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He’s the biggest (sorry) male porn performer since Ron Jeremy. But James Deen doesn’t seem to share too much else in common with that oafish, hard-partying hairy icon. At 27, he’s already been in the industry ten years, and this year achieved a rare feat among porn stars, scoring a leading role in a Hollywood movie, The Canyons, directed by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and co-starring Lindsay Lohan.
In Melbourne last week as a special guest at Sexpo, alongside girlfriend and fellow porn star Stoya (who TheVine also spoke to, stay tuned), we chatted with Deen about his work, condoms, and being socially awkward.
I read that your desire to become a porn star was sparked when you picked up a copy of Hustler at the age of four. Is that true?Four might be a slight exaggeration, but yeah, sometime around then. As long as I can remember I wanted to be in the adult film industry. As soon as I found out what it was and that it was an option for a career, I was like, this is what I want to do.
What was it that drew you to it, do you think?I have no idea. I used to come up with all these sort of answers, but I can’t remember my conscious thoughts at that age. I’ve always been a hypersexual individual. In kindergarten, I remember getting kicked out for kissing all the girls. I was the kid in preschool who was kicked out for dry humping the jungle gym. Whatever the reason is, it’s something that I love and I’m very happy with my choice.
Did you watch a lot of porn, growing up?A lot is a very subjective word, I don’t think I necessarily watched a lot. I think I did an appropriate amount of adult film watching.
You lost your virginity at the age of 12, on school camp, is that right?Yep.
And you spent a couple of years homeless as a teenager?When I was 15 I moved out of my Mum’s house and I pretty much ran around in Pasadena (California) and lived in parks and abandoned houses for about two years. Then I grew up a little bit and moved in with my Dad and got my own place and got on with my life. But it was a fun time, it was actually really enjoyable. I was going to school and I was working at Starbucks, and using that money to pay for my junior college that I was going to.
I did that for about two years until I turned 18, and then I pretty much took the summer off, I took a break from college and started doing adult [films], and it worked out. So I didn’t go back to school. But my plan if it didn’t work out was to go back to school until I found something else I wanted to do with my life.
So you never considered another career?I never really had a solid career path, I was just going to be in school until I found something else to do. The idea of maybe being a lawyer or something seemed interesting, maybe a psychologist, but none of it really thrilled me, they were just subjects that weren’t boring. But my alternate plan was to just study and do more study until I found something that I really loved.
Do you ever take holidays?I pretty much work every day. I really love everything I do. I have a store and a website - jamesdeen.com - where you can buy videos, t-shirts, tank tops, sex toys, and I have a streaming video site, and there’s my blog which I update daily, so that’s always fun. And doing scenes. I pretty much love all of it. It’s always nice to develop more as a brand if you will, and absorb as much as possible. Everything is great, so I never want to stop. My idea of a perfect day off is sitting in my office doing work. I never want to take a break.
Do you ever just wake up on the morning of a shoot and think, I really can’t be bothered having sex today, I’m tired, I’m sore, I’ve had enough?No. Never. Not yet, hopefully never. That would be sad.
What’s your gripe with condom use in porn? (
He's stupid as fuck.)
I don’t have an issue with condom use in porn. I have an issue with mandating people how to create their “artistic vision”. I always default to a hypothetical movie about a man and woman trying to have a baby and they can’t, so she starts having sex with other people. How do you shoot that movie with condoms? It’s impossible.
To try to categorise adult films as art is a debate and an argument, but the fact of the matter is there is some sort of...even when it’s not narrative-based, when it’s just sex, there’s some sort of artistic value to it where the performers are engaging in some sort of expression of sexuality, and it’s what makes it legal. In America, it’s constitutionally protected, and so the idea of mandating someone to shoot their movie in a specific way is what bothers me.
Another one that I default to is the Marquis de Sade. The [story of the] Marquis de Sade, as I’m sure many people will know, has a lot of sex in it, and if I’m trying to shoot that as a modern-day movie, how do I shoot that with a prophylactic? It’s impossible and it would violate my right - in America at least - my constitutionally protected right to make my film and it would violate my artistic integrity.
It’s not like a bunch of people [are] having a random experience. It’s a very controlled sexual environment, with professionals who are conscious of what they’re doing. It’s the same as people driving cars down stairways in an action movie or jumping off a building or stuff like that - you have trained professionals that are operating in the safest environment possible, and that’s the same as adult film. We do immense amounts of work to make sure it stays the safest environment possible.
I have no issue with people shooting with condoms, I shoot jamesdeen.com and I have plenty of scenes that use condoms and plenty of scenes that don’t and that’s because I am condom optional with my company, I don’t care, people can use them if they want to.
It’s specifically based on the violation of my artistic vision, if you will, that’s what my issue with it is. I think condoms are fantastic and I think everyone should use them, I think they are currently our best option when it comes to having sex with people that aren’t regularly tested in a trusting environment or relationship.
So you’ve never caught anything yourself?I’ve been performing ten years and I’ve never had a dirty test, I get tested every two weeks for an array of things.
You’re very, very lucky.It’s not luck, there’s nothing luck about it. The testing is every two weeks now, it used to be every 28 days, and then testing improved and now it’s every 14 days. If it was possible, I’m sure they’d do daily tests, but it’s not possible. This is not me deciding this, this is the board of doctors and physicians and multiple infectious disease specialists and other various doctors and testing facilities, everybody coming together and discussing things that are way above my head - how the tests work, what they’re for - things like that to create the safest possible environment. We also have a database that cross references all the tests to make sure that everybody showing a test is showing their real test and that they haven’t altered their results or anything like that.
So we are very covered, and it’s proven by the fact that in ten years we have had zero HIV transmissions. None. We are technically—we have been documented—we’re the only community in the entire world that has none, zero. That is scientifically impossible and it’s just baffling to the correspondents and scientists that have looked into it, and it’s because of our regulations and our protocols.
I make a point to never do scenes with anyone who’s not been tested, I make sure I show my test to everyone before I work with them. There are all these rules and regulations, and because of that it’s very easy to not contract anything.
More at the sourceHis opinion on condoms in porn is so stupid. Come on, artistic vision. You're just plowing someone on a couch, not making some masterpiece for film. And I'm sure you'll be in porn until you're 70. But no one's going to enjoy it, lmao.
