m okay saying that. I’m okay with that being on record. If I continue in this industry, then I can hopefully be in more of a position to negotiate and try to influence things. In terms of glorification, I mean, it’s true. There’s a celebrity quality to this. I don’t think I’m a celebrity, and I don’t even use the word star, but there are people out there who feel that way. I don’t feel that way about myself. So because of that, people are out there, like, “I wanna be like Rocco Steele.” But this is the reality. I do bareback porn and condom porn. I don’t promote bareback over safe sex. I want negative to stay negative. Do I have a responsibility and could I do more to send a better message out there? Yes.

There’s moral complexities throughout the whole thing. You do a Treasure Island Media video and you say “I’m not gonna do anything with drugs or poppers and it can’t promote HIV transmission,” but someone could turn around and say –

“Why have you aligned yourself with a studio that does that in other videos?”

Right. I mean, even with me, Naked Sword has bareback videos on their site, and a few years ago I wouldn’t have worked for them either. But now it’s different, I’m on the payroll. Bareback means something different now than it did then. But I’m complicit too. I’m not trying to put the weight of this all on you, but I am interested in playing devil’s advocate with a purpose.

No, it get it. It’s good what you’re asking. But my message to fans and followers from the beginning has always been “Rocco is sober and doesnt drink or do drugs” and “Rocco does not promote bareback sex over condom sex.” In fact many more of my condom scenes are now coming out. Sometimes we work with institutions who do not share our same views… it happens all the time in the world. All I can do is to keep promoting the Rocco message.

Let’s talk about more pleasant things, like your drug and alcohol addiction.

Ha. Which is really relevant because I’m sober 16 years this week.

It’s kind of unbelievable, because I never thought I could live a life without alcohol and drugs. My life was so intertwined with it.

You were a frat boy — so was there binge drinking every night?

Yeah. There was a keg on tap all the time. It was classic cliche frat life.

Was that your first taste of it?

No. I went to a private high school and there was a lot of partying there.  A lot of drinking in my junior and senior year. I was from the other side of the tracks, but the other kids in the school were rich. I would be invited to their houses and sometimes their parents were throwing the party, and sometimes the parents weren’t home. My story involves me feeling “less than” back then and not feeling good enough. So I leveled the playing field with alcohol.

You could meet them on their level by being a bigger partier than they were.

I was funny and charming and I was the center of the party. Then I would get in my rusty old car and drive a half an hour home, but while I was there, it was like I was one of them. That kind of was like conditioning, early on, and then when I went on to college and joined the fraternity, that’s how I knew I was accepted. Getting drunk and being the life of the party. Then, in law school, drugs were introduced, because that’s when I was really out.

Were you going to circuit parties?

No. I was going to clubs on the weekend in town. There was a bigger city close by  that had clubs. So I was doing cocaine and ecstasy and still drinking a lot. My law school career suffered a lot because of my partying. I got out of law school a C student which doesn’t get you anywhere. Then after law school I came back to New York and it was now the early 90’s and I was still doing lots of coke so my bar studies suffered. Once I decided to not take the bar exam anymore – which was about a year or so after I got back to New York, my focus was all about partying and drugs. I still didn’t do the circuit party thing. I was never really one of those types. But I was going to Roxy every Saturday night, the bars every Thursday night, Friday night, and then Monday night. I lived in the West Village so I lived a block away from the Christopher Street bars. It was just really easy to walk up there on a weeknight.

Is that why you like living up here on the Upper West Side?

No. It’s not even an issue anymore. I don’t think about drugs all these years later. I live up here for the serenity, except for the baby strollers.

Sorry to get you off track. 

No it’s fine. I couldn’t imagine my life without it because back then that was my focus. I was working at law firms but I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I had given up early on taking the bar. I was just a researcher at law firms and going out late at night and looking for the party. I wasn’t really a very social being. I had a couple of friends, but I didn’t do the Fire Island or circuit party scene. I didn’t have that circle around me. Then towards the end of my drinking and drugging life just became really lonely. I said this before in another interview, it just stopped working because my circle had become so small.
How does that feel?

