📍 📍 📍 📍 Hello, everybody. I am here with a very interesting guest today. It’s a little bit different. He’s chuckling in the background, a little bit different than, uh, what we typically cover,  although we have had a large variety of people. So let me introduce, uh, Vic and his last name, uh, LaGina.

No, Vagina.

Vagina. Okay. So for 20 years, Vic was a producer and director in the adult entertainment industry, working for the world’s largest company.

Once he deliberately nuked the bridge to the industry, he decided to publish his first novel, Filthy: The Rise and Pending Death of Vic LaGina, an endeavor 8. 5 years in the making. It’s a brutally honest account of his bizarre existence and one he felt he needed to share with the world. Ironically, his book was nominated by AVN for the 2025 Mainstream Endeavor of the Year Award.

He’s been on several podcasts and with hosts who appreciate his unfiltered tongue. So thank you for being here, Vic. I’m excited to have you.

Thank you for having me. Uh, I think this is like the first sex therapy podcast I’ve done.

Really? That’s interesting. What kind of other ones have you been on?

I mean, it runs the gamut, really. I mean, people, I think what happens is people get the email, or they get matches with people, and they’re like, Crypto bro, or expand your business, or this and that. But then they’re like, Pornographer?

Okay, I want to talk to him.

Yeah, that’s different.

Yeah, and they’re usually the people I want to talk to anyway, because they’re not they’re not closed off.

That’s cool. Yeah. I mean, and that’s a lot of this podcast is kind of about just like people understanding all different walks of life and really understanding that, like, the messaging we were brought up with around sex, we don’t have to stay in that tiny little container, you know, that, like, there’s, there’s a world of possibilities, uh, open to you.

So. So speaking of that, I read a little bit about your story and it sounds like, you know, you didn’t set out to be a pornographer, but it happened. So tell us a little bit about how did you even get into that?

my I have I have two degrees in production I have a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Miami So my background was always production. I was always into movies TV shows things like that and After I graduated and after freezing my ass off in Syracuse, I went down to Miami and I got a job at a corporate and commercial production company, and I elevated myself into a producer and editor and all that.

And then I met a girl. The story always Stories always take a side turn, sometimes to the worst, usually when there’s a girl involved. But I, I met this girl, she was a model on a project we had taken, we were taking people down to super clubs in, in Jamaica. And we met up, hooked up, she said she was moving to L.

A. And she was getting out of a relationship, I was getting out of a relationship. So she’s like, do you want to go to L. A. with me? And it sounded very intriguing because, you know, Miami was comfortable, but if I really wanted to do what I was set out to do, which is what I hope to do, making movies and television shows, uh, Miami wasn’t going to cut it.

So, so yeah, so I followed her, and that started what is usually the Crash and Burn Hollywood tale, which was exactly what, what mine was. You know, I, I, I got there and right away, she’s like, I have to tell you something. And I’m like, okay. She’s like, when I was eight years old, my father murdered my mother.

Uh, yeah. And I was like, did I just,

dumping

yeah, yeah, exactly. Like she waited until I got to LA. Uh, and I was like, half of me was thinking, okay, maybe I should just get in my car. Head back. The other half was like, no, let’s write it out. She, she can’t help what, what happened to her. And it was just one of those relationships where a lot of things were working against us and we were in a city that is not very forgiving and.

I was, um, overqualified for a lot of the jobs that were available, like interns and production assistants, but if I had humbled myself and just did it, my story would have gone differently. Instead, what I was doing was financing a lot of Our dreams on credit cards and I was accumulating debt and she decided that she was working as a SAG extra.

Um, you know, and she was making money, but she decided she wanted to be F-Eminem the first white female rapper. And I thought it was a one.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I was like, you know what? This is, this is great. I will, I will fund. Your dream, my dream on

so nice, Vic. So nice and so few boundaries

Yeah,

Ha ha ha ha ha

So, I mean, I’ll tell you this, she wasn’t terrible, right?

But, but what I realized looking at her videos, like maybe 20 years after the fact, like during the pandemic, I looked at a lot of things and I was realizing it wasn’t her story, it wasn’t her looks. It was the fact you look at her and she’s just not very likable. You just, you know, you sometimes see people, you’re like, I don’t like her, you know, and that was really it.

But what wound up happening was I just accumulated so much debt and I wound up trying to figure out how to get out of it. Well, I opened up an ad on this website on adultstaffing. com and there was a young Mexican guy who had a speech impediment that wanted to He wanted someone to direct his first porn movie.

