By Dave Cummings

YNOT EUROPE – Many individuals, both female and male, fantasize about becoming a porn star or somehow finding a way to get into the porn industry. Some folks want to perform in front of the camera, while others just want to be involved with porn productions so they can become an “insider.” Now that the internet has flourished, it’s become another avenue into porn for those seeking entry. Let’s look at some of the different routes one might travel in his or her quest to join the world of porn.

For reasonably attractive females with nice figures, it’s relatively easy. Knowing someone already in the industry might facilitate a journey into porn; otherwise they’ll need to do some research to find an agent or manager, preferably a reputable one located in a city where adult studios operate. It used to be that a steady stream of legal-age girls wanting the adventure and/or money and/or fame of becoming a starlet constantly trickled into the industry. In the past few years, that stream has become a virtual flood of women hoping to become famous and affluent and later return to their high school class reunions and bask in the glow of stardom.

The name of the game during recent years is the demand for fresh faces, because producers and directors believe new faces will drive sales. Thus, wannabe porn starlets are in demand. New girls can make a lot of money when they enter the industry, but unless they are especially good at their craft or have extraordinary professionalism and the drive to make porn a career, even “newer” girls seem to nudge some of the existing faces out of the limelight overnight. The exceptional girls who end up “making it” in porn are well known for their dependability, punctuality, a solid enjoyment of sex (which shows in truly hot sex scene performances), personality and high standards of all-around professionalism.

About men who want to become porn studs…. Prior to the advent of “male performance enhancers” like Viagra, there were fewer men in the industry. Viewers had to endure seeing the same core group of guys over and over, because we career porn studs had proven our “functionality.” Performance anxiety (“stage fright”) remains a big challenge for men. Even with pharmaceutical assistance, it’s not as easy as you think to maintain an erection or deliver the “money shot” on cue.

Because I and many other adult industry professionals receive hundreds of serious inquiries every month from guys who want to know how they can become porn stars, I’ve written up this general response:

As a producer and director, I’d love to have a much larger pool of proven male performers so that female viewers could enjoy watching handsome studs performing with some girl while the female viewer fantasizes about herself actually being the girl in the video. I sense that porn viewers now include more and more women and couples, unlike in the past when most viewers were masturbating men.

The problem here is for me to be candid without hurting anyone’s feelings. There’s no easy way to tell guys that the chance of them getting an audition is remote. (Actually, there no longer is such a thing as an “audition,” let alone getting one with a new applicant’s favorite porn starlet.) The present lack of “want ads” seeking new studs has little to do with the volume of applicants, but rather results from an informal selection system that evolved over time. Past experience has left most directors disappointed after they let themselves be talked into using a new guy who touted himself as a “stud” only to be proven a dud when the cameras rolled. Performer wannabes very well might be studs in their private lives, but the moment they step onto a set and must have sex with a bunch of people watching, “Old Faithful” goes dormant. That’s embarrassing for the guy and a nightmare for the director, the cast and the crew.

Probably, the new guy who wants to get into performing undoubtedly is a true stud with the ladies or his significant other, and/or in a group situation like a swingers party, but merely the desire to become a porn star is not enough to get him in the door of a studio anymore. Even with a strong recommendation from a friend in the industry, a starlet or a woman with first-hand knowledge of his abilities, too many producers have been stung by a new guy’s “performance anxiety” to risk loss of production time and filming momentum, possibly leading to additional expenses in overtime charges for the location, rental equipment and crew. As a result, directors and producers usually will not accept new guys, no matter who recommends them or how impressive the new guy or his girlfriend says his penile “credentials” and sexual performance abilities are. It’s been my experience, and that of many other insiders, that new guys are absolutely certain and insistent they can perform, but most still fail no matter how much confidence they exhibit or how many pills they ingest.