It’s kind of unbelievable, because I never thought I could live a life without alcohol and drugs. My life was so intertwined with it.

So you don’t have a rock bottom moment?

Yeah. I did. I was missing work, a job that I hated, but I was going out at night and staying out all night and going to after hours clubs until nine in the morning and dragging my ass to the law firm by nine-thirty or ten in the morning. A couple of times I said fuck it and just stayed home and slept all day and not even called in. Then the last time that happened I was up all night and went to an after hours club in the west village. Stayed up until nine in the morning. It was a Monday night going into a Tuesday morning.

Monday nights are fun!

Yeah. I remember going home, taking a shower getting ready for work. I was like I’m just gonna lay down for a minute and rest my eyes. I passed out and woke up at 4:30 in the afternoon. I remember having something going on at work that day, and I was like “Oh fuck.” At that point I couldn’t call in because I was terrified. I decided to go in the next day and I did. Luckily I worked on a floor of the law firm where there were less attorneys and research assistants, and the planets had aligned perfectly and nobody was looking for me the day before. But I knew that it was a problem, so I remember going into my office and closing the door and calling my friend who had gotten sober two years earlier. He was a buddy who used to go out and run around the bars with me. I called him up and said, “I’m ready can you take me to a meeting?” He was like, “Tonight?” I said, “No, not tonight, I’m so exhausted, but I promise I’ll go with you tomorrow night.” That was Wednesday. I went to the meeting and after the meeting we went to a diner. He called a guy who became my sponsor and that was it. That was 1998. 16 years ago. Never picked up anything since. When I think about it, it’s such a miracle that I’ve been so long in recovery, because I could not function without alcohol daily and drugs several times a week as a means to soften the blow of life. I mean, I was escaping from a humdrum life.

Escaping from feelings of inadequacy.

Yeah. Not having a real career. All this stuff. It was just a way of not having to deal with that. Getting sober was like, having to face all that. Having to clean up my life and do all the right things to stay sober and then eventually through a twelve-step program face all of that stuff in order to recover and have a healthier life.

How do you deal with it when – number one, was there any trepidation about going into porn or escorting because of the drug association? I’m sure you must get clients who are partying. 

Yeah. So here’s the thing. Thankfully, the desire to drink and do drugs for me was lifted, probably six months into my recovery. That compulsion is gone. For the first few months your body goes through withdrawal.

When you kicked, you kicked. 

Yeah. You have to do the work to get there. You have to fill that need with other things. I dove into recovery 100% percent. I just did whatever my sponsor told me to do and whatever the other people in recovery told me to do. There’s a saying, “Stick with the winners.” I looked up to people I considered to be the winners in recovery. It was really people who had a happy serene life. It wasn’t so much material things, but that I just looked at these people and saw how happy and at peace that they looked. I have so much noise in my head, I wanted that.

Did you have a sense where you felt like, now I’ve actually found a place where I fit in?

Totally. In fact that’s why it was so easy for me.

You didn’t have to prove anything.

Right. There’s also a saying in recovery, and I’m not outing any recovery group but it’s like, “Let us love you until  you can love yourself.” It’s getting me kind of choked up because that’s what happened. All these people whether they were newcomers like me in recovery, or people who had been in it for a long time, they just wrapped their arms around me and took me along and made sure you know, you can’t prevent somebody from picking up if they want to pick up, but you can extend your hand and guide them and that’s what I did. I took that extended hand and it really felt like home. Sitting in recovery meetings just felt so warm and safe and I did feel accepted from the very beginning. I dove into the gay recovery scene, so yeah, this group that I longed for of gay men around me, the social part of recovery is secondary – it’s not why you’re there, but it is there if you want it and I latched onto it because it was something I’d been longing for my whole life. They say whatever gets you to meetings is fine and that’s what got me, the social aspect. And I stayed. To this day, my social scene is only recovery people.

Not even people who just don’t use?