And so I bullshitted him a little bit. I said, I’m your guy. I could help you do this. And so my first day ever on set was in April of 2002. And we shot four scenes that day in a condo where people were smoking crack. I smelled, I, yeah, I smelled crack and I do remember like. When cameras started rolling on that first scene that day, I was like, you know, that imaginary line, you’re like, you step over, like I just stepped over that line, but you’re thinking, eh, it can’t be a big deal, but I had no idea that that day was going to lead into such a massive and huge and long successful porn career,

it doesn’t sound like it so far. Ha ha ha ha ha ha

quite terrible.

But what wound up happening was, you know, LA. Completely beat the shit out of both of us. I was I was selling cameras I was selling things just to keep us afloat and I said I said look, why don’t we go back to florida? Why don’t we both work? We’ll give it another chance And that was a great idea on paper.

That means she would have had to have got a job instead She was obsessing about her non existing rapping career while taking taking bong bricks bong rips Yeah bong rips on our futon because we couldn’t afford a couch

God.

So I was working two jobs. I was working back at the corporate place, but then the porn snowball had already started snowballing.

And what I had realized was that while you work as an independent contractor in the mainstream world, you get paid literally sometimes two, three months down the road after you do that job.

Oh.

in porn, I got the money before I shot one frame of video. So it kind of just happened. I realized, you know, I’d have to do things.

I had to do it all. I had to shoot it. I had to edit it and, uh, once I was doing all that stuff, um, I guess cream rises to the top in the porn industry because people would, would just say, okay, you’re doing the job we asked you to, which I’m thinking like, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Like do the job that’s being asked of you.

But, but I wasn’t messing with people’s money and I was such an all in one service because I was applying my background to the daily work and that led to more work and then a bunch of young guys like around 2004 started giving me work and these were the young whippersnappers that were going to start this little website called Brazzers.

Yeah. And. You know, the relationship ended because I felt like she was a leech that was, uh, sitting on my shoulders when I was drowning.

Yeah. Yay, good boundaries entering the picture.

And, um, and basically I became such an unbearable prick to live with that she left, she left me.

oh, okay.

yeah, yeah. So I remember like when 2004 switched to 2005 and I only knocked out about three grand of my debt.

I was like, okay, we are going to change things this year. We’re going to get ourselves out of debt. We’re going to do it all because right.   📍 And the black cloud that had been following me over the last four and a half years, being in that relationship,   📍 it went away. I assumed to, to follow her and the first month I made my, I made my goal.

Second month I made my goals and lo and behold, I had this boom in business and I was out of debt in 10 months. And around that mark was when these guys said to me, look, you do great by us. We really like you, but we need you to tap into the LA talent because the Florida talent just wasn’t cutting it kind of amateurish,

But you were, you were still in L. A. at this

know.

No, I was back in Florida.

move back

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I said, okay, well, look, I don’t want to live in LA again because it’s a financial drain. It’s a lot of dark energy. I’m going to buy a house in Vegas. And they said, if you do, I’ll bring LA to me. And they said, we’ll keep you very busy.

Okay. Hmm.

as I hit the ground, I mean, it was getting the studio set up in my house and literally was working four days a week, shooting two scenes a day, 25 shoots a month.

And I’ll tell you for those 16 years, yeah, 16 years, I’d say there was never a quiet or slow month, but. Yeah, it turned into like this really booming business that even after my debt was gone, you know, I had an option. Do I go behind door number two and play it safe and just go back to corporate world? Or let’s go behind door number two, mommy, and see the fun and excitement that was there.

So I wanna, I wanna know, like, did you tell your family you were, like, being a pornographer? Like, what, how did this affect the rest of your life?

So in the very beginning, I told my father what I was doing and he said to me, he goes, look, I have no problem with this. You’re using your, your, your degrees, even though it was a little bit of a reach, I was using my degrees.

You were.

he’s, he’s like, it’s a legal business. He’s like that you can make a lot of money.

I, he’s like, all I ask, just don’t be in the movies. And I go, you know, that’s fair. That’s totally fair. So I, so I didn’t, and you know, there was, um, a time when I just sort of stopped telling my family what I was doing, because I didn’t want the questions. You know, I didn’t want to hear about all of it, but, um.

