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| The curse continues: the hottest porn star of today - Dakota Skye. |
“The depraved imagination is the house furnished by the devil, which he makes a place for imprinting things so that everything these people do comes out of the mold of the devil’s work.” ~ Francisco de Osuna
I will never forget the first time I saw a “Playboy” magazine, though, strangely enough other certain “milestones’ in my life, such as my “First Holy Communion” or passing my driving test, I cannot recall. I was in the lavatory of my father’s business, and noticed the magazine on top of the toilet tank. I rather innocently opened it up, and was slightly shocked to see naked women; I had never seen one before. It sort of frightened me; but I was mesmerized.
Before that event, I had somewhat been familiar with pornography; although I had no idea what porn was – in my child’s mind: they were “dirty magazines.” For, I had seen their covers strewn across a table in the waiting area of the local barbershop where my father got his haircut, and I went along to get the usual, but much hated, buzz style. I instinctively knew they were off limits: that was something for grown-up men. Now, that I had one in my hands, I felt, at the age of 8, that by looking inside I had somehow become a man.
For the next few years, I made regular, and unnecessary, visits to the washroom to solely look at the growing pile of porn. Then, one day, there were various centerfold posters plastered against the walls. To me, it was beautiful. At about that same time, Playmate of Year Dorothy Stratton got a much coveted guest starring role on my favorite TV series: “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.” She was everything to me; and, seemingly, for my eyes only, she was naked. And, to an overly skinny and awkward young boy, in my mind, I was having a relationship with these women; when I reached puberty, that feeling intensified as I masturbated and reached my first climax in front of an open “Playboy.”
Suddenly, my world changed – when my older brother began to purchase and keep porn magazines in the large room we shared. I discovered the hidden stash while making a routine inspection of my brother’s private belongings; this usually occurred while he was at work and I was bored after school; sometimes I found hidden caches of chocolate or little model planes and tanks that he never allowed me touch. I was elated when I opened a dresser drawer and discovered a “Playboy” and some “Penthouse” magazines. After that, “Penthouse” became my new Bible. The women here looked into my eyes; they seemed to peer through the flat surface of the pages and reach into the interior of my body. I looked back, and I knew that I needed them. As ineffectively as I tried, I could never orgasm without them.
With the advent of the VCR revolution, I had reached my teenage years, and was crafty enough to order X-rated video tapes through the mail. I was locked in; oftentimes, sitting on the hardwood floor, directly in front of the small television-set in my room, I would stare for hours at the screen as one film played after another. Suddenly, pornography, as captivating as moving images first were, no longer satisfied me; I longed to be a part of it; for, in porn films, the man was usually shot from the neck down – allowing the male viewer to imaginatively trade places with the actor in the movie. In my mind, I thought there was a real live world of porn just waiting for me.
In the late-1980s, there were two world capitals of porn production: Los Angeles for straight porn and San Francisco for gay porn. Having been repeatedly bewitched by countless female “Playboy” centerfolds, oftentimes, I began to wonder about more hardcore forms of sex; for a while, that need was satisfied by the rather tame girl-on-boy scenarios that were the mainstay of most 80s X-rated films. But, then, in certain niche videos, I began to discover more extreme situations: men with more than one woman, anal sex, and lesbianism. It was as if, the spirits of porn were becoming bigger and badder as I aged. Yet, I still believed that somewhere out there it all existed in a fantasy land of freedom and pleasure.
The first porn shop I walked into was more like hell than heaven; the place stunk of urine and disinfectant. As gross as it was to be there, I oddly enough felt at home. Since that first day as an 8-yeald old boy looking at “Playboy,” I had been a child possessed; with every new magazine, every new centerfold, and with every hardcore film that got sicker and sicker: the loathsome and the disgusting became progressively more cherished to me. After a few additional shop visits, and a some excursions to various strip clubs, I quickly realized that the real world of porn was pretty sleazy, but I loved it. I had been fooled and completely duped. I sought an image of beauty, yet, only found ugliness. Only, in the twists and turns of my youth, the filthy became fascinating. Once, the picture of a topless woman left me quizzical and wholly enthusiastic, now, my thoughts always delved into the darker aspects of humanity.
