LOS ANGELES—Interestingly, the article about porn star erections by Salon writer Tracy Clark-Flory that was posted on HuffPo today was first published on The Fix, which is a site about addiction and recovery. The article is not about addiction per se, but it is about the alleged proclivity by male porn stars to use a variety of erectile dysfunction drugs in order to complete their scenes. To that end, the article makes the case that "Performing in porn is like being a professional athlete, an occupation now widely linked with drug abuse."
The main source for the article is Danny Wylde, who retired from performing almost exactly one year ago following "a medical issue associated with my use of performance-enhancing, erectile dysfunction drugs," as he put it at the time.
In the HuffPo article, he goes into greater detail about his regular use of the drug Cialis to maintain the necessary erections, as well as the incident that sent him into the emergency room, and subsequently convinced him to end his use of Cialis and, by extension, his career.
"After taking 80 milligrams of the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis— four times the recommended daily maximum," reported Clark-Flory, "the 28-year-old porn performer had developed the erection to end all other erections, or rather, the erection that just would not end. By the time he took himself to the emergency room, this pharmaceutically-assisted boner had been raging for more than 12 hours straight. If it continued, he risked doing permanent damage to his penile tissue, even losing his career-defining member entirely. The doctors had only one solution: Using a syringe to drain the blood from his penis."
The damage had been done, however. "The ER doctor told him that unless he stopped abusing erectile dysfunction drugs, he might lose the ability to get an erection."
Wylde told Clark-Flory, "That's when I kind of freaked out. I'm not gonna give [sex] up at age 28 so that I can do porn for a couple more years."
He retired the following day, he told her.
But Wylde does not seem to have ever been the natural sex stallion that most porn stars claim to be, able to maintain an erection for the duration of long and interrupted sex scenes without the aid of drugs. " At the start of his career," writes Clark-Flory, before he ever touched ED drugs, Wylde tried to perform without a little help."
He explained to her, "I was unable to get an erection for more than, like, 30 seconds at a time. So we had to cancel the scene."
He was quickly introduced to a doctor who could provide the requisite ED drugs. Thus, at the very start of his career, his dependence on them was established.
As awful as that story is, the real issue to Clark-Flory is the extent to which a preponderance of male porn stars are equally in hock to erectile dysfunction drugs. To make that case, she is forced to use anonymous sources.
"Despite the prevalence of ED drugs in the industry, few performers are willing to talk openly about it," she wrote. "When I asked a popular male performer who asked to not be identified whether he'd ever seen other guys on-set taking these drugs, he said, 'Male performers are not gonna take ED stuff around other male performers, you should know that. What guy wants to admit that he isn't a naturally sexual stallion?' As for his own regimen, he says, 'I generally take half a Viagra if I have two scenes in a day as a little booster.'"
While the actual extent of ED drug use in the industry is never established in the article, a strong case is made for why male porn stars in particular face pressures that are similar to those faced by athletes.
Clark-Flory explains, "Male porn stars' use of these drugs is by definition not-as-directed, because most don't have erectile dysfunction to begin with. What's more, the pressures of professional sex can be conducive to overuse. A whole lot is riding on their erections, as porn director Joanna Angel points out. 'Literally an entire 50K-worth of production could all be ruined if your penis can't get hard,' she says. 'If they can't perform, it's not just going to ruin their day, it's going to ruin everyone's day on set.' Not only do male performers have to be able to get an erection, they sometimes have to maintain it, or summon it off and on, over the course of three hours, she says."
The article concludes with a reminder from a doctor that it is "uncommon to become physically addicted to ED drugs," but Wylde told Clark-Flory that he is "convinced that he was at least psychologically dependent."
Wylde, who still works in the industry, tells Clark-Flory that he is free of ED drugs, and that his sex life has returned to normal ("All is in working order, which is nice."), but adds that while he has no hard feelings about the industry, his opinion about who should be performing has evolved.
"People have asked me if I think it's a problem, am I against using ED drugs," he told Clark-Flory. "My answer is not really. The reason is, I don't think that most people should get into porn to be honest. It's not what people think."