He told his wife and then this, the secret sort of came out and eventually I just cut them off from knowing about things because I just didn’t want to be a topic of conversation among people, you know? And my, and my, my brother at the time was having kids and I was around them and I didn’t want them to look at me like I was different because I was, I was shooting porn, you know?

People kind of forget, if you have like a little out there career, people like forget that you’re just still kind of a normal human.

Right. But here’s the problem. So what are you doing with yourself? Um, I went back to corporate world. Oh yeah. What are you shooting? And now I’m thinking I have to come up with all of these lies and bullshit. Exactly. So, so yeah, it was, it was like that for a while, but then there became a certain point where it was like, you know, the lying is exhausting.

Who cares? You know, and, and this little company, this little startup called Brazzers just became huge. And then, you know,

one who’s ever watched porn has heard of Brazzers. So, yeah.

Pornhub, and they became this big, huge monstrosity, and I was there right from the very beginning,

I didn’t realize that they started Pornhub?

yeah, yeah, because they went to some kind of symposium, where there’s an internet expert saying that, uh, free porn is coming, tube sites are coming, So you better get on it now.

And so they, they jumped and they started first and they kept it quiet for a while because they didn’t want people knowing that people’s copywritten material was being uploaded for free on their porn site. So this little start, yeah, this little startup that I, that I was with, that everyone was loving eventually became known as the evil empire and people didn’t really like them anymore.

But at that time we were in a bad economy. And they were the ones who were, you know,   📍 making it rain  and all the strippers were grabbing all the money. And so even though they hated them, they were the big company to work for. So they just continued doing it.

were these guys, like, when they started it? Like, were they really young?

they were younger than me. So if I was like, when I got to Vegas, I was around 30, uh, they must’ve been 24, 25 years old.

They were, they were a bunch of frat bros from, from Montreal.

Were they in the movies to start or no?

Well, they knew how to market porn on the internet. Like, like this was when porn on the internet was like, kind of like getting, getting its legs. Yeah. Before it was always the movies, the features of this, that, and so everyone looked at internet porn was the joke, but they knew how to turn it into a monster and a behemoth, which they, which they did.

they were always on the production side. They were not like in the films

No, no, they were they were just behind the scenes even like if I was the guy who was on the productions They were the guys up in Montreal marketing it for the internet

Okay. Okay. All right. So anyway, so these guys are like cool. We’re keeping you busy So then now you know, this is what you do now. This is your life

it was my life and it was a grind and it was um, you know The first six months I was in Vegas. I mean, you know working Tuesday through through Friday two shoots a day I was taking pictures. I was running video. I was

then you have to you have to do all the editing too,

No see I

doing that.

They were doing it up in, up in Canada,

Oh That’s nice.

which was huge. But I mean, all the things that I was doing before then I learned to shoot, to edit.

So anytime they got my, my movies are like, Oh, these are a breeze to edit, which upped my marketability and kept me very busy. So, you know, it really just was a matter of just apply yourself and work hard. And especially in the porn world, you will do well.

So did, like, were you having fun? Did you like it?

So I’ll tell you this in the beginning with the original owners. Um, I’d say it was fun I look back at those times as the most fun because you know, you’re in this thing that is blowing up And they’re your guy and they’re taking care of you and that’s what they did. They took care of me They knew how to take care of their workhorses.

It was as things progressed when it went from Second ownership and then third ownership slowly, the joy and the fun of the job was slowly getting sucked away to the point when third ownership took over around 2014, 2015, by 2020, when I was done, I was like about ready to lose my mind, like literally about, yeah, it got to that point.

So. You know, it all ended when COVID happens because the business changed and we can get into that. But yeah, at that point, um, if it didn’t end when it did, I might not very, I might not be here anymore just because of, yeah, cause you know, you, you have coping mechanisms that start happening. You, relationships in the business are hard to come by.

Uh, it’s a very fake, very topical, vapid industry. And even though I was in my bubble of bliss out here in Vegas, um, it wears on you. It wears on your psyche, especially when you’re around people who have kind of a dark energy about them.

Can you say more about that? Like, what was sort of the dark energy

Well, well, when I, when I was writing the book and when I was actually finishing the book and I realized, you know, my life and my trajectory was very awkward and weird and bizarre, which makes for great reading. I mean, everyone loves a train wreck and my personal life certainly was a train wreck, but I didn’t know If I could sustain a reader.

So what I wound up doing was writing all of these additional pieces that have nothing to do with me, but have more about the business. And I started writing about the people who died that I knew. And when you start reading about their, their death and their obituaries and whether it was suicide or overdoses or whatever, that’s when the light.

