Steven St. Croix was on Rebecca Bardoux’s show Friday night promoting his book, “Porn Star-Everything You Want To Know And Are Embarrassed To Ask”.

During his long career in the business St. Croix’s been asked the same questions over and over and decided to write a book addressing them.

“What I’ve come to realize is, there isn’t any source of information that really explains how we go about doing what we do in the industry,” he states.

“What I wanted to impart is what it is for a guy to be in that business. So it is written from a guy’s perspective. I’ve worked for so long in many different productions.”

Bardoux added that St. Croix is a “fabulous actor” as well.

“That has some weight, I guess, in my perspective of the industry,” answered St. Croix.

St. Croix recalled that as he got into the business Jonathan Morgan had the monopoly on the funny guy roles.

“He was THE guy. So when we paired up it was two birds of a feather and it’s pretty well known the shenanigans we pulled on-set. But we were young and having fun.”

Bardoux remembered how that duo cracked everybody up on sets.

“I’ve been very blessed having this career,” added St. Croix who’s been nominated for Comeback of the Year by XRCO.

Bardoux thinks St. Croix is much sexier now that he’s gotten older.

“I don’t think there was any personal spark with us,” she added.

“I don’t think I was your type to be fairly honest,” St. Croix responded gallantly. St. Croix recalls having met Bardoux when he was two months into the business.

“You’re not the type, at least from my recollection, that mixes work with pleasure or goes into the work pool to get your personal enjoyment,” St. Croix told her.

“Neither was I to be quite honest. I had my little moments with individuals. But as far as serious relationships, they happened to be with people in the industry, but I wasn’t looking for it.”

Making funny, St. Croix described those romantic moments as “tunnel vision when Disney birds start flying over your head.”

Bardoux said she was surprised to see that St. Croix had written a book because he hadn’t been broadcasting it.

“It’s from the male viewpoint which we don’t get a lot of,” Bardoux explained.

“It’s these questions everyone asks,” St. Croix added.

“Hopefully it gives the reader a better sense of what it is we do because it is a job, it’s a business. For my part there is a lot of maintenance that comes into this.”

Bardoux suspected the book’s a great way of getting into a male performers head. To explain “maintenance,” St. Croix said it wasn’t about waxing chest hairs.

“You’re a product and you bring people into the seats. Obviously there are girls and guys the audience likes. They have that something. I always took the opportunity seriously because regardless of a fact that the budget may be low, there’s a trust put into me to show up, do a great job and help the production to be the best it can be.

“I try to make a good character from these lines written on a page,” he continued.

“All I can do is make the viewing experience entertainment for the viewer. I’ve always tried to be very involved in the shows I do.”

More importantly, said St. Croix, it’s a business, one that has changed remarkably in the time since he started.

“When I got into the industry most of the films were story-based. They were features and they went to Spice and Playboy. I benfitted from the fact I was on cable. Then you either went to the video store or bought it on cable. Everybody knew my name. They retained it. Oh, you’re that Spice guy.”

Bardoux considered St. Croix to be at the top of the porn game.

St. Croix finds it amusing that some fans still think he’s under contract to Vivid. [The late Jim Holiday used to speculate that most fans were five years behind what was going on in the business.]

“It’s kind of funny, like where have you been living?”

Meanwhile, St. Croix said that others have the impression he only wants to act and makes himself unavailable to do “scenes.”

“I never said that.”

While St. Croix said he was comfortable with dialogue and naturally gravitated to lead roles, he still loves the idea of taking off his clothes, doing his business and leaving.

“Every guy likes that. The money is relatively the same.”

Asked about that, St. Croix thinks porn rates have fluctuated.

“There’s always going to be somebody that has limited resources or a company that doesn’t want to spend more than X-number of dollars and they’ll ask you to come aboard for a lower rate.

“But that’s all part of the market place we’re in. You can’t keep on exponentially increasing your rate. Whether people want to admit it or not, our value as entities in the industry is far lower than it was ten years ago. That’s just a fact.”

Bardoux said a lot of girls making comebacks are beginning to realize that as well.

“They [the producers and fans] don’t care. I can understand they want their fresh meat. That’s the reality.”

Unlike the diamond market which controls the output to the retail market to control price, St. Croix said the porn industry has failed in like manner.

“That paradigm, unfortunately, has not been followed and can’t be followed because piracy is such a huge influence on the bottom line of these companies.

