Page 20 - AVN November 2015

ASKED & ANSWERED | | By Shawn Alff
The Wolf of Porn Valley The former Danny Wylde goes from adult star to author
fantasies. As such, porn inhabits a peculiar space between truth and fiction. This twilight realm
Pornos are bawdy fairytales for the modern world. These lewd folktales use real sex to portray
provides the setting for the second novel by Christopher Zeischegg (aka veteran porn performer
Danny Wylde): The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space.
Zeischegg creates a character that shares his stage name, his real name, and his former
occupation as a struggling porn actor. Isolated in a disheveled apartment that echoes his disordered life, the fictional Zeischegg
toils at maintaining a web of illusory, digital relationships. Just as the sex scenes in porno are often framed around familiar plots,
Zeischegg, the author, outlines his reality in a fantastical background of firearms, obsessive psychotics, and murder.
maybe it would be romantic to have to be apart from
someone and only write them letters.
The book touches on the idea that a man’s life can be rendered
meaningless if he achieves his dream, if he finds nirvana. Do you
think the fantasy fulfillment renders real life meaningless for some?
That line of thought comes through mostly in letters
written by the novel’s “villain.” I don’t know if I agree with
it completely. In writing that stuff, I was trying to come
up with ideas that I didn’t necessarily believe in. I’d try to
logically indulge them as if they were aligned with my sense
of self. Sometimes, I’d be able to buy into my own “negative”
arguments.
In terms of porn, I think most men will find their fantasy
marginally ruined once they participate in front of the
camera. Not that it can’t be fun. But it’s like fashion. What
looks good is rarely comfortable.
At one point the narrator declares, “I love damaged people. At least
fucking them.” Do broken people make more compelling characters?
Do they fuck with total abandon?
I’m trying very hard, at this point in my life, to surround
myself with more conventionally boring people. So that I can
have a sustainable future.
Not only are broken individuals more compelling
characters, they’re addictive. In real life. “In the flesh.” To
me, at least.
While I’ve spent a great deal of time advocating for the
professionalism and sanity of those who work in the adult
industry, it’s also true that there is no shortage of young men
and women who basically want you to kill them.
It’s a fantasy and it’s not. We live in a culture overcome by
sexual abuse. As adults, we figure out how to deal with that
in any number of ways. When my cock is hard and inside
someone, it’s very difficult not to be enamored when my
partner asks me to destroy him/her. And I’ve been on the
other end of that. So I get it.
The idea of sex as ritual appears repeatedly. If sex is a ritual, what
does it signify?
I mean, that can get really convoluted. In TWTLISAS, I don’t
think it’s ever entirely answered. I think that’s the problem.
Some of us have these ideas about what we’re trying to
get to, or “feel.” It means that sex has to be like “this” or
“that.” At the end of the experience, has anything been
accomplished? I don’t know. But the idea of “the ritual” is
perhaps more profound.
Did you ever receive fan mail that was as articulate in its lunacy as
the letters from “The Wolf”?
I get fan mail with pieces of that. No one person has
incorporated all of that “lunacy” into a single letter.
The stuff about perceiving a sex worker (me) as a god or
deity is pretty common. But I doubt that’s meant in a literal
way. I think it’s basically like, “I’m really into you.”
Were any passages simply cut and pasted from real electronic
exchanges?
Nothing is exact. The chapters about the cam client, Damien,
are probably the closest to real life (in terms of electronic
exchange).
Has porn done more to help or hurt your creative endeavors outside
the industry?
It’s hard to say, exactly. My creative endeavors outside of
porn are mostly in the realm of writing and music. Porn gave
me extra time and money to work on that stuff. It also gave
me an audience. However, that audience mostly doesn’t give
a shit.
It’s like, if I’m into looking at pictures of your cock, and I
follow you on social media so that I can look at pictures of
your cock, I might get bored if you just post about your book
and band all of the time.
With the release of TWTLISAS, I’m seeing the first
(marginally) significant support for my projects outside of
porn. It’s pretty cool. But it’s also very new. I’m not sure yet
whether that will turn into anything.
The narrator seems particularly disgusted by those who treat him,
and his profession, with reverence. In fact, he seems only to be at-
tracted to those who are not impressed by him. He lusts after a fellow
perform when she tells him, “there’s actually nothing special about
you,” and then later when she chokes him out. He falls for a male fan,
Joseph, when that fan punches him in the face. His attraction to this
fan grows at the same rate at which Joseph’s admiration declines.
Do you think baseless adoration naturally inspires disgust? Are we
attracted only to that which we can’t fully possess?
Porn was this really great way for me to earn some self-
esteem when I was younger. I was like the average pseudo-
depressed teenager. Then I got into this world where people
wanted to have sex with me, and they wanted to pay me to
have sex. That felt really good.
But time went on, and I met my needs, and porn was still
my job.
I know porn is interesting from a sociological perspective.
But to me, it’s mostly boring. I still work in porn—on the
production end of things. I put a lot of time and energy into
it. And while we’re making it, I care about the quality and
product. I want it to look good so that I still have a job. …
(Continued on page 22)
WHO’S WHO
Why did you share your name and stage name
with the novel’s narrator? Why write a work
of fiction about the adult industry instead of a
memoir?
The first several chapters of TWTLISAS
were written prior to constructing any sort
of outline or narrative. I knew that I wanted
to write another book, so I just started
jotting down things that were happening
in my life at the time. It seemed easiest to
write about myself.
But writing an actual memoir felt
redundant. I had been updating a blog
(TrveWestCoastFiction.blogspot.com) with
essays and short stories about my life in the
adult industry. People could piece together
much of my ‘memoir’ from that.
Also ... My feelings about sex work or
relationships, or whatever, can often be
obstructed by reality. Fiction might allow
for a more accurate internal reflection.
This book reveals how modern relationships
are increasingly becoming digitized; characters
search for connection through porn, video mes-
saging, texting. Do you see the wires of modern
communication as ties that bring us together, or
as chains that strangle us and keep us shackled
up, alone?
Increasingly, I feel like digitized
communication, such as social media, is
“real life.” A lot of my strong emotional
connections with people are sustained
through texting, videos, Facebook, etc. …
I appreciate “in the flesh” interaction. At
some point, it’s necessary. Though, if social
media and the like weren’t so mundane,
20 | AVN.com | 11.15