In my head went off. It was like, Oh, you were medicating because you were numbing yourself to be away from a lot of this dark energy. And, you know, and that, that was really the case. I mean, look, we were busy and I definitely needed a performance enhancing drug to keep myself working and grinding because at some point we were shooting 25 shoots a month, including four live shows, uh, every month.

So, yeah, I

How long is a shoot? Just to give people an idea. Because I have no idea how long a shoot is.

Well, if you’re not talking about features and I did shoot a fair amount of features for digital playground, which I hated because it was serious porn and I didn’t like to do it. But for Brazzers what would happen is we would fly a girl in from LA, they’d go into hair and makeup. They would spend maybe two hours in that.

And then by about four or five o’clock we were done everything. So I’d say. 8 to 8 hours, 10 hours if the, if the concept was a little more complicated, but my goal

were doing two of those a day? Oh,

well, in the very beginning I was because we had, those were not as complicated. It wasn’t until they started bringing in more scripted and more themed shoots that they said, don’t rush and do two a day.

Just focus all your energies on one because we’ll get better, better content as a result. Right. And, but even so, like when it was really busy, especially when I stopped shooting in houses because it was kind of gray to do so, I got a fully licensed studio in Vegas that was 16, 000 square feet. And yeah, so I had two, sometimes three shoots going on at once in various rooms around this huge monstrosity.

So with, with three directors going on at once, like that was.

So, and this was all your company? Like, you kind of really grew a production company?

Yeah, I mean, the way it worked was I set up my own entity and then I oversaw everything and I was a lead producer and I got paid per shoot. That’s how it worked. So, and that was like during the second ownership when the original owners, they had made their money. And I think they wanted to start families and in Montreal, there’s like a mafia presence up there.

And the word I got was they were getting squeezed and they were like, we want to get out of this. So they sold to this dude, uh, this German, uh, programmer, computer programmer who created this. Tracking software for porn. And he wound up buying the company and he wound up getting wall street loans and then buying every big company out there.

So, I mean, when I say porn monopoly, it was a porn monopoly because they were, they had their, their, their finger in everything, bad pun.

talk more about the actual sex part, though, because I’m sure that people listening are kind of like, is it really hot and sexy all the time? Like, you know?

no, it’s not at all. I will say this is if you have the right tools in place, which is having a good crew, but having a good, strong female talent and a good male talent, the sex part will be easy, but to be honest, and if you have those elements, then that part is going to take 45 minutes to an hour of your day.

And if you’ve got two, two strong performers, could it be hot and sexy? Sure. Especially if you light it correctly, but I’m, but I’m telling you from a male perspective, male performer perspective, no, it’s work like a lot of guys are like, I could do that job. No, you can’t, you can’t at all because you, you, you could be a big stud in the bedroom.

Okay. But now imagine you’ve got eight people around you and you might have a woman who might not be into you and you’ve got all of these bright lights and you have, you know, it could, it might be chilly in that room. It might be really, really hot in that room. And I don’t have time for nonsense. Like, like buddy, you gotta

Yeah, you’re like, time is money, let’s go. Where’s that erection?

She has a flight to catch. You have a flight to catch. And I want to get home to   📍 📍 my dogs, you know,  so that’s why I wound up like having the same seven or eight guys all the time

that makes sense.

so, um, is it hot and sexy sometimes, but I would say 5 percent of the time, otherwise

wow, that’s low.

pretty mechanical, you know, and, and I’ll tell you this, the, the positions that you need to get while the main point is seeing that penetration and.

You can’t see it if you’re laying on top of the person or you’re covering up. So you’re doing these weird positions and opening up. And that’s why, you know, these guys, the good guys, they make a lot of money and they’re always busy.

I can see that for sure. Cause I think people don’t realize, like you said, what actually goes into it. It’s like, you kind of have to be able to stay hard and get hard very easily. Um, you know, be pretty well endowed, I would think. And like,

Yeah.

that doesn’t matter as much.

a lot of the websites were like porn stars. Like it big or big butts like it big. So you can’t really have someone who is like, who might be in normal world, like, like average,

Yeah.

but that’s not average in porn. Like you want like seven, eight, nine inches in porn, because that’s the whole point of it.