“But if you want to know how I really feel, Get the cameras rollin', Just get the action goin'…” - kept ringing through my head. On my first porn shoot, while I tried to get somewhat comfortable on the couch, the “director” told me to look directly into the lens of the camera. I tried to be serious about it, but kept laughing at myself; it all seemed so absurd. Later, when I finished, and he rewinded the tape, I looked at my face on the screen and actually became turned-on by my own stare. Somehow, I had taken on the visage of all those porn women I had grown up with. I thought of myself as rather self-important; I was powerful; I could excite people; and, I could manipulate them.
As my involvement in the porn business grew deeper, I oftentimes felt uncontrollably cold while performing. Then, at the same time, I felt this overwhelming shadow fall over me. It was a strange sensation: a complete feeling of resolution, of confidence, and of single-mindedness. As a kid, I was usually shy, stammering, and awkward. In porn, I was everything I ever wanted to be. But, this cold consciousness often persisted. I wondered if it had something to do with some left over preoccupations of nervousness or embarrassment that had hung-over from my childhood. I asked some friends about it, some of whom were also sex workers, and they told me that I was resisting my destiny. Later, that night, we consulted the Ouija Board. I asked it why I was experiencing these cold spells; the board said: “…it’s an angel.”
Then, I was splitting time between my studies that kept me in Berkeley and my party and sex center of San Francisco. One day, after classes, I scoured the streets near the University, resplendent with various New Age shops, for any book on angels. Most of the choices centered on practices and spells which put you in touch with various “spirit guides” and or how to tap-into the realm of the angelic and the spectral. I was thoroughly enthralled. I bought everything, and took it all home to pour over. Here, I thought I had found my answer. As my friends had told me – I was resisting this force that was only over me in a benevolent attempt to help and guide me. Over the next few days, I tried futilely to call upon this spirit in order to invite it in; nothing happened. Frustrated, and with the coldness seemingly gone away, I gave up.
A few months later, I was doing another solo porn shoot. This time, I was determined to evoke all of what I learned from various New Age and occult practices. Immediately, I wanted to try out the phenomena of “lesser magic” as prescribed by Satanist Anton LaVey. To LaVey, lesser magic was a form of psychological manipulation. Part of this concept was the “Will to Look.” I say this as a none ritualized route to power. I liked it. For, since getting into the occult, I had found much of the spell-making and hocus-pocus stuff overly feminine and useless. So, on that fateful day, I decided to utilize all I had acquired from LaVey; that: command could be attained through a concentration of the gaze; this was achieved by a sexual manipulation which masqueraded as the coy and innocent – perfectly embodied by my childhood dream-girl – the first “Playboy” Playmate Marilyn Monroe. Only, LaVey also recommended that the scene be marked by an unusual sight which should illicit “wonder,” amazement, even disgust in the viewer. When I tried to melt the camera lens with a laser beam of heat from my eyes, everything suddenly turned cold. But, this time, instead of fighting it – I let it all just sink into me. Magically, the chill was transformed inside of my body to a raging fire: I began to sweat profusely, growl at the camera, and urinate into my open mouth. The camera guy was stunned, but overjoyed. From then on, that strange coldness never reappeared again. For a while “The Satanic Bible” was my Bible. I knew what I had gotten into was not of my past; not of my Catholic upbringing. This was something outside of it, but also something that looked a little like it: the black mass veiled as the Sacrifice of Christ on the altar. The spirit that had entered me was not from Heaven, but from this world - from a place of the purely material – from a world of sex, filth, and decay; and, I thought, I controlled it. One night, I got to passingly meet the great man himself: Anton LaVey. At first, I was somewhat disappointed: in a dark suit and tie, only his shaved head made him look peculiar. But, then, I looked into his eyes: they seemed to pass through my skull and into the air behind my head; he could see through me. It was mysterious and frightening. That’s what I wanted to do. It is what the porn pushers wanted; for it had the power to seduce all who experienced it; even those at home – peering into their television screens. From then on, I paid special attention to all porn performers who broke the so-called “fourth wall,” the barrier between the performer and the audience. Without exception, every one of these actors were either those that were heavily involved with the occult, or had been severely abused and then manipulated by others.
