Ben Leon lives in San Francisco and directs gay porn films for Raging Stallion. He started working in porn to supplement his income while working on no-budget indie films. He rose up the ranks at his company, and now wins awards for his films. I decided to call him for an interview two hours before he was starting to shoot a film about real-life porn star couples.

BUTT: So this week is the “GAYVNS” – the Gay porn awards, right?
Ben: Yeah it’s kind of insane for me.

Are you up for awards?
Yeah. Like 30 or some crazy number. Best director and some others.

Do you genuinely appreciate those awards or do you find it kind of silly?
No, they are a bit silly but it’s a big deal in the biz, and its one of the only chances we have to get some credit and recognition from my peers in the industry. 

How did you get your start in porn?
I was working in indie film, working project to project as a production designer. I worked on a variety of projects, all small in budget and big on dreams. It was a lot of fun at first but as money got tighter and the next job was always a big question mark it started to become less and less practical. At the time I was working whatever job i could get in between film gigs to make cash. While I was working on an indie feature I also worked on putting together a set for Raging Stallion. As I was working I was introduced around and I mentioned that I was looking for work. I started part time as a contract worker, helping out on sets, handing out condoms, and cleaning up. Soon I was hanging lights and my job became full-time. I was in heaven, it seemed like a dream job. I continued to work on some films on the side but porn became my focus and my source of income. 

How did you move up to be the director?
One day on a set the camera man fell ill. I was handed the camera and that was the beginning of my life as a videographer. That soon blossomed to editing and directing. Directing porn was a dream come true. Now, three years into my career as a director I have hit a few walls. Some of the fun and challenge has disappeared. 

What do you mean?
Well, I love the idea that what I shoot gets distributed all over the world and that people get off to it. However, my own creativity has become hampered by the needs of the format. My latest movie High Tops is about boys in sneakers smoking weed.

That sounds hot and is a pretty genius title. Why don’t you guys go for more current stuff like that in general in your subjects. I mean I know you have these like sick fantasy porno guys you make money on but…
Because our customers are old white men in the Midwest. I had to fight my boss for High Tops. I mean a real fight -

It sounds really hot because so many people I know are into sneakers, and getting high obviously.
It’s good, but not over the top the way I pictured it in my head. But we shot a scene in a grow house with weed plants all around.

Do the guys look like real basketball shorts wearing guys?
It’s a bit better, but still porny. Younger guys, not as buff, more street, but still…

Ben on the set, with the camera on the right.

It’s hard you have to strike a balance between that completely amateur stuff and this fantasy porn archetype shit that seems like it’s dead or dying.
Well on one hand it’s horrible. I want out, but the salary is hard to beat. Our old customers are not into new stuff. They like old classical stuff, gyms, sex clubs, cowboys. It’s all been done before. Many times. It’s hard to reinvent the wheel.

I really did like the one Cazzo did that copied the Homopunk magazine – all guys in weird bunny outfits and dresses with makeup on covered in food. It was super hot.
Yeah but that stuff doesn’t sell very good. The more far out you go the less it sells.

Sure it’s just like real films, but then how does anything change if everyone just does cowboy, weightlifter, and fireman over and over again. Because people’s tastes in guys have historically changed over the years, and it’s like you have to create new archetypes in representation no?
The archetypes don’t change that much that fast. Look at gay people around you.

Well yeah some gay people stay the same but you have young gay people who aren’t easily divided into twinks, cowboys, bears, etc. I guess the fear for me is that people just won’t know that there’s more out there than what they see in porn and stay boring. It’s just like the issues people have with representations of gays in mainstream movies. If you show a different type of gay person onscreen in a real movie, one who’s not a stereotype, it gives audiences something different to identify with and aspire to perhaps. Isn’t it the same with porn?
Representation is a tricky subject and its also a two way street. People want to see themselves in what they watch but they also want to see things that push their boundaries. But when you are focused on selling a product you need to make a product that is widely identifiable. So the market demands that things stay on the tame side and on the familiar side while also pushing toward more extremes in  a very slow way. If the business model of porn does not change with the times it will continue to reproduce the same product over and over. All representations becomes archetypes by the audience that views them. It is the nature of any medium that the audience either identifies with or against the subjects. 

But isn’t the fact that all media is going towards specialization indicative of a change porn needs to make?
Yes of course porn needs to change. Old institutions like the one I work for need to adapt the model of newer institutions like “Randy Blue.” The new world is a digital world where videos can be shared easily across the internet. The distribution channels are changing. Thus, the industry has to change. Specialization is already happening in the business but as a producer you want to either have a finger in all the specialized pieces or produce something that can sell more than a bunch of small markets.