They wanted to, you know, fulfill these needs on the whole, like a big aspect

porn is just so fascinating to me because it is such a departure from real sex. Um, but it’s, people are so fascinated by it and so many people can kind of get hooked on it. Um, and it’s actually really interesting that you’ve mentioned also some of the addiction behind the scenes as well. Um, what do you think people need to know about like the difference between, you know, real sex and good sex in real life versus what they’re seeing in porn?

What I tell people, um, especially I try to tell the younger generation, p0rn is not like a how to guide at all. Like, like, like, like, like the facial is not your, your normal finishing move. You know, like, like there’s, there should be a discussion about that. And the recipient should gen, should genuinely be into it if

Yes. Thank you. Yes.

And people say, well, women aren’t into that. Well, I will say that’s not true because I’ve known women who genuinely enjoy it. However, you know, if you’re in a relationship, you shouldn’t be using porn instead of being intimate with your partner,

Yeah.

you really shouldn’t. Like I’m in a committed relationship now and I save all of it.

For her, I’m not, you know, slipping off into the bathroom to, to rub one out because, uh, I think that energy is best for, for her, you know,

sounds very sweet. Yeah.

I think it’s important. That’s a very important thing.

Yeah, yeah, to prioritize the relationship. And I mean, I will also say I think there’s a benefit to masturbation. I think in terms of the porn aspect of it, it really depends how it affects you. And, you know, some people it’s like, oh, I’m getting some ideas or I’ve discovered some things I’m into other people.

It’s like, I just need more and more intense. And then it’s very hard to kind of be present and get off with a partner.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think in that case, it’s, uh, like if you’re a single dude and that is your outlet. Okay, sure, fine. I mean, I don’t, I’ll never, I’ll never be anti porn. I’ll never be anti kink or anything. Um, but I think it’s also important just to be healthy and responsible with it,

Yeah, could not agree more.

you know? But then again, this is coming from a dude that hasn’t been married for 20 years, you know?

And I don’t know how that works. So that’s all I say. I mean, I do know people, friends who have used my membership, uh, when I had one for Brazzers before they revoked it to make love. Uh, to their wife, so it can be used as like a, a project together and I think that’s good as well. Um, but I guess the biggest message is like, it’s, it is a fantasy, 100 percent a fantasy.

100 percent especially like people listening to how much goes into the behind the scenes of like what you just described is like this is not just like Making eye contact and feeling intense passion and like going after each other in a sexy fun way This is like okay, could you like spread your legs a little bit more?

Okay, wait, can you move the penetration to a different angle? Wait, we gotta relight this

yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean that, that was it day in and day out, which was, I, I think, you know, the reason why I also hired the same guys over and over is because they, they knew what I expected of them. And. When you, when you have like this sync with all of the performers, then you’re, you’re, you’re shooting actually a really good scene where everyone is, is kind of in harmony.

It’s, it’s, it’s, you’re trying to always find that sweet spot and sometimes it just never happens in, in a porn shoot for a variety of reasons. Um. You know, and I talk about those reasons, you know, when things go sideways, because to me, I didn’t want to write a book that was sexy or, or, or showing the beauty of, of, of the porn industry.

I wanted to show the realities of it and the bumps and the bruises and the bizarre and the awkward. And.

I like that.

Yeah, and I think the reality is I’m brutally honest in it, especially when it comes to me, you know, yeah, I think the only way you’re going to write an autobiography and a memoir is if you’re brutally honest.

And, uh, I, I set my sights completely on me because I did make some horrible choices along the way, especially when it came to relationships, uh, for the sheer fact of, you know, you just don’t want to be alone. And I think a lot of people make a lot of compromises because they don’t want to be alone instead of learning how to be, yeah, learning how to be alone and being comfortable

That is such a good topic. Can you tell us a little bit more about your experience with that? Like, what were some of the bad choices and like, what did you learn from that?

Yeah, I’ve got like a whole bakery of

I’ll just pick a couple.

well, okay, well, I mean, I was engaged and that was like, that was like so bad that every relationship after that, um, was affected. Because of it until I just sort of like stopped letting that whole thing affect me. But, but basically, you know, when I was, when I first got into porn, I was still in a relationship, but that was with the, the, the rapper.

Okay. And then, and then once we broke up and I was single, I was like, okay, we’re going to hang out with some of the girls in the industry. And you know, that’s, uh, that was always just. Kind of weird, because a lot of times it felt like they were putting on a show at a performance and there was nothing genuine about it, you know, and you’re

even when cameras weren’t rolling, they kind of still had that performer

Yeah, yes, exactly. And then, you know, you’re like, okay. And then you start to get to know some and you’re like, okay, there’s a lot of things I need to work out. This is not going to be a good partner. So then I move out to Vegas and I try to date in the civilian world. That’s what we call it. And I was a bit of a novelty.