“Personally I think the industry needs to push more to have our adult content protected under the same copyright laws that Warner Bros., Universal, Disney and NBC aggressively enforce.”

Bardoux felt that St. Croix made a perfect analogy to the diamond industry, while St. Croix feels that if the industry wants to make more money it needs to be aggressive with copyright law protection.

“Until then it’s a sinking ship and you can’t patch the hole.”

St. Croix points out that attorney Allan Gelbard, in similar fashion, has been very successful in protecting John Stagliano’s company.

“They were a victim of piracy. They were having DVDs that were being marketed as the original market. He was very successful in getting judgments against entities that were stealing.”

Relative to the book, St. Croix said he’s often asked about his favorite female performers. He’s also asked if it doesn’t feel weird in DP scenes to have another guy’s “Johnson” nestling next to his.

“I never really thought about it but my friend Joe Rogan, the comedian, he couldn’t wrap his head around it. Dude, isn’t it really really weird to have some guy’s junk rubbing up against your junk and you can see him?

“Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. It’s really weird to feel that. It’s good if you like it.”

St. Croix said he’s never thought about the homo implications though other male performers have phobias about it.

“I always wondered why the guys did it or how they got through it,” said Bardoux.

On the subject of smells and physical hygiene, St. Croix said while it pisses him off, he keeps in mind that a lot of young girls in the business haven’t someone to set them straight.

“There’s girl-stuff you have to do when you’re a civilian and girl-stuff you do when you’re in this industry. A lot of the [female] veterans used to share with the girls.

“Unfortunately I don’t see a lot of the handing down of the knowledge or the things that they should know. A lot of these girls aren’t aware and they think the smell is normal.”

St. Croix notes that pot smoking or alcohol consumption, or diet can also influence the smells “down there.”

“I don’t think half of them [the new female performers] have been to the gynecologist yet,” Bardoux added, laughing.

As a director, St. Croix says he now gets to observe the talent differently.

“I’m much more aware when I see the frustration on a girl’s face when a guy is manhandling her, and he thinks he’s pushing all the right buttons and he’s not.

“The guys are like groping moneys. They’re going through the steps but there’s not a connection. There doesn’t seem to be a lust.

“Why do it when you don’t feel something for the person?” St. Croix asks.

“I realize a lot of guys or girls are doing it for the money and don’t have the skill set to apply for another job. I get that. I’ve been through that myself.

“But some of these guys are just fucking a hole.”

Bardoux agreed that male performers who truly love women, like Rocco and Manuel Ferrara, are the ones who do the best job on-camera.

St. Croix observed that a lot of guys [and girls] will get de-sensitized, get high and take prescription medicine. St. Croix also addresses the issues of pharmaceuticals in his book.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or they shouldn’t do it; but something is lost doing it. You have to make a choice. If you really care enough about your work, and this stuff is going to be around forever, you might as well be really engaged and on it.

“The last thing you want to realize is, oh, I don’t remember that scene. That’s really sad that you can’t remember a significant amount of time in your life.”

St. Croix has taken several sabbaticals during his porn career. The more recent one took him to the south of France where he pursued a career as an artist.

Bardoux asked why he did that.

“I have a habit of doing that,” St. Croix laughed.

“I was in a routine. I was in a rut. I wasn’t unhappy but I wasn’t fulfilled so I took a chance. I started painting a few years prior. I felt re-invigorated.”

St. Croix opened up a small art gallery in the south of Frnce and sold his paintings.

“It was the best time I had. I always fantasized about doing it. It was perfect timing. When I was gone, the industry took a dump and a lot of people who were maybe living beyond their means lost a lot. It worked out for me at that time.

“The global depression really affected Europe and everyone tightened up,” he continued.

“I came back here like everyone else trying to supplement and make as much money as you can. As you know the life of an artist is not very lucrative and may never be.

“You always hear about the successful ones, but not the ones who are not known. But I did really well. My paintings were very well received. My style’s abstract-expressionism.

“My tonal range of colors were something that a lot of people in France hadn’t seen. What I wanted was the person looking at it to reach out wanting to touch it. I wanted them to see it, touch it and experience it.

“I was doing little things that made people respond to it in such a way that they had never seen this or seen it done this way.

“For the time I was there I was doing really well, but it’s very expensive living over there.”

St. Croix describes coming back to the industry as almost a last resort for him.