Porn can be really creative, there can be real artistry behind it. For instance in the seventies – Joe Gage, Fred Halsted, Cadinot – if you look at their films from the seventies, something like “L.A. Plays Itself” is ridiculously unique even by today’s standards. Is there any room for someone like that to emerge today?
No I don’t think so. Because the distribution method for someone who produces that kind of content does not exist except in a way that is separate from the market.

Does that bother you at all?
It bothers me tons but as a director you push where you can and relent where you have to.

I guess it’s like with genre films, you know you are making a horror film but you use what you can to make it slightly different, have a subtle commentary about something going on in the world at that time. How have you done that with your films? Or have you been able to?
They sell. Other than that I don’t know. Everyone I know just wants to watch Cam4.com, including me.

I love Cam4. Could you make a Cam4 movie at your company? I mean it seems obvious the digital revolution and the rise of amateur homemade porn has passed mainstream porn by.
Totally. But we still make good money selling DVD’s so…

Right but you could make a hot movie out of nothing a which is essentially I think what bareback producers have done in terms of style, it’s this kind of raw – no pun intended – attitude where it’s just a group of guys getting off in a hotel room.
Yeah but you have to have model releases and stuff. Plus why would anyone pay for what they can get for free?

Yeah but you can get it for free regardless because of the culture of nobody wanting to pay for it, although that’s just gonna take us off on a new tangent I’m less interested in.  So your thinking is that you have to offer these over-50 Midwestern dudes the porn stars then and that becomes what people are paying for. Not the director’s vision or whatever. So who’s the biggest star in porn?
Logan McRee sells a lot out of our company guys.

But like who’s the biggest porn star in the industry not just at your company?
I don’t know. Plus what industry? Gay DVD’s, internet, etc…the industry is many different things.

I’m talking mainstream gay porn: Falcon, Colt, all the established old guard companies, Titan, Raging Stallion.
I dont know, I guess maybe you could find out from the award shows. Who can say? Everybody lies about numbers anyway.

Right. Do you think if you stayed in the industry you would try to change the perspective of porn? I come at this from the perspective of someone who thinks mainstream porn can be hot and fun depending on the guys, but also that mainstream porn is terribly static and unsexy. I mean, you seem like someone with some vision.
I think that the medium is changing so fast that its hard even as someone with vision to figure out how to tap into it in new ways.

Do you still want to get out of the industry very badly?
I guess the reality is that I don’t want to get out, I want to grow. I want to do more things, bigger things. I don’t mind doing porn as a way to make money.

Tell me a goal you have.
I want to at some point work as a Director of Photography on some feature films.

I like that as a goal. Let’s talk about the story you told me about the ex boyfriend you had who you surprised for his birthday by tying him up and driving him somewhere.
Okay, well for his birthday I took him to the beach for a picnic dinner to watch the sunset. After dinner we walked back to the car and i put a pillow case over his head and tied his hands. I threw him in the backseat and drove around for a while implying I was gonna take him to Oakland. He was excited and nervous. I told him i had a few friends waiting for us.

But you knew this was a fantasy of his to be tied up and abducted.
I knew he would dig it.

How?
We used to fuck with him bound up. He was into that kind of stuff.

So what happened next?
I took him to a basement where I had a hook hanging from the ceiling and a camera set up. I hung him from the ceiling and took off the pillow case. He had no idea where he was. Then I beat him a little and fucked him and recorded the whole thing.

How did you feel doing that?
I loved it. He was having a good time and so was I.

Were you always into aggressive sex?
I am into sex period. I have always been into sex, and I like sexual people. Its not an accident I ended up in porn.

So what are you doing to prep for the scene you’re shooting later?
Well, right now they are shooting another scene, so I gotta wait to prep till they are done. But then I’ll set lights, instruct people where to put the bed, talk to the models, and start shooting.

Who are the models?
Logan McRee and Vinnie D’Angelo

What do you think you might ask them to do when you talk to them?
I give my regular director speech.

Oh give it to me!
Have a good time, don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with, we can stop at any time for any reason, I edit everything I shoot so you can’t do anything wrong. I’m kinda quiet as a director. I let you find your groove and I move around a lot to get the shots.

What’s the worst thing a model can do?
The worst thing is give me a lot of attitude, and/or be prissy. The second worst things is not have a hard on.

FOOTNOTE: The day after this interview was done, Ben Leon won the 2009 GAYVN award for Best Director, along with Chris Ward and Tony Dimarco, for the film To The Last Man, which swept the other categories, winning Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Music, and Best Art direction. Ben also directed the scenes that won awards for Best Sex Scene (Duo) and Best Threesome. Logan McRee was named performer of the year. 

Interview by Adam Baran