When porn actor Chris Zeischegg answered a Craigslist ad looking for guys to get penetrated by women wearing dildos on camera, little did he know that decision would change his life.
He became Danny Wylde, one of Kink.com’s first male models in femdom porn.
Beginning a career in porn
‘I didn’t know a lot about BDSM at the time,’ he told Gay Star News.
‘In my head, I was like, if I was going to do any kind of porn my family probably wouldn’t look at this.’
Chris had a little experience as a naked model for gay photographers who wanted him to masturbate in front of them.
‘They would say your cock looks better,’ he said.
Working for Kink.com, he met his ex-girlfriend. She introduced him to producers, agents and filmmakers in the adult industry, and his career started to flourish.
‘You can’t do both. You gotta pick a side if you want a career.’
As he felt open about his bisexuality, he did both gay and straight scenes in San Francisco.
‘When I moved to Los Angeles I discovered, as a guy, you can’t do both. You gotta pick a side if you want a career,’ Chris said, noting there’s a lot of ‘old man money’ tied up in porn.
‘There is a stigma against men in straight porn doing any kind of gay porn,’ he explained.
‘Straight porn producers would say to me, “We don’t want you to do gay porn because there’s a HIV risk.”
‘We don’t want you to do gay porn because there’s a HIV risk.’
‘Because I was dating a woman in straight porn, she also had baggage around it as her dad is gay. We got into some fights.’
So he stayed in straight porn for a long time.
He was being paid around $500 – $700 a scene, and landed a year-long contract with a older woman-younger man porn production company who paid him $48,000 to work only six days a month.
Chris wanted to do more gay porn as it paid better per scene, and would have fights with his ex-girlfriend about it.
‘The turnover for straight porn is really high,’ he explained. ‘If you’re a brand new girl and work for all the sites, they need you to wait for a few months before they can hire you again.
‘As the straight guy, you’re not the star so they can hire you again and again.
‘In gay porn, it’s a similar situation but with that you are the star.’
Getting black-listed from the industry
When marriage equality started to come to the US, Chris figured no one would think it was a big deal anymore to do both.
But then he got black-listed.
An email was sent out to the industry detailing which male performers were ‘deemed HIV risks’.
Attached was a picture of Chris giving a blowjob to a man.
‘It was my only source of income, and I was not happy,’ Chris said. ‘I called one agent who I was on good terms with, and he said, “When was the last time you did anything gay?’
Chris told him six months ago, even though he was lying, because that was the timeframe that would enable him to keep working.
Straight male porn stars are sleeping with men for money
The issue was he knew a lot of guys working in straight porn were happy to sleep with men for money.
‘Every fucking guy, especially if he’s well known, has been offered to do something sexual with a man,’ he said.
‘I know a lot of them have done it. They’d never admit it publicly.’
When Chris has dated guys, none of them long-term, many questioned why he was doing straight porn and also dating them.
All the women he has dated have been in the industry.
‘Some people just want to fuck one type of person, and that’s not me.’
People would treat me like I was “dabbling” in different worlds,’ Chris said.
‘Especially in the US, because of this deep-seated religious past, people’s brains are ingrained in identities. If you’re sleeping with guys and also sleeping with women, you’re a fucking poser or a tourist and this is not your identity.
‘Some people just want to fuck one type of person, and that’s not me.’
Unlike some bisexual performers, there was no effort to brand him as ‘gay-for-pay’ in same-sex films. He was also not interested in changing his porn name for different scenes.
‘I just didn’t vocalize that I liked girls. Guys would fuck me in the ass or I’d fuck them. I was very young and twinky-looking so it wouldn’t have worked from a marketing perspective.’
Leaving porn
Ultimately, Chris decided to leave the industry for health reasons.
‘99% of guys take erectile dysfunction drugs as a performance enhancer. It’s not like you can’t perform without them but it’s about consistency,’ Chris said.
‘If you fuck up a scene, meaning you can’t get it up or you can’t keep it up, the director isn’t going to hire you again.’
So he started taking Cialis consistently, and even dabbled in injections. He ended up in hospital for priapism, an erection that won’t go down, several times.
‘The last time it happened, the doctors had to bleed the side of my dick,’ Chris said, remembering back to 2013.
‘The doctor at that point in the emergency room said I would build scar tissue in my penis and I might not be able to get an erection.
‘I thought it wasn’t worth it. The next day I quit.
‘It wasn’t a good time as my whole career and identity was tied up in porn. It was devastating.’
Moving on
The porn actor is now on the other side of the camera, working in production and post-production.
He became a hustler (he says his clients are mostly male with the occasional woman wanting to pay), and also works as a freelance video editor. He also does cam shows on his Only Fans account.
‘It’s remarkable to me how many young straight women are casual fans of porn. They don’t pay for it. I don’t think a lot of young gay men pay either.
‘People who pay for it, like private Skype sessions, tend to be middle-aged men.’
Chris is also a writer. His next book is called Body to Job. It’s the closest thing he has written to a memoir, although it includes some magical realism and fictional violence. It’s available now.