“I did not really want to go back.” But, circumstances being what they were…

St. Croix says he’s sold the last part of his first collection, and if he continues with art, it’ll be here in Los Angeles.

Bardoux noted that St. Croix has come back with a vengeance and got highly vocal about Measure B.

Upon his return, St. Croix explained that he got introduced to Jacky St. James, a director and writer in the industry.

“She had been doing her own scripts and stories. They were contemporary and they were plot-drive, A lot of people like ‘em. A lot of people don’t.

“That’s cool, but she had a serious script [Torn] that needed a strong male lead to play it. There were a loot of nuances and subtleties in the character. The character is middle aged and has a crisis.

“He decides to fuck a girl half his age. On the surface he seems like a very two dimensional guy, but this guy had some stuff going on. I understood what she needed and from a guy to play that. It was a true story and based upon people she knew. So it was very close to her. I read it, and I said I’ll do it. I’m so glad it’s gotten the wins and nominations.”

St. Croix credited the entire cast for their long hours and commitment to the project.

“We were doing our best because we hear, just like everyone else, man, fuckin’ porn sucks. We tried to give you something good and we did it. But for me it’s never about racking up awards or who has the most awards. I just want to make sure that whatever I leave behind, it’s quality.”

St. Croix began writing his book, remembering the fun times he had with people.

“I started realizing that people had questions and there hadn’t been anyone to answer them. I wrote the book within six months and decided to self-publish it. It’s easier.

“The customary way of publishing a book still exists but with technology anybody can write their own book and put it out there. You don’t have gatekeepers telling you what you can and can’t do.”

“If you want to get your story out you have to make it possible for people to get it. People say I didn’t get published by so and so. I’ve been through the process. I’ve had meetings in new York with publishers. It is a horrible, dehumanizing experience.

“I’m not somebody who listens to people who tell me you can’t or you got to do it on their terms. Fuck you.

“Are you going to tell a rebel from my industry that you got to straighten up, wear a tie and be clean? Like I’m not writing for the 45 year-old mom in Wichita who’s a bible-thumper.

“I’m writing for the guys who are walking down the streets in New York, or in Chicago or Miami and looking at ass and going ass, and they want to pound it. I get it. We’re guys. We’re men. That’s our wiring, so I wrote it for those guys.”

St. Croix wrote the book on his own and has never taken writing classes.

“I don’t know shit,” he laughed.

“But English and History were strong subjects for me when I was a teenager. I loved to read and I had a college level reading comprehension when I was in high school. So for me I’ve always enjoyed writing.

“Writing if you think about a book or a movie that’s affected you, it’s because it has a way to connect with your emotions. With Stephen King or these other popular writers, they have a way- you’re in the story.

“This book is not. It’s not a narrative. It’s like if you and I sat down over a couple of drinks and you said I have a lot of questions to ask you.

“Writing for me is enjoyable,” he continued.

“It’s a long process. It’s a process that I shared with other people.”

St. Croix had editors and a few people whose opinions he trusted to help him along the way for their input.

“I wasn’t like I sat down and wrote a manifesto and put it out. It was a process where I wanted to put out the best product and have it be informative.”

Bardoux said when she had a conversation with Christy Canyon the other day, Canyon told her writing a book was a “cleansing experience” for her.

St. Croix said he didn’t feel that so much.

“What I did was I limited my editorialization of past events and how I look at them now.

“I’m now working on a memoir and that is the proper type of vehicle to allow for that reflection.”

St. Croix says it’s tough to write because it takes a lot of psychic energy to go back to that point in time to relate a point or a story or what I was thinking. So writing that for me is a long process.

For me there is a cleansing or a re-shifting or resetting that happens when you go through that especially if you’re writing about this industry because we use our sex as a currency and people are so fascinated by the fact that they way we go about selling our sex is so opposite of how people feel about it.

“It’s a very private thing for most people. They can’t imagine sharing that emotional connection with so many people.”

Young guys, said St. Croix will want to bang chicks.

“But what you will find the times you remember as a guy or a girl- times when you had a connection with somebody- you could have had crazy wild sex all over the apartment or off the balcony or in a limo. But you will remember the ones where you felt something. Those are the times that you’re going to remember. I’ve had those, but there were times when I’ve had nothing.

“When that emotional connection is missing, it’s broken. It takes a little bit out of you.”