Porn Valley- So I asked Peter Romero Saturday afternoon where all the babes were at, because I expected to see maybe a dozen naked ones hanging around his pool. Romero said he gets that question a lot and people are generally disappointed not to find some mini Hefner Shangri-la tucked away in Granada Hills.
Even though Romero’s of the firm opinion that power in the adult business is controlling the access to pussy, access was sorely limited this particular overcast afternoon. Even though Romero, as an agent in the adult entertainment arena, has had plenty of it, though he disputes the notion that millions of women have crawled in the sack with him for the sake of possible stardom. “Maybe 2,000,” he winks.

In a relative change of life format, Romero’s going to great lengths to explain that he’s no longer an “agent” but a scout. A term which summons visions of Albert Brooks in a Sinatra snap-brim and a Hawaiian shirt crawling around minor league shitholes for the opportunity to sign a pitcher to the New York Yankees. With one difference. As far as Romero’s concerned, his girls are the New York Yankees. If no one else does, Romero will be the first to tell you that he’s scouted and repped the creme de la creme of the adult business.

Romero, who hangs out in strip clubs like hustlers in pool halls, now scouts talent for companies like Hustler and adult.com. He mentions that Hustler might be spending a zillion dollars this year to search for a contract girl. Meanwhile, Romero says he’ll take your money, go to Phoenix and come back with a video featuring six of the best looking girls in the country. Take your pick.

With a practiced gift of inquiry that’s all part of the conversation game, Romero basically makes his living convincing “a regular chick” to become a “porn chick”. But not just any regular chick. “She has to like animals,” Romero says. “Who doesn’t like animals?” It might sound trite, but Romero said it’s important to draw that kind of incidental information out in casual conversation. Romero’s also of the opinion that Jenna Jameson’s the benchmark for all girls in porn, Romero being a personal admirer of Jameson’s “upturned lips,” “smart ass mouth,” and her amazing ability to market that persona.

We hop into Romero’s white truck as he strings his cell phone over his rearview mirror. “I hate these things,” he says, referring to cell phones. I’m almost tempted to tell him that a lot of kids in Ethiopia would chew their right arms off to have one. Back in the day, when he was probably on a diet similar, Romero sported six pack abs, had a chin you could drive through concrete and appeared on the cover of Playgirl. He looked like a young Caesar Romero. Today he looks more like Caesar’s Palace, but Romero, who used to be a personal trainer to Kim Chambers, says that’s all going to change. That he’s back in training for a project he’s keeping mum about. To get back in the mindset for pumping up, Romero explains that he started by cleaning all the shit off his desk and shaving his head. He calls it his cleansing ritual. “I start from within,” he explains.

I observed, first-hand, Romero’s cleansing ritual, particularly when we went to a drive-through food joint, and he ordered something in a paper bag that started bleeding grease. Be that as it may, we talked about our respective careers in the business.

Romero explains that he launched his website, povporn.com about 2 1/2 years ago. The name is fairly descriptive of its smart-looking content with Romero usually on the business end of sexual favors. Describing his as a true reality porn site, Romero also takes great pains having the girls make disclaimers to indicate that this is all fun and games.

During the course of conversation, you’ll find that Romero’s also a sucker for marketing strategies and statistics [note on the site- which also features live webcam shows- how he precisely breaks down, by numbers, his video clips, photos and models]. When it comes to running his site, Romero’s a nurturing custodian, but is also very lavish in his praise of Kim Chambers and the way she operates hers. Romero notes that Chambers was one of the first to go with the idea of being really nasty on the Internet for fans who are obviously laying out hard cash to see her. Romero said that’s the part that really fascinates him- the process of the mouse movement, “What makes a guy go from text to lending his credit card.” And Romero’s got enough bewildering theories about choices as to make a finite mathematics professor blanch.

Romero: “I’ve been surfing the Internet for reality websites. So is everybody else. People want to see something that’s real. And after awhile the hardcore consumer gets really bored of all this fake reality porn- I think. I give them real, reality porn. I really found these girls. Tami Lynn [from Las Vegas], I found her; Mia [from Chico, California], I found her. Genie, I found her. Lilly Thai, I found her on a set. She had never done boy-girl before. She says wanted to do it with me. So I shot her very first scene. And she squirts for real.” [Thai on video says it’s her first lest there be an Internet dispute.]

“And people would dispute it too,” Romero laughs. “They disputed two things- number one, that it was her first scene. But nobody came forth with any material. Everyone claimed they’d already shot her but no one showed me the material. Everyone claimed that the squirting was fake. She said how could you pee twice in a five-minute period? She squirted on me like four or five times.”

Romero gives particular props to Slain Wayne who edits his trailers. “It forms the humor of the site and does all this little stuff that brings everybody back.” And Romero could probably give you a thousand cultivated reasons why they did it.