If so many serious and motivated “potential porn studs” contact me constantly, can you imagine how many write, email or phone the porn girls, insiders and other porn guys like me, studios, magazines, crews, gentlemen’s clubs, etc.? Yet, even with new guys masking their use of pharmaceuticals and/or sometimes being part of a male-female couple, I see only five to six credible new guys a year who actually measure up in the business. Even some of those get “cut from the roster” if for some reason they’re suddenly unable to perform. It doesn’t seem to matter (or be an adequate excuse to the studio owners, producers, directors, crews, starlets, or anyone else adversely affected by delays due to sub-par functionality) if the new guy just ran an exhausting marathon, was taking decongestants or antihistamines for a sinus blockage or a cold, or unavoidably got only a few hours sleep the previous night. Porn is an unforgiving business, and the most expedient decision is not to take a chance on the guy ever again.

Worse, the word of a new guy’s inability to perform seems to spread through the industry with the speed of light. There’s a lot of pressure on male performers. Unlike female co-stars, guys can’t fake sexual excitement or hide an early climax. In order to produce “the money shot” on command, a guy must have a solid and almost-constant erection whenever the camera is rolling — for the hour-plus it usually takes to film the hardcore portion of a scene — in spite of the constant stopping and restarting for such things as changing a camera battery, relocating lighting, snapping still photos, shifting back and forth between hardcore and cable-television versions, starlet makeup touch ups, potty breaks, cigarette breaks, water breaks, the sound of a cell phone or a passing airplane or a lawnmower down the street…and on and on.

Like I teach in my How to Make Adult Videos classes, there’s real time, military time and porn time — and yes, porn time is usually the longest of them, so be prepared to sit around for hours waiting for your sex scene to begin.

The key for a new guy is all about functionality: getting an erection quickly and keeping it, not climaxing too soon and, indeed, being able to produce a money shot soon after the Director calls for one. Sometimes new guys taking prescription medications intended to help them with their sexual performance have difficulty getting the money shot to happen quickly enough.

Since functionality is the name of the game for guys, let me say again that penis size, looks, muscles and acting ability mean almost nothing.

In the U.S., guys must arrive on the set on time, bring the correct wardrobe, have perfect personal hygiene in every way, and bring a not-more-than-30-days-old health certificate along with two forms of ID, at least one of which must be a current government-issued ID bearing a photo and date of birth. I always bring my state drivers license and my military ID card. European regulations may be similar, depending upon the country.

So other than being a multimillionaire who buys a porn company, how can a guy get paid to have sex with beautiful porn starlets? Well, one direct approach is for the aspiring stud to “discover” a super-beautiful girl who will agree to enter the adult industry and let him ride her coattails while she insists she will “work with” only him. (“Work with” is the industry’s term for having sex on a porn set.) This may work if the girl is sizzling hot. It’s important, though, to understand that every year hundreds of new girls enter the industry seeking a shot at fame, and almost all of them will work with any of the already-proven studs the producer or director wants to hire. A new aspirant’s “coattail” girl therefore must be much more attractive than any other girl, new or established, in order to convince a director she’s worth the risk of hiring an untested guy.

Candidly, I have to warn you: Some coattail girls will drop their aspiring studs like hot rocks at this stage if a director balks. After all, if the guys can’t perform, he’s just blown the girl’s chance at stardom, too. Your chances may increase if you can allay the director’s concerns by showing him or her a couple of tapes of you performing sexually in front of an audience.

If the new guy and his coattail girl do well with eight or 10 shoots, he may be able to find work in gangbangs and other productions. If he performs successfully and consistently, he may join the ranks of proven porn studs. Even then, though, he won’t get rich. Unlike the girls, who can make a lot of money, guys are merely props, and we’re paid accordingly.

In Part 2, I’ll discuss ways performer-hopefuls may be able to get a foot inside the industry’s door by working their way up after starting in a supporting role.

Dave Cummings, “the world’s oldest porn star,” is a performer, producer and director. Visit him online at DaveCummings.com, DaveCummings.tv or DaveCummingsVOD.com.