For me it’s important to be around people who’ve been in recovery because you get each other. We’re all still in recovery. It’s a lifetime process. Like tonight I’m going to a Christmas party, with all recovery buddies.

Because it’s hard at Christmas?

No. No. There could be twenty bottles on this table and it wouldn’t do a thing for me because I am a person who doesn’t drink alcohol. It’s just matter of fact. So being an escort and doing porn, I knew that even though I don’t have that compulsion anymore, I still have to be aware of, that it’s around me. So for example I do not see clients that are partying. I do not make myself available to clients after 9PM at night. It doesn’t mean that my daytime clients aren’t partying, but most all guys at 2 or 3 in the morning are. There’s enough daytime business for me that keeps me in a healthier environment, whether I want to use or not. We also have a saying “Spend enough time in a barbershop you’re going to get a haircut.” So if I were to constantly be putting myself in those situations, I would probably, eventually pick up again because the addiction never really goes away. It’s complicated. I can’t say what would or wouldn’t happen because you’re an addict, your addiction is there, it never goes away. You always have to be on top of it. I don’t put myself in those situations. As far as porn goes, I told you, I won’t do scenes with any suggestion of popper use or anything like that. Even appearances and things, I just have to be careful with. For example, a Hustlaball situation. I’m in the industry so these are things I have to do.

You didn’t perform. When I saw you I asked you and you were like, “Nooooo.”

Right. That night I did not perform, but I am performing at Vegas Hustlaball. That night I was just there to watch and observe. But this time I’m performing and I just have to set up safety nets when I’m in situations like that because I haven’t been in a bar or club for years. That night you saw me at Hustlaball was the first time in 16 years I’d been in a bar or club.

Wow, no wonder you were so tense.

Yeah. I had a nice time but it was challenging for me, not because I wanted to drink or do drugs, it was just an assault on the senses of people, industry people I was meeting for the first time, loud music and things going on. It’s just a lot to process. So it’s fine I have sober people in the industry that I latched onto that night, and that got me through it. But those are the things I do in escorting and in porn to protect myself. Because although I don’t have the compulsion today, I may tomorrow because it’s always there.

We’ve been to dark places, but let’s give our readers a boner. Tell me one of your hottest true sex stories. 

Wow, damn. Let me think. For me, recently, I have two friends and we rented the Kardashian apartment in Miami for a weekend, where they filmed the show. We just spent the entire weekend naked and fucking in every room and outside on all the terraces, deck, pool and hot tub. Like wee never put clothes on, and we just fucked everywhere. Oh…and I fisted my friend poolside. I’ve never done anything like that before. There was something that was almost like, fuck you Kardashians!!!! I mean it probably wasnt anything they hadnt already done, but it was hot.

Ha. They would probably be into it. Have you become desensitized to sex since starting porn and escorting?

No. What it has done is it has made it so in my personal sex life it’s more important to have a connection. There’s more passion now in my personal sex life. Touching and kissing and holding and really intense eye-to-eye connections, because you don’t get that in porn. I don’t know if I want to say this but porn is all about really uncomfortable positions so the camera can get the angles. Put your leg up here, stuff like that. Nothing you would ever do in your real life. I’ve held these positions for so long sometimes your body just aches. So I find myself needing the connection so much more now. Which I think is good. I was always worried before that I wasn’t going to appreciate sex any more. But it’s actually done the opposite.

 Photos by Isauro Cairo.

___________________________

Adam Baran is a filmmaker, blogger, former online editor of Butt Magazine and co-curator of Queer/Art/Film. His short film JACKPOT, about a porn-hunting gay teen, won Best Short Film at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and was recently featured on The Huffington Post, Queerty, and Towleroad, among others. He is a features programmer at Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival and NewFest in New York. In his spare time, he complains about things to his friends. “Fisting for Compliments”, his weekly musings about the intersection of sex, art, porn, and history, will appear every Monday on TheSword. You can contact him at Adam@TheSword.com and follow him on Twitter at @ABaran999. Check out his previous columns in the Fisting For Compliments Archive.