Part 2 of 3
Tomorrow, Tegan Mohr is going to be HardTied, and I’m not sure she knows what she is getting into. A pixielike 23-year-old from Portland, Mohr will be in Oakland for fewer than 24 hours, and will go home with uncharacteristic bruises.
She has what she describes as a “gamer” haircut, and her usual porn gigs revolve around superhero cosplay in the Pacific Northwest. As the InSex crew enjoys a family dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen a few miles from the studio, I am thinking of Kelly Divine’s shoot earlier that day.
Mohr is about half Divine’s level of juiciness, and I ask her if she has ever been tied up, pinned down, and penetrated. (I am having a bowl of the Potato Leek soup.)
“Not really,” she says.
Mohr isn’t eating much, is carrying a bag of her own vegetables, is healthy in a way that I guess I don’t want to be healthy. I am fairly certain that she would be quicker up a flight of stairs than me but I would enjoy the trip more.
In my time with the InSex staff I will join them for both dinner and breakfast around Oakland. I get the sense that local waitresses recognize the black-clad pack of pornographers. But it’s Oakland, so even the Denny’s staff probably has a webcam in the back room for some dishwasher fisting site.
In the summer, most of the crew moves to a 100-acre farm in the Catskills to shoot some serious outdoor and barnyard bondage—Rain DeGrey crucified on a tree and such—and I’m told the group sticks out a little more at local eateries there.
The next morning we convene at a Denny’s. Mohr still isn’t eating much. This is probably for the best, because you don’t want too much bacon—not that Mohr eats bacon—before a scene. I learned that my very first day in porn on the set of “Whoriental Sex Academy 4.”
Like the previous evening, PD holds forth on a case being tried in New York, a matter of civil liberties, free speech, and sexuality, he says. Gilberto Valle is known as “The Cannibal Cop.” The former NYPD patrolman visited DarkFetish.com (not an InSex site) thousands of times and chatted with other members about the best way to cook humans. Valle’s wife learned he was talkng about murdering her and a friend.
While Valle’s defense maintains that the former cop was merely participating in fantasy roleplay (“Here we are on trial for our thoughts,” PD says), the prosecution points to Valle’s use of an NYPD database to find “potential victims.”
There are times when I am aware of the politics behind this business. People like John Stagliano and Max Hardcore can still face jail for alleged obscenity, and not-very-dogooders can try to force porn performers to use condoms against their stated will.
But I sense that PD’s perspective—he is 66—is more informed by Communist witchhunts, “1984,”and his own evolved understanding of what the first Amendment means. Was Gilberto Valle actually planning to go through with any of it?
“There is a difference between thinking and doing,” PD says. “You are not to be prosecuted for your thoughts.”
Like the night before, the crew leaves when PD finishes eating.
At the studio, HardTied director Cyd Black is under the weather. He had joined us for breakfast but decides to go home early (“I don’t want to get anyone sick while I’m tying them up,” he says). PD will direct the scene.
This is unexpected. I had been getting reluctant but comprehensive interviews from PD all the time I’d been there, and he would always say “this story should not be about me.” He was clear about easing himself out.
I’d also seen a difference in the generational and sexual dynamic when PD was holding court or when Matt Williams was directing (I didn’t see Black direct, but I had the feeling his age put him closer to Williams’ style than PD’s). Not worse or better, just different.
PD had told me earlier that one of his mentors at New York’s famous Hellfire Club had “beat the shit out of me for two months. I submitted to that fellow, and it informed me.”
So today’s Tegan Mohr scene would be different than the straight domination we’re used to. There would be a psychological aspect that inform it.
Indeed, “The depth of the psychological matrix of an individual is unfathomable,” says PD to Mohr as he gets her ready.
PD sits next to Tegan on a couch. The camera is rolling. He is 43 years her senior. He asks the following questions:
“Can you keep your eyes open underwater? (Yes) Do you mind being kissed and fondled by a lecher? (No) Do you think you might be pregnant? (No) Any prescribed medications? (Birth control). Are there things you won’t do? (No anal. No latex hoods. Nothing urethral).
I just say these things to put myself in a mood,” PD says. “Thank God you came here early. These interviews became popular when we realized that the government was trying to decontextualize what we do.”
PD directs the women—Hazel, Dixon Mason, and Elise Graves—to set up the scene and run camera. Among the women on the crew, Elise seems most like a daughter to PD. She is sassy and affectionate with him, and he does not get impatient with her.
Mohr is trussed and splayed. From the woman holding a baggie oflettuce to this, she is suddenly a porn actress. She’s smart, and she feints and parries according to the role PD is having her play. The scene makes sense and he is pleased.
PD sits back and delivers directions from the sidelines. Problem is, Elise did not expect to be in the scene today so she is wearing—the horror—a red shirt. She briefly switches shirts with Dixon, doesn’t like it, and finally takes her shirt and bra off to smack Mohr around.
On a break, PD suggests Graves practice her single-tail whip technique. He moves into the scene several times when he doesn’t like the camera work or when the knots aren’t being tied to his satisfaction. Unlike some bosses who are not satisfied, he can tie all these knots perfectly. I notice he doesn’t use the word “porn” once.
“It’s transgressive, radical art,” he says. “It’s not psychology, gymnastics, human sexuality, economics…but it’s all those things.”
Mohr finishes her scene and everyone is pleased. There was talk of her staying longer for another site, but there are too many things on her No list for such a hardcore BDSM company. Still, she did well.
“I liked working within your theatrical range,” PD tells her.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Set to Screen—”The Truth About O”; Sexually Broken home, a visit to InSex;; “HardTied” at InSex, where you can’t be prosecuted for your thoughts; Wednesdays with PD: “There’s no point gagging her, because she can pull the gag out of her mouth.”
See also: Sexually Broken, HardTied, Infernal Restraints
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