Male Star Reveals his X-Rated Life
Q&A
By C. Harold Pierce
After a decade of performing in nearly 1,000 scenes while working for studios including Bangbros, Vivid and Hustler, adult-film star Dave Pounder retired from the porn industry in 2011. He gained a reputation as a shorts and sandals wearing porn star who played by his own rules. If a scene starts before noon, required Pounder to wake up early or didn’t pay enough, he wouldn’t do it. He even turned down a series of 30 high-paying scenes because it required him to wear a suit. I talked with Pounder about his career.
How did you get your start in porn?
I actually was at a swingers party that I read about in Hustler magazine and it was near my house, so I went to see if it was for real. It seemed a little too good to be true, and sure enough it was true.
Why did you leave the industry?
I don’t see anything wrong with it. I love the business. I just got out of it because I saw a trend towards free and pirated content. Guys are always going to need a sexual outlet and pornography provides that. If you live in a rural society where not many people around you are very attractive, it’s a great tool to achieve orgasm.
How did your family react?
My mom asked what I did this weekend, and I said, ‘I filmed a porno, and it was awesome.’ I’m a 20-year-old guy, what do you think I do on Friday? I go to a bar and try to find a girl to have sex with. I hope she comes home with me. I’d buy drinks and try to court a woman to have sex with me, and here I am now in the porn business getting paid and removing these cost barriers… and I loved it.
Have you contracted an STD?
Oh yeah, all the time. Chlamydia, gonorrhea, things like that are very common. They weren’t even testing for that when I got into the business and I’d be dripping every month and say, ‘it’s time for an antibiotic,’ but it didn’t bother me. You have a symptom, you take an antibiotic.
Where did you draw the line?
I don’t do anything on the camera that I wouldn’t do in my personal life.
What do you think of Belle Knox?
It’s no different from going to McDonalds or Starbucks and using her body to make money. I’d agree with her that working at McDonalds is so much more degrading. You have to sit there and people say, ‘you didn’t put ketchup on my hamburger,’ and be in a hot kitchen. And man, having sex is fun and you’re getting paid.
What are the pay rates like?
Women typically make double what men make. High-end for a guy is $600. Gay guys get paid a lot more. I was offered $1,000, but to me that was chump change. Somebody would have to pay me like millions to do that, not that there’s anything wrong with that. If somebody brought me a really hot girl and asked me to have sex with her, but it had to be a nasal sex scene, I’d say, ‘dude, I’m not having sex in the nose. I don’t want to do that. I don’t care how hot the girl is.’
How do you feel about condoms?
I think they should be required. If people want to have unprotected sex in real life, go ahead … but if you’re going to produce movies and put two people together to have sex, then the producers have a responsibility to do everything in their power to protect them.
Do men have to do gay porn to pay their dues before straight scenes?
There’s a lot of that. I’d never had to do that, though. This producer in 2003 he wouldn’t hire me because he said I hadn’t paid my dues. I would turn down scenes with fat girls or older girls in their 60s and 70s and I just told him, “its just not my thing.”
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