Porn Valley- Dave Pounder was a guest of Mike & Paul on PervertRadio, www.pervertradio.com this week. It was mentioned that Pounder holds a BA degree from Michigan State and a Masters from Arizona State and was also on the mainstream show Blind Date. Asked if he got laid on the show, Pounder said no, that he used it more as a marketing platform for his porn vids. “I do that as my total marketing platform.”
Paul said he couldn’t believe that Pounder didn’t get laid on Blind Date. “You’re a fuckin’ stud compared to most of those guys.” Pounder insisted that it provided a great marketing tool for himself. “I know when it airs- every time I wake up and check my e-mails. If I have orders or 200-300 videos, I know something aired.”
Paul said he watched one of Pounder’s titles, Fucking with Dave Pounder. “You’ve gained a lot of respect for me as a marketing person,” Paul told him. That’s because, said Pounder, he advertises titles with no anal and Paul thought there was a genius in advertising an anal-free movie. Pounder said everyone questions why he advertises that on the box. “I tell people anal is like pulp in orange juice- either you like it or you don’t.”
Pounder thinks people, like himself, who don’t like anal, would appreciate that kind of advertising. “I’d want to know which movies don’t have it in there given that there’s thousands of these titles in the stores.” Paul was of the opinion that the old school guys who are into glamour and women, as well, would respond to that. According to Pounder, he’s found that his product appeals to more of a mainstream demographic.
“Most of the stuff I’ve done is through the website as opposed to distributors,” he said. “If you look at the companies that really do well at the physical distribution level- Red Light, Anabolic, they’re usually the harder edge product. The people that are going after the more normal content is primarily In Internet content- the sites that are not trying to degrade or beat up the girl. It’s more of a happy-fun reality type of college-thing.”
Pounder says there’s also a gay male market that buys his videos. “I guess for me in it- we never thought gays watch straight porn for the guys but they do. Now we’re catering to that as well.” It was noted that one of Pounder’s titles has a pizza theme where they shot the set-ups in a pizza shop but did the sex in other locations.
Pounder explained that he got his bachelors degree in finance and worked at GE for awhile. “I got tired of that and got my Masters.”
With that degree, Pounder said he was looking for a systems analyst type of job. He then fell into the swingers scene. “I was doing some girl on the couch- everybody was watching- I didn’t care. I was having fun.” According to Pounder, one of the production managers for Wildlife video asked if he ever thought about doing a movie. “Sure I’ll do it. He got me an extra role in this movie. I was harassing everybody on set, trying to get some numbers. It was a marketing-thing. I kind of fell into the business that way.”
Pounder however decided to keep his day job. And it was about nine months later that he got a call from human resources. “At that point it was an uncomfortable work environment. They couldn’t fire me because there’s nothing illegal about doing porn. I wasn’t talking about it at work but it got to the point where I was getting so much adult work that it didn’t make sense for me to have a day job. I was making so much money between the two that I could drop one. I dropped the bank.”
Observing that the people in the adult business who were making the money were producers and distributors, Pounder decided to own his own content. “I’m shooting for my own video and Internet sites, owning all the content and doing as much as possible.”
It was mentioned that Pounder also made an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. “The funny thing about ABC is that they’re so conservative and so anti- anything to do with porn,” Pounder notes. “But on the Kimmel show they did a racy send up of the Paris Hilton tapes. I called those guys up with a show pitch idea. They said, no, that’s too progressive for ABC. Yet it was much more conservative than what they already aired which I thought was kind of strange.”
Paul observed that Pounder has done a “lot of shit,” meaning, media. “ABC, NBC News, UPN, Game Show Network, Playboy TV, MTV, Showtime…” Pounder said that’s because he’s a media whore. Paul was curious, when Pounder’s porn double-life was revealed at work, if any of the office whores came on to him. Pounder said he’d get weird looks in the stairwell. “The company at that point was looking for any excuse to fire me. I couldn’t make a move. I didn’t ask anyone out. I was just being straight edged. I was being paid very well and the last thing I needed was to get fired for hitting on some girl.” Pounder said had he been fired, there would have been a lawsuit. “It’s like firing someone for being gay. It’s not related to work.”
In Paul’s opinion, Pounder’s a stud. “The young, hard, hairless body. By the way, nice balls.” Paul could see why the gay crowd loves Pounder. Bringing up Dave Cummings’ name in the conversation, Paul said Cummings is always approached to do solo jack off movie but has resisted. “He won’t go there.”
Pounder said he’s been approached as well but won’t do them. “I’m not try to appeal to a gay demographic,” said Pounder. “But I have added revenue coming from that so I’m not going to turn the money away.” Pounder said he’s branded himself in a niche- that he doesn’t do anal and that he wants to come off as the happy, fun, porn guy.
“My reason for doing that is that I want to help legitimize the adult industry,” says Pounder. “Or at least legitimize sex. We live in such a conservative culture that if a girl wants to have sex after she’s met a guy, there’s a part pf her that feels guilty or feels bad for doing something.” Pounder wants to tell her not to feel bad. “If the guy pressures her to have sex then, rightfully so, she should feel bad because she gave into what she didn’t want to do.”
During the course of conversation, Paul mentioned that his wife had been dating Jimmy Flynt for awhile. “Jesus Christ, I almost lost her. I’m probably the only poor white guy that can say I went up against Jimmy over the same girl and I won. Don’t ask me how.”
Pounder was asked what he thought about the “extremes” of porn, notably, with practitioners like Max Hardcore www.maxhardcore.com. Paul said he can appreciate the power-exchange and role-playing aspects of sex. “Some of that stuff I can get off on- seeing a girl doing a 50 man bukkake. But at the same time I think where does this end?” Pounder said his take is that he’s probably the most vanilla porn guy out there. “Even though I don’t agree with it [extreme sex], I think it should definitely be available. It all comes down to First Amendment and freedom of choice and freedom of speech. In the same sense I hate sushi. I don’t like sushi. But does that mean if I don’t like it nobody else can have it? That’s ridiculous.”
Pounder said he would never produce material like Max Hardcore or Anabolic. “But I support their availability. They should be able to produce and distribute given that all parties involved are consenting.”
But what gets Pounder is that there seems to be an increase in the type of people watching that kind of movie. “What does this say about our society?” he asks. “The growth of that consumer base is indicative of a larger problem that I think is attributable to the breakdown of the family. I think that’s the problem. We need to get back to more of a stable family unit where people can grow up and appreciate sex for what it is in a healthy way.”