Producer's Journal In the world of male porn stars, "wood" is everything. You don't need to be a thespian, possess any charisma, or be particularly good looking to get top billing in an adult video.. You have to get and maintain an erection in front of a group of somewhat sleazy, greasy, tattooed men, and a disinterested actress who is being paid to moan. It's not an easy task, which explains why you always see the same guys again and again (…or so I've heard).

Before doing the story, I feared that longtime male performers would be reluctant to speak about their experiences with "getting wood". I thought that they might be superstitious, and believe that talking about their unusual skills would jinx them. I was also worried that they would not have little to say beyond "What can I say, I dig chicks." What I found is that the veterans of porn can talk about their erections endlessly, and even…er… eloquently. They spoke about the tricks of their trade, in the same way a trained specialist in any field talks about his vocation. And there was much more involved in getting wood on set than I anticipated. As I found out, the "tools" of a good woodsman include vitamin cocktails, zinc, tuna fish, and elaborate hand grips. Mostly though, for the veterans, achieving wood is a mental thing. It's a state they enter into where they block out the camera crew and create some sort of intimacy with the other performer.

The biggest surprise to me, was the widespread use of viagra. I had no idea that even the young performers have begun to rely on it to get through difficult scenes. As porn "legend" Ron Jeremy puts it, "Viagra has very much changed the landscape of porn. Now you don't have to see the same guys day in and day out. Now with viagra anyone can be a porn star basically. But I'll never take viagra, I like to rely on my mind and a good right hand."

Pedro Orrego
Associate Producer, SexTV