When Kenny G murdered Mika Tan: Interview with a Villain

If you have to be bound, raped, and murdered, you couldn’t ask for a nicer villain than Tim Woodman.

Woodman, who began his pornography career as the bondage rigger for girlfriend Dorothy Laine (hence the double “Wizard of Oz” noms de porn) in 1996, has been making homemade, quirky, dark, and sometimes violent specialty videos with some of Porn Valley’s most recognized names.

“I’m very lucky to be geographically close to just the type of people who wouldn’t freak out if I ask to ravish them,” Woodman says.

To watch one of Woodman’s “ProVillain” videos is to see the likes of Asa Akira, Mika Tan, and Tyler Faith trussed up, threatened with knives, and forced to perform sexual acts on a man who appears to be the doppelganger of smooth jazz perpetrator Kenny G (which is odd, because Kenny G concerts are a different kind of murder).

“When I started in ’96,” Woodman says, “I was the Desi to Dorothy’s Lucy. I tied her up and made sure she looked good and wasn’t in pain being tied up. Through her I got other work.”

The fetish and “mainstream” sides of the porn industry mingle much easier today, but in 1996 they were distinct communities.

“…and there were people back then who would say ‘I do fetish, I don’t do porn,'” Woodman says, “but I’d always answer that if people are buying your fetish videos to jack off to, it’s porn.

“That said, the fetish community is close-knit. I really have met a lot of good people—some of my best friends—in that community.”

What makes it so close-knit?

“A sense of being apart, I think. I mean, I was a Dungeons & Dragons nerd and I didn’t realize I could share this side of myself—this experimentation—until Dorothy gave me the go-ahead. I think once you find those people who say ‘Yes’ to that, you realize you’re in a small group.”

How soon after you stuck your toe in the fetish community of L.A. did you start working on videos?

“Oh, it was the beginning of April, 1996 that we {went to our first fetish event} and I was tying Dorothy up for video work by the end of the month.”

Dorothy Laine is now retired, but her voice can be heard behind the camera of many Pro Villain videos. I asked Woodman how his receiving forced blowjobs and similar from porn stars affects his relationship.

“{Dorothy} can be wistful,” he says. But we are not jealous of each other. There’s a difference between jealousy and envy, and she can get envious. I know I would…”

Pro Villain videos are shot on a shoestring budget, and the Pro Villain website, at which people can download clips, is a bare bones HTML affair that is the height of turn-of-the-century web design. In a way, this is comforting.

“I’m not going to learn how to do something more fancy and I’m not going to hire someone to make it fancier,” he says.

Woodman suggests that the people who watch and buy his videos might be turned off by a flashier site, anyway.

“I’m from a generation that buys its media,” says Woodman, 40. “That’s not true of the generations after me. In 20 years this might dwindle to nothing, but our advantage here is that we are close to a population that is comfortable shooting the videos.”

Some of Woodman’s setups include the “Ravisher” series (his first was with Laine in the late 1990s), in which a woman masturbates herself into unconsciousness and is “ravished” in a dream. There are also Evil Butlers, abductions of Rich Bitches, and the occasional murder. Performers who have also been victims of the Pro Villain include Ela Darling, Phoenix Marie, Holly Halston, and the extra-juicy and super-absorbent Krissy Leigh.

Because of some of the subject matter, however, normally porn-friendly Internet payment providers like CCBill will not work with Woodman’s site, so customers must purchase “tokens” and redeem them for photos and videos.

“This actually works out better for me and for the customer,” Woodman says, “as they are not paying so much, and I don’t have to part with a cut to CCBill. And these are all a la carte transactions, unlike a membership site, where people tend to download everything you have and then cancel at the end of the month.”

It is truly astounding to see someone like Tyler Faith or Jenaveve Jolie or Brooke Haven participating in a video where “the traditional big-breasted porn star” is abducted at knifepoint. It is less shocking to see well-documented fetishy edgewalkers like Tan and Amber Rayne and Asa Akira do this.

“I think because I’ve been doing this for so long that people trust me,” Woodman says. “Tyler Faith knows that I’m not really going to stab her…”

I ask if he has encountered any hesitation from his models.

“I’d say 70 percent of them jump in with both feet,” he says. “Most porn talent come from an environment where it’s ‘What color is the couch going to be today?’ so I think that when I suggest a silly scene with light sabers, they like it…all Jessica Bangkok wanted to make sure of, for example, was that we didn’t get fake blood in her hair because she was shooting somewhere else later.”

What about safewords in case the play-violence hits too close to home?

“On camera, my safeword is ‘Cut,'” Woodman says. “I can understand it even if it’s through a gag. I speak Gag very well.”

While places like Kink.com specialize in all manner of depictions of violence, I have never seen a simulated murder video.

In the one I saw, Mika Tan is interrupted while painting her toenails. Woodman binds her and forces her to give him a blowjob. Then he slits her throat.

I’d be disingenuous if I said it wasn’t interesting to watch. I counter this behavior by never being the sort of driver who slows everyone down at accident scenes by rubbernecking. It is possible for adult humans to recognize the difference between entertainment and real-life violence.

I ask Woodman if he is concerned about legal repercussions of this sort of content.

“It is definitely niche material, but again I’m in a location where someone like Mika Tan will be seen the very next week in three other companies’ videos,” he says. “So people can be assured that I didn’t really murder her. In fact, the way I shoot, I can murder the same woman three times a day.”

(Indeed, I see that Mika Tan has updated Twitter almost 20 times today, so I’m assuming she’s still alive.)

What do people not understand about Woodman’s form of violent role-playing?

“For myself, I know that, once I got clear of the programmed guilt, I was home free. People don’t realize that I wouldn’t be remotely interested in the real-life version of any of these scenarios.”

I think of something Bobbi Starr told me about her work in porn.

“If I wanted to explore that side of myself that wanted to be gangbanged in an alley, I wouldn’t actually have to go find an alley and some random dudes to gangbang me there,” she said. “Porn is a place to do that safely.”

We talked more about Woodman’s relationship with Laine as the conversation wound down, and I asked if there was any aspect of sex culture that offended a person who murders people on camera.

“I know all the kids call it ‘polyamory,’ he says, “but it’s a crime to mix Greek and Latin that way.”

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: “Cherry”—Lorelei Lee writes about porn for a bigger screen; At loose ends with Ela Darling; Rikochan pumps up the clam; And on the 8th Day, God blew up Boston
See also: Tim Woodman, Pro Villain