Polite Porn: Behind the Scenes on “Cute and Curvy 2”

Barrett Blade sat on a toilet with the bathroom door wide open while he snapped photos of Brooklyn Chase for Dreamzone's “Cute and Curvy 2.” Given the limited space of the set—a friend’s dining room—this was the only way Blade could get far enough back to capture the full spectrum of Chase’s cuteness, as well as her curviness.

“You used to come on set and there’d be fifty people,” Blade said from the bathroom. “This is how we shoot things now, even for big productions. It’s like we’re underground again, like back in the 70s.”  

This dining room offered a portrait of the modern porn studio. While technology has created challenges for pornographers, it has also given filmmakers the tools to shoot higher quality products with smaller crews, minuscule budgets, and occasionally from the comfort of a home, or a toilet seat as the case may be.  

The corner of the dining room was outfitted with a chaise lounge and a few articles of artistic garnish. The rest of the home beyond the camera’s scope was fairly spartan, adorned only with an arsenal of decorative blades.  

A samurai sword was removed from the dining room and propped in the adjoined kitchen, as the weapon didn’t quite fit the cutesy nature of the scene.  

While Blade photographed Chase, Eric Masterson unsheathed the sword and swiped the air.  

“When is the Renaissance Fest this year?” Masterson asked.  

“I don’t know” Blade said, “but, we need to get tickets soon.”  

While the dining room represented the contemporary porn studio, Blade and Masterson exemplified the cooperative nature of the modern adult industry. (For a more intimate account of their partnership, read Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals’ “BFFs for (Porno) Life, Bro”). While many of the titanic porn studios have sunk in the unsteady economic seas, some of the smaller players have banned together, pooling their resources to thrive in an ever-shifting marketplace. It's game theory as applied to porn--individual success is achieved through collective prosperity.  

Blade explained that they were shooting in a friend’s house to save on location expenses. The more costs they cut, the more they could pay their friends—the crew and fellow performers.  

While this fraternal solidarity benefits industry veterans, it often presents a challenge for newer male performers contending for steady work. One relatively new male performer who has managed to break into the ranks, Tyler Nixon, showed up on set earlier with a box of donuts for the crew. Sun bleached streaks highlighted his brown, wavy locks, which looked like they’d seen the ocean more recently than shampoo. He confirmed the rumors I’d heard about him: he’s possibly the politest dude in porn. Nixon went out of his way to introduce himself to me and ask what I did beyond writing about porn. He seemed genuinely impressed that I worked in a bar, as though this was more remarkable than getting paid to fuck beautiful women.  

Nixon didn’t even act disappointed when Blade broke the news that the morning’s shoot was postponed. Blade tried to shuffle shoot times and dates so he could accommodate everyone, so no one wasted their time or lost money. Feeling bad that Nixon had driven an hour to the shoot for nothing, he offered to bump Tommy Gunn from the afternoon’s scene so Nixon could work with Chase. While some men would give their entire paycheck just to hangout with Chase, Nixon turned down the swap. He didn’t want to steal the scene from Gunn.  

To make a career as a male performer, you need to possess more than just complete mastery of your jumbo cock. You need to be flexible, to be ready to fill any slot that opens up. Most importantly, you need to be a nice guy. You must be the kind of guy other performers want to hangout with behind the scenes, the kind of guy who brings donuts to set and defers a paycheck to another performer he barely knows.  

*   *   *

Blade suggested that I interview Chase in a back room while she changed. As sexually liberated as I pretend to be, I still have some difficulty overriding social programming, such as the notion that it’s impolite to barge in on a woman while she’s changing. I entered the room hesitantly and sat on the edge of the bed, which was occupied by an enormous Teddy Bear. I felt like a child bothering his older stepsister while she readied for a date.

“What are you doing here?” Chase asked, though not in an accusatory way. She was just curious. For her, today’s scene was business as usual.

I didn't have a sophisticated answer beyond the seemingly obvious explanation that I liked to hangout with naked women.

“I'm, uh, writing about your new boobs," I said awkwardly, nodding to the supersized breasts Chase adjusted in the bathroom mirror.  

At nineteen Chase got a boob job that took her to DDs. She recently upgraded to Fs. Her scene for “Cute and Curvy 2” would be one of her first scenes after refurbishing her rack. Chase, who was painfully shy growing up, politely fielded my inquiries, all of which were as juvenile as one might expect from such a line of questioning.  

“What did you do with your time off work when you were healing up?” I asked.  

“I partied,” she said, by which she meant she helped throw a few baby showers and kids’ birthday parties for friends. And she crafted.  

*   *   *  

Chase strutted into the dining room in heels and an extra large men’s dress shirt that wasn’t quite big enough to button over her tits.  

“You’re pretty for a chick,” Blade joked. “I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing.”  

Blade possesses a preternatural talent for complementing models in a way that makes them feel comfortable as opposed to creeped out. This talent is important if, like Chase, you're naturally shy, and if a stranger is staring at you in silence, furiously scribbling notes about the details of your altered anatomy.  

“I’m much happier on this side of the camera,” Blade continued as he shot. “But some of these girls. Sometimes I think if the guy can’t perform it’s going to become a POV scene really quickly.”  

Chase nearly tripped while stepping onto her mark on a faux fur rug. She explained how she could never be a feature dancer because she can’t wear heels, or dance. With difficulty she stepped out of her underwear and tried to kick the panties out of the shot. I considered helping her but assumed a stranger untangling her undergarments from her stilettos wouldn’t qualify as help. Chase contemplated a Red Bull in her purse, several yards away, but decided the divide between her desire and the drink was too great. In all likelihood Chase had probably spent more time fucking in heels, than walking in them.  

