About Gram

GramFAQ

Gram Ponante has been writing about the adult industry since 2002. He is a regular contributor to Fleshbot, Hustler, Genesis, and other fine adult publications, and has served in editorial positions at both AVN and XBiz, the adult industry’s warring trade publications. Since launching GramPonante.com in January, 2005, Ponante has been quoted online, in print, and on the air in media around the world as an articulate and engaging commentator on the porn business.

In addition to increased magazine work, in 2010 Gram wrote the foreword for the scholarly tome “Porn – Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink”
and also began directing porn movies to get a better understanding of the porn director’s psyche. Turns out he pretty much had it pinned already, but he will keep directing because the catering is good.

Mr. Ponante enjoys drinking and opening packages. He lives in Los Angeles.

Q. How are you different from other porn writers?

A. I neither want to fuck the talent nor fuck over anyone else. I don’t have an axe to grind or any agenda. I write what is interesting to me.

There are exceptions:

• If you or your company have been particularly douchey to me I will (and have) done what I could, in my own, quiet way, to make you look even more ridiculous than you already are. And your career never recovers. So don’t mess with Gram – I am America’s Beloved Porn Journalist.
• I suppose I’m being disingenuous when I say I don’t want to fuck the talent. There are days when I want to fuck the sullen voice in the drive-thru at Rally’s, so why wouldn’t I want to fuck some of the most deliciously available women in the world? Let’s say I don’t want to fuck the talent outside the bonds of my sacred marriage or at the expense of anyone or anything else (meaning, at least in part, that I’m not gonna pay for it), as a condition for writing about someone, or as the reason I’m writing about porn.

Q. Is Gram Ponante your real name?

A. No.

Q. Why did you choose to adopt a “nom de porn”?

A. A company at which I’d been hired had a reputation of registering people’s names as domains. Cybersquatting cases, then as now, are expensive to fight. Therefore I had a contest among my friends to give me a “porn name.” The winner went to the Internet Anagram Generator and typed in the words “porn magnate” and came up with the name that graces this website.

Gram Ponante is a persona that shares certain virtues and vices with the person who created him, such as two legs and a resonant, manly baritone. My real name is easy enough to find, as are those of most of the people who work in the mainstream or adult industry, but it is respectful to keep them separated.

Q. Have you watched so much pornography that you hate it?

A. No, but I’m far more interested in porn as a business and a social phenomenon, and I tend to like the individuals who make porn more than I care about the porn they make. As my friend Cousin Stevie shamelessly points out, “I make masturbation material, not Art. The Art comes from how many times I can get you to come back.”

Q. Do people/organizations pay you to write about them?

A. Sometimes, and it has made me rich, rich, rich. But reviews and kind words are not contingent on sponsorship (although more words generally are).

Q. Do you work in places other than the adult industry?

A. Yes, and I’ll say there are more similarities than differences.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Cabo San Lucas working for a reality TV production company. When I and the rest of the production staff learned of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the first thing our executive producer said was: “This is going to push back filming.” I didn’t have an adult industry analogue to that kind of stupidity and ignorance until this series of events.

I’ve done a lot of work with basic cable entertainment companies, and the thing I like about porn is that, in general, at least porn says it’s porn.

Q. Why didn’t you print my press release? Why did you make a joke about it? Why didn’t you print it exactly as it was written?

A. It was not because I don’t love you.

Q. I just sent you a box of movies and you only reviewed one of them.

A. That is a statement, not a question.

Q. You’re right! Why did you only review one of the movies I sent to you in that box?

A. When I receive review copies of movies or marital aids, I choose the ones that I think I will like most. You don’t want my brain to rot, do you? So it is in your best interest that I choose from among a larger group of your company’s fine products.