They’re like, oh my God, you’re in porn. Tell me about it. it. And I would tell them about, they’re like, yeah, okay, well, that’s cool. But I don’t think I could be with you. Cause I don’t think I could handle that, which is understandable. You know? So back then, you know, I wasn’t comfortable being alone. So I wound up, uh, being with someone who eventually I got engaged with.

She was actually pregnant twice and miscarried twice, which was like the universe telling me, dude, you need to get away from this person. You’re not supposed to be with her, but. But it was, it was, um, it was so bad on so many levels and so toxic and so dysfunctional and so full of, of deceit and lies and everything.

Yeah. So

And this was a civilian

well, well, she was in porn for like six weeks, you know, she was someone I had shot in my waning days of Florida and I thought, okay, well, if anyone’s going to get the business, it’s going to be her. Well, yeah, it makes sense, but it didn’t, it didn’t work because there was constant jealousy, constant accusations of I’m cheating.

I’m doing this, I’m doing that. And I, and I completely wasn’t. So after, you know, the two pregnancies that failed and two and a half years, I was like, you’ve got to go, especially if she had a three year old daughter that was living with us and she was getting affected by our nonsense. And even though this wasn’t my child, I knew I had enough sense, more so than she did about.

She needs to be away from this because I don’t want our bullshit to affect her. And eventually, yeah, uh, she, the mother wound up staying longer and being away from her daughter to try to work on the relationship. And I’m like, you need to go, you need to be a mother. Stop like, like, like, how is that not instinctual

Right. Like why are you more concerned about the child than her? Yeah.

Right. And then after that, when I’m single, I was like, okay, now we’re going to have fun, but it was, um, more bizarre, awkward sexual encounters more than anything. I, I write about some of them in my book where I’m like, okay, it seems like it’s fun on paper.

Okay.

But the reality of it sometimes is just like, yeah, either, you know, they’re having weird, like emotional moments, or it just didn’t live up to the fantasy of it all.

Yeah. So then what I wound up doing, and this is when, this is when the, the addictions or the drug abuse started with me, because I think that, uh, relationship, the engagement took a toll on me. Um, to the point where that’s where I started doing the cocaine and I was never an addictive personality. I’ve never had an addictive personality, but, uh, that white devil sunk her claws into me.

But good, and you know, one little baggy starts turning into an eight ball. And then you’re like, okay, I can’t breathe out of my nostrils anymore. I’m going to stop. And then three weeks later, you’re like, I’m having a hankering for some cocaine. And I was the dreaded cocaine train. So I was single for about a year and a half, and I was having all of these weird sideways.

Uh, encounters, relationships, situations with some of these girls. And then it was like, okay, I met another one. She was a former performer who was a stripper who we decided to get together. But instead of me, um, being the monogamous faithful guy, And the cocaine was happening. That’s when I had my scoundrel years, as I call them, where, where we were both doing our thing.

We were just being very sneaky about it.

That doesn’t sound great.

It wasn’t, it wasn’t, but I detail it all in my book. Like, like, like I, I

book sounds pretty interesting. Yeah, everyone will have to check out his book, which is called Filthy,

right?

Filthy, Filthy, : The Rise and Pending Death of Vic LaGina. And, and then once, uh, we finally broke up, that’s when I was single again in porn and I was single for a very, very long time. I dated a, um, a Dutch girl for nine months. That was an open relationship was the first time I did that. Um, but I think she just needed a green card, you know?

And this was, um, yeah, so, so that was only nine months and then I was, I was single and I, I remained single. And I, that was when I think I really got. Became at peace with being alone and comfortable being alone and making sure I didn’t revisit or or or have Repeat any mistakes,

Yeah. How did you clean up your act with the cocaine?

well, I guess it really started with starting to write the book and realizing what a shit show my life was and You know how many wrong turns and I think I think for me so whenever The job became too much.

I would go to music festivals and I would take the good drugs, you know, the LSD, the mushrooms, expand the mind a little bit more and cocaine started taking a backseat until I was fully done with the industry and I realized. I don’t need it anymore at all. So that’s when I really stopped it. And, you know, I think it didn’t, it happened at the right time because you start hearing about the fentanyl deaths.