As I dug deeper into the occult, I discovered that LaVey was not the first to delve into what I came to understand as “sex magic.” One of the first modern masters, Aleister Crowley, became my new high-priest as his take was overtly homosexual. A favorite quote was: “Each individual has an absolute right to satisfy his sexual instinct as is physiologically proper for him. The one injunction is to treat all such acts as sacraments.” For Crowley, the highest degrees of spiritual attainment were only reached through gay sex: lower orders could be attained by meditating upon the image of a phallus; while highest orders were realized through anal intercourse – which specifically attracted spirit demons. With that, I advanced to performing in videos with other men; usually co-starring an older man with myself taking on the passive role. Although I had always hated being the one on the “bottom,” my new-found belief in the power of anal sex made it all feel as if I was the one ultimately in command. Later, I encountered the Crowley theory of the Moon-child; perhaps, that was the spirit that had been constantly haunting me – before I finally invited it inside. Now, it would grow and take shape within me.
From that point onwards, I would always do what the demon wanted. Every porn film I ever took part in, I would fill with all the blasphemies and curses that I could think of. I wished harm and even hell on those that watched at home; in my private life – I was no longer the young boy being abused, but the abuser. And, for a while, it felt good to take all my anguish and pain out on others. Later, it didn’t work; nothing worked. Most of the time, I was just left alone to thrash and hate the only person still there: myself. Slowly, as my physical allurements began to fall away; I was left looking rather bruised and bloodied – then, all I could attract were the similarly possessed. For, Satan had abandoned me. Death was inevitable, and the only detours ahead were all leading to hell; my damnation was assured.
As my unwanted life slipped away, I desired to take as many with me as I possibly could. Towards the end, I sunk to the low I swore I would never descend to: - I had become a common street hustler. Some completely sadistic and perverted clients would bring me rather fresh and innocent young boys to corrupt. It was like I was destroying the mirror image of my past – I was destroying the boy I had once been. Through that sacrifice, solace never came for me. Slowly, I became a rather ghostly figure: haunting the various porn shops, parks, and public lavatories of San Francisco. I could only exist were there was little to no light. People I met, and those I had sex with, were often disembodied shadows passing by me in hallways and among the scattered clumps of foliage and trees. I began to long for death. When I would wake-up in the morning, my first thought was always: why must I live through another day?
Now, I cannot recall the situation, but I was inexplicably offered a role in a porn film. By then, I was 29, but looking 49. I was rather insulted to hear that they would only shoot me from the neck down. When I showed up, everything that moved was morphing around me: other actors were turning into monsters, and the lone receptive male on the bed began to resemble a drooling and snorting pig. I thought it strange, but I didn’t care.
Proving once again, that I could do it, I was invited to take part in a rather impromptu film shoot at a local sex club. Up until then, I was still trying to hold on to some semblance of my humanity; only, I couldn’t anymore. Something inside drove everything that I ever was to all new depths of violence and degradation; I blasphemed, I profaned, and I finally turned everything over to hell. Hours later, I lay on a gurney in a hospital emergency room. The life was literally being pulled from me as I vomited up gallons of blood. Out of the corners of my eyes, I could faintly make-out ripples of movement that somehow affected the appearance of the air. As I threw out one condemnation of God after another, these vibrations moved closer to me. When they got near, I didn’t like it. For, they were invisible, but weighty and heavy. By their efforts, or by some force behind me, I was being drawn out from my body. As far as I knew, I was just fading away. But, nothing was easy or peaceful; inside, I was squirming and instinctively clenching up. Something wasn’t right. I just wanted to go, but I was being taken along – moved about by these bodiless spirits. Then, for the first time in many years, I was genuinely frightened. Within an instant, the image of Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared before me; and, somehow, I knew it was Him. He was gentle and kind: a continence of beauty and serenity that I had never experienced. I don’t know why, but I called out to Him. And, it was over. I looked about, not knowing who or where I was; only, I knew all that had happened; and all that I had done – was over.
“He that commmitteth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)
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| At that first porn shoot. |