Given Chase’s discomfort with stilted footwear, and dancing, Blade helped set her at ease by demonstrating the simple dance moves he wanted her to perform for the strip tease scene, which would serve as a prologue to sex. He wanted her to shift from side to side so the camera could confirm that she was indeed cute and curvy.  

Chase swayed, gliding her ass against a glass door while the midday sun streamed through. White, lace curtains fluttered over her movements like wings, like she had just descended from a dreamzone populated with bubbly butts and boobs as light and fluffy as clouds.  

Blade’s lens circumnavigated Chase’s curves.  

“Your tits are so big they have a different focal point from your body,” Blade said in wonder, adjusting his camera to this anomaly.

Soon, Blade had enough still photos and footage of her strip tease to proceed.  

“Shall we make some porno?” he asked.  

An air of mischief infested the crew. Every guy seemed to revert to the mindset of his teenage self. This, after all, was why men were drawn to porn, and why so many people fear the genre’s power to transform our mental state. Some believe porn is a corrupting enterprise. An equal case could be made that porn is an equalizer. It reminds men how easily our sophisticated intellect can be humbled by raw sex appeal. For many people, porn offers a reprieve from the real world. In some ways, pornographers are purists. Many got into the adult industry to embrace the perverted, sex-obsessed teen in us all, to avoid becoming business stiffs toiling at traditional jobs.  

Blade and Masterson were dressed like brothers geared up for a paintball war. Wearing black shirts and camo cargo shorts, they sat side by side on apple boxes, aiming their equipment at Chase, where she lay draped over the chaise lounge. Blade focused on close ups while Masterson covered the wide shots.  

The veteran performer, Tommy Gunn, also seemed to lose a few decades, taking on the mental state more befitting his physique, which was that of a thirty-something male stripper. Feeling a bit light in the heels, Gunn asked if Blade needed a strip tease of him dancing before the fucking commenced. Blade did not.  

“Which kind of lube would you prefer?” Gunn asked Chase. “I have teriyaki and BBQ. Sriracha has been a big hit recently.”  

He hid the lube in the set for easy access then turned to Blade for instruction.  

“What do you want me to do?” Gunn asked.  

“Is this your first day kid?” Blade joked. “Just come in and have sex with her.”  

“You don’t need me to say anything?”  

“You don’t have to talk Tommy.” Blade said. “No offense, but we’d rather hear her talk.”

Despite the stereotype of porn being all about the man’s pleasure, Gunn didn’t skip the foreplay. Blade broke the shooting silence to encourage Gunn to get to the fucking.  

“Oh,” Gunn said, turning to the camera with a lubricated smirk. “When did you guys get here?”  

“This isn’t Tommy Gunn’s personal dating service,” Blade said. “I know it’s your first day kid, but we’re trying to shoot some porno here.”

It’s easy to see how Chase’s female charms might make a man forget what he was suppose to be doing. After all, isn’t that the end goal of porn, to give viewers a pleasant distraction from reality?  

For performers, the real challenge of shooting porn is not so much the negotiation of giant dicks or hours of vigorous sex. It’s holding awkward positions that play well on film.  

“I don’t know about you,” Masterson told Blade, “but I’m getting a sweet shot of Tommy’s ass.”  

“Yeah,” Blade said. “Tommy, I’m getting a whole lot of balls in my shot buddy.”  

Blade had the performers adjust.  

“Back up your pussy toward us so we can shoot up into it,” Blade directed Chase. “If you’re comfortable Tommy, you’re probably doing it wrong kid.”  

This is a fundamental law of porno: if a piece of furniture looks sexy, it’s painful to shoot on. Though, to be fair, even the most comfy piece of furniture could be made awkward with cameras trying to angle in on the action.  

Gunn found his stride and started thrusting away.  

“You’re hammering her off the couch kid,” Blade said.  

“Was I?” Gunn asked, a bit dazed.  

“You’re doing good kid,” Blade said. “Just back up a bit.”  

Chase almost fell off the lounge again when she turned to climb into reverse cowgirl. She seemed to still be adjusting to her new center of gravity, to the momentum created by her tits. The position provided a good angle for the camera to fully appreciate the increased range of Chase’s performing talents. Watching her chest leap up and down, I got a little lightheaded. Perhaps motion sick. I could only imagine the kind of concussion one might suffer if those things socked you in the noggin.  

A debate ensued as to where the cum shot should go. The obvious choice seemed like Chase’s new mantle piece, but in the end the crew went with the old standard. Tommy pulled out and stepped aside. Chase dropped to her knees. The cameras zoomed in. Gunn slightly miscalculated the amplitude of his orgasm. Instead of hitting Chase’s face, he highlighted her hair.

PAs (or production assistants) are a thing of the past on most porno sets. When the scene reaches its climax, every guy on set usually has his hands full with cameras, equipment, or his cock. I set down my pen, picked up a roll of paper towels, and crossed the divide between observer and participant. Gunn grabbed the roll from me and quickly tore off a piece for Chase.

Critics often point to facials as evidence of how porn degrades women. What these detractors never see is how the same male performer who delivers the facial is often the same person who wipes it off. You can tell more about a man by how he behaves in the moments after he cums than by the hours or days or years he spends trying to lure a partner into bed. Does he instantly fall asleep, does he immediately get dressed to leave, does he check his phone, or does he get on his knees to clean his cum off his partner?  

Likewise, you can tell a lot about the nature of pornographers who have chosen to remain in the industry after the explosion of adult tube sites changed everything, the purists who continue to find ways to pump out quality products and turn a profit in an age where people expect porn to be free.

Checkout the hardcore trailer for "Cute and Curvy 2" at dreamzoneent.com or stream the scene on HDVPASS.

Read more by Alfie and email him through his website, shawnalff.com