"The clothes make the man."
"Don't judge a book by its cover."
"Think it, and you can become it."
There are dozens of phrases in the popular vernacular indicating perception's influence on the human psyche. Especially in a primarily virtual world, where businesspeople may never meet face to face, perception can be a powerful influence. Some might even say perception is reality.
Ask Larry Paciotti. Better known both inside and outside the adult entertainment industry as flamboyant, literally larger-than-life drag queen Chi Chi LaRue, Paciotti has become his own cottage industry during the past 20 years. LaRue's enormous personality and style led him into adult entertainment (where he performs, directs, and produces), and that, oddly enough, led him back into the mainstream as "the face of gay porn." Today, he has nearly as many worldwide mainstream projects and appearances in the works as he does sexually explicit ones.
"It just blows me away," Paciotti said of the character one early employer called "not masculine enough" (for a drag queen?). Even straight-laced types who wag their fingers at openly gay men—and become cataleptic at the mention of gay porn—find LaRue's non-threatening, yet exceptionally overt, sexuality mesmerizing. "Chi Chi's energy and outlandishness helped me cross into the mainstream, because people aren't afraid of her," Paciotti added.
In the beginning, Paciotti went everywhere as LaRue in order to build her into an unforgettable brand. It's fun, he said, to be someone as "over the top" as LaRue, and he intentionally made her that way, endowing her with big hips, a big bosom, and big wigs to complement her oversized personality. Now that he and LaRue have made their Channel 1 companies a mainstay in the adult entertainment realm, however, Paciotti would like to give the poor girl an occasional bathroom break—say, in business meetings—but, when people want to do business with Chi Chi LaRue, they're not always happy when the much more subdued Paciotti shows up instead.
"Sometimes I have to turn Chi Chi on in business meetings, because that's what people expect," Paciotti said, adding the reaction is completely understandable. After all, he and LaRue are two parts of the same whole—just wearing different clothes.
"Drag is my uniform," Paciotti noted. "It's just like Jenna Jameson: When she goes somewhere, everyone notices her. I say, 'Hoorah for her!'"
Of more concern to him is that LaRue's notoriety is a double-edged sword: Everybody loves LaRue, but "there's no anonymity," Paciotti mourned. "If I ever did want to do something off-color or unexpected, it would be on every gay gossip site within minutes." He also worries about potential ulterior motives in personal relationships, he confessed.
Split personalities
Darren Blatt, whose alter ego—Players Ball founder and front man D-Money—has been a big name in Web circles for about 10 years, said his creation of the hip-hop pimp character was anything but an attempt to be something he's not. "Darren and D-Money are both real," Blatt said. "D-Money is the public, marketing face, and Darren is the business hat."
The name D-Money arose, innocently enough, while Blatt worked at mainstream Web-traffic analysis company WebsideStory, and since "nobody used their real names in the old days," it just naturally followed him into adult entertainment. Throughout the years, the character has evolved quite a bit, he admitted—it had to, in order to seem authentic on what Blatt described as "a Jewish brother from Cleveland."
"I had an abiding interest in hip-hop culture," he said. "Maybe I just always had that pimp side in me." Blatt said he has worked to become a respected member of the primarily urban, African-American, hip-hop community and realized he had met his objective when he was the only Caucasian personality featured in Cross Country Players, a documentary about hip hop, pimps, and balls nationwide. "The hip-hop character is an homage to the culture, not a parody," he said.
In a nutshell, Blatt believes his marketing persona works in both industries because it's genuine. "I always believe it's best to be real," he said. "Yes, I'm in character [when I'm D-Money], but it's still me."
Blatt contends there's a temptation in adult—possibly born of the renegade atmosphere fostered by societal criticism—to adopt a spiteful, in-your-face public personality. D-Money has resisted it, preferring to remain firmly ensconced in the middle ground. Blatt has little patience for those who adopt abrasive cyberspace marketing personae without considering how those "characters" may affect them and their businesses in the long run. Although "people do what they do because it makes them money," he admitted, hubris, snarkiness, and "hatin' on other people or what they do" more likely will backfire. "People may actually be who they seem to be online, but people who've developed a fake persona will never be seen in person," he opined. Behaving badly just to get attention "is just ignorance.
"If you're going to be fake, it's going to show," Blatt continued. "People know when you're fake and when you're real, and in this industry, I really believe people buy from people—not a company or a façade."
His advice? "Pick your [personal] brand carefully before you invest in it. Otherwise, you'll seem schizophrenic," he said. "If you change your brand, it'll look like everything you did before was fake. It's one thing to get a haircut and change your look; it's another to change your persona."
A role by any other name
Jason Sechrest knows that all too well, but although he's tried to maintain his real name as his calling card, the popularity of one of his websites branded him with a moniker and reputation he just can't seem to shake.
"It was never anything I promoted or wanted to have happen," Sechrest said of the label Jason Curious. "I've actually been doing everything I can to prevent [people from calling me that]. I've used my real name and been my real self since the beginning, because I'm not ashamed of what I do."