Um, one of my good friends died literally months before the book was published. Uh, from that same, from the very reason I was telling my friends, I’m like, yo, I think we gotta, all of us collectively need to stop this because it’s going to get one of us and prophetic words because it did take my buddy.

And that was, uh, almost two years ago. So, so yeah,

sorry about that. That sounds tough. I mean, was there a lot of drug use in the porn industry?

yeah, i’d say a lot of people had their vices, you know, a lot of people who did coke, uh, some people A lot of it was the the legal stuff like the prescription medicaid like the xanax and the opioids and the drinking You know, there was a lot of that as well Um, but a lot of us had our vices. I think that that’s that’s safe to say.

Um, I’m, not gonna say everyone did but you know, we were all leaning on on something in some manner

Yeah. I also want to ask you about like women in porn and you know, I think there’s a, porn gets a bad rap sometimes for just like the treatment of women and you know, our people on drugs and not really able to give consent and that kind of thing. Um, what did you kind of experience or witness with that?

So because of that first day where people were smoking crack in a room, that kind of in my brain, it was like, okay, if you’re going to do this, you have to be the antithesis of that. You have to run it like a business. And, you know, I wasn’t under any illusion that people might’ve snuck something to loosen up.

Yeah.

But there was one day, and see that painting back there where that wall is? Well, I talk about it in my book. Um, we were shooting a scene and it was an anal scene and the girl, we, we get through like a lot of the pictures and start doing the intro and then she started like giggling and then leaning up against the wall and then slowly, and she was covered with baby oil sliding down the wall. And, and I’m like holding the camera and I’m looking at the male and he’s looking at me like, we’re like, and right. And then she, she passes out and I’m like,

Oh no!

he picks her up and puts her in the shower and right away, I hear her go, ah, so I’m like, okay, she’s alive. That’s

Okay,

So then we put her on the floor, cover up with a towel.

I call her agent and I say, okay, um, I think your girl just overdosed on something and he goes, is she turning blue? I go, no, she’s breathing. Okay, good. Good. Um, well, I’m assuming you don’t want to have a an ambulance in front of your house I’m, like you’d be right about that because I can only think my my neighbors at the time were already suspicious of me Imagine wheeling out Yeah, a a greasy oily Porn star on a gurney and loading her up at, yeah, loading her up into an ambulance.

Like that’ll, that’ll make me like the talk of the town. So we kept an eye on her. I brought my makeup artist back. So there’ll be a female presence there and she was okay. After an hour and a half, we got her to the airport. She was gone. But after that, I was like, okay, hard, no drug policy. And if I see it, you’re going home.

And I had to like really be, be firm about it. But the other factor is, is that we were taught a lot about. Compliance and consent, because the credit card companies had departments that were viewing our porn. And if someone looks like they were, yes. Yeah. I mean, you imagine having that job.

imagining some corporate suit who has to watch porn all day. That’s like bizarre.

Yeah. I mean, not only to make sure that people were of sound mind, but then there’d be, there’d be, there was, there was so many rules about what was compliant and what wasn’t compliant, you know, but what I wound up doing all the time is I thought it was legally smart was have. Uh, intro interviews and exit interviews where you’re talking to them, making sure they’re coherent, making sure they’re aware of their shooting.

And how did your shoot go at the end? Were you treated? Okay. Were you asked to do anything you didn’t want to do? And this, this method served me very well until the waning years of my career, when those measures were not enough and I can get into that in a little bit, but, but, um, yeah, I think there was times like we knew who the trouble Problem children were to so to speak.

I mean, I’m not I’m saying children, but yeah, and

word gets out real quick with, you know, who’s a creeper, like who’s on drugs and can’t, you know,

right but Unfortunately the most popular ones sometimes were the ones who were the biggest train wrecks So and they’re like they constantly were requesting shoot her shooter. I’m like guys. She’s an alcoholic Okay, and I was like if you’re gonna do it You have a small window to get her before she starts sneaking drinks and then it’d be Yeah, and that’s what you

So then you’re like a babysitter for people’s substance abuse

Right, like, like production isn’t hard enough,

Like talk about unsexy.

right, and now, and now we’re throwing gasoline on that fire, which is having sex on top of it.