Nevertheless, the website JasonCurious.com became so popular so fast—and Sechrest's on-camera shenanigans became so well known—"it took on a life of its own, obscuring the rest of me," he mourned. "I intentionally made my on-camera persona larger than life, but that's not me.
"Of course," he added sheepishly, "it's entirely possible that I'm totally bipolar and just don't know it."
When JasonCurious.com debuted in 2001, it was the first website of its kind to do the then-unthinkable: cross lines between straight and gay and incorporate all sexualities in between and on the fringes. "I was told by many people in the industry who I really respect not to do it," Sechrest revealed. "They said it just wouldn't work. But, I did it anyway, and now there are a lot of other websites that do the same thing."
Sechrest certainly is aware references to him as "Jason Curious" in blogs, news articles, and gossip columns—some written by friends who've known him for years and realize the name irks him—have helped turn JasonCurious.com into the phenomenon it is. Even so, he's not sure he likes the trade-off. "It's only one aspect of what I do," he said. "I'd like to cross-promote all of my activities under one name, and I can't do that under this name. The worst part is, I didn't choose this for myself."
He's seen similar "accidental personas" ascribed to other people. "Michael Lucas has become almost more infamous than famous," he said by way of an example. "Everyone associates the word 'asshole' with him. His blog is so harsh at times to people—it seems bitchy, mean, snide, and ego-driven. But, that's not Michael. He's not that person; in person, he's an absolute sweetheart and a gentleman."
That sort of guilt by association isn't always bad, though, Sechrest admitted. After all, at least people know who Lucas is, and—as they say in Hollywood—"any publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right." Even Sechrest's unwanted association has worked for him on occasion, as it did during a recent mainstream audition: The judges were significantly ho-hum about his presentation until someone asked, "Aren't you Jason Curious?" The remark deflated his ego and brightened his outlook at the same time.
Sechrest hasn't given up on reclaiming his identity, but—so others don't suffer the same fate—he offered a stern warning: "Be careful what you're associated with and make sure it's what you want. Have a game plan from the beginning. Know that your name is going to be forever linked to something, so make sure it's the name you want associated with whatever you're doing."
The accidental purist
And then there are those whose native personalities are so beguiling, they couldn't dream up something more memorable if they tried. Such is the case with LionDollars Marketing and Business Development Manager Lindsay Probin, a big, bald Aussie who swears the gregarious, anything-goes, huggable bear side he presents to the world is the only side he has. He may have an online "handle," but that's where the charade ends.
"As strange as it may sound, CuriousToyBoy is not my real name," he said, winking. "Everyone knows who I am, and I am proud of what I do. So is my mom—although she may not be highly vocal about it in the local community—so there's no reason not to be who I am.
"People feel the need to create falsehoods because they cannot cut the mustard as themselves," he continued. "Anyone who knows me would clearly attest to me being me. I have no need to be anything but me. It is never an effort to be yourself."
As big as Probin's personality is au naturel, one shudders to imagine what it would become if he attempted to augment it for public consumption. He revels in the unconventional, often appearing at industry functions naked, in drag, or singing karaoke in a thong—and those are the tamer activities in which he has been known to engage. He shrugs off any allegation that it all could be deemed a publicity stunt, saying he's just unusually comfortable in his own skin. "I cannot imagine what it would be like for someone to try to be me if their public and personal personas were that disparate," he said. "The greatest moment for me in the adult business was the day, upon being pulled naked from the lake in front of the Bellagio during the water show by a state trooper, when I realized that [my doing things] that amuse me entertains others.
"I don't run amok and do the things I do and have the fun I have for any other reason than my own amusement. The fact that others enjoy my 'eccentric' behaviors is purely luck on my part. Who I am is hardly defined by my ability to have fun, but that is a large part of who I am," Probin continued. "This business has a litany of people who have fallen by the wayside because they cannot do anything to back up who they pretend to be. I have never pretended: I am who I am. Being yourself has one key advantage: You make friends and not just associates."
Probin is well aware he's something of an anomaly. How often does eccentricity and business acumen appear at the same time in the same person? Although he understands why others who must live intensely public lives may want to adopt public personalities, he's not sure that's always a good move. "We are at the point in this business where there are just as many reps who have never actually sent any traffic or had to make a join to make their money than [reps who've had to]," he said, adding that it takes more than a memorable personality to make a sale. "How can someone rep something they have never actually sold themselves—or, worse still, have no real understanding of what it takes to pay the rent [by selling porn] on the Net? It constantly makes me wonder; but, at the end of the day, it makes it much easier for the real people to shine through.
"Not everyone is comfortable in the public eye," he continued. "Not everyone is a 'people person.' That's why there are people like me. Some companies are defined by their public personas, and in a business where trust and integrity are highly sought after—and many times come up far short—that can be a very important thing."