Now you have to worry about whether or not, uh, you’re, you’re stepping over consent lines or anything when, when really you’re dealing with adults in the adult industry, which was what was. We always treat people like adults, but it seems to me towards the end, when people were born, like in the late nineties and they were raised on iPods and iPhones and, and social media, that they didn’t know how to communicate any more that my generation knew how to do and the generation after knew how to do.

So that’s what I say. It like what we were doing just didn’t work anymore because sometimes I would shoot a scene. And then I get a call from someone in the head office. What happened on your, on your set? I was like, I don’t know what happened on my set. Well, they’re saying that the, you know, they, they did all these things and I’m like, they never called cut.

They never called stop their exit interview. Didn’t indicate anything like, what are you talking

Yeah.

And I think what was happening was for a while there, the company would, would see things for what they were, but it wasn’t until COVID hit and the entire industry got kind of flipped on its, on its head and the company started making excuses.

For these adults in the adult industry as to why they weren’t speaking up. And to me, that was too slippery of a slope. And I was like, I was like, if you’re really backing this and you’re validating it, uh, I think I, I need to be done here because everyone’s holding a time bomb at this point.

that’s that’s messed up. I mean and I will say like We can only kind of give consent to the level of our self awareness and, like, being able to honor our own boundaries, but, like, that’s codependent. If you have to be responsible for someone else’s implementation of their own boundaries, like, you can’t.

You’re not a mind reader.

Yeah, that was the whole thing. They, they were, they were expecting us to be mind readers or I readers. Like I had heard one girl say. I was trying to tell you with my eyes,

Oh, my

and I’m thinking, and this is someone who I should,

I want women to be safe more than most people, you know what I mean? Like, absolutely, but, like, that’s, that’s not a thing.

right, and this was someone that I shot a dozen times before, and for whatever reason.

Now, this person in particular, there was a bigger issue because she had already attempted suicide once and she was, she was successful, uh, weeks later. You know, so yeah, so that, so that was like a big, and I, and I got to know this person very well. So it, you know, it was like times or that was when you realize times are really

brutal. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, you know, as I said. I felt like I was a plate spinner, you know, like you’re spinning all these plates, trying to deliver a product that is being paid for by a company that is looking to hire you again and again. And now you have to, you know, read people’s eyes when. All they have to do is say cut, stop, no, any of those and, and we know it, we know to cut.

But

I feel like adult performers should have to like go to consent school before they’re allowed to do it.

I, I agree wholeheartedly and that’s where I was like,

run a consent school. I’ll be happy to help with that.

well, I, I think the truth is if there was an effective union in p-rn uh, this would be part of it. But now they seem to have like, and this was an idea that I floated before I decided to walk away, which was having like a talent liaison on set where they’re, they’re telling someone, but, but I was getting to the point, like, no, I’d rather just handle adults that, that know, know their responsibilities.

Yeah. So, so that’s where me and the company fractured. And that was, that was the end. Essentially.

That’s interesting. I’m also wondering, like, especially for the female actresses, like, how much do they like the work? Like, are they like, oh, this is fun and sexy, or are they kind of like, it’s a paycheck? Like, did anyone actually like it?

Well, yes, I think you would have different categories of some that were just like all about it, but then you also wonder, are they putting on a show? Are they, are they trying to gain approval by, by, by saying they’re the mega slut that loves sex, you know, and you’re wondering, okay, or is that what you’re looking for?

I think there was a lot that were a lot of people were there. They’re like, we’re here for a job. We’re going to treat it like a job. If we’re, if we’re having fun and smiling, that’s a bonus. And you would have some that, As soon as you call action, they turn it on. As soon as you call cut, they turn it off.

I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of those. And then there’s some that are like, you call cut and they’re still going. And it’s like, okay. And that’s where I was like, okay, it’s a gray area. They’re both seemingly into it. But for me, it was like, I’d rather you save that energy for the scene when we’re shooting, rather than.

Yeah, and so I was called a cock blocker on a lot of occasions, you

But like, you sound very mindful about consent and safety, you

I was Yeah, yeah, but see I’ve been told by many people that I was like an anomaly where most Most people were not like that. They were very bad people and i’m thinking this is the only way I could run it Cause the one thing I said when I first got in the business is like, I look at myself in the mirror.

I’m like, do not lose your soul while in it. And the only way I could do it was if I ran it a certain way where I felt like everyone, they were in a safe place and they were treated with respect and that no lines were blurred. And I mean, you know, you can’t be perfect all the time. And some days, you know, you’re, you’re expecting people to, to do their job and, and be responsible.

But.

hmm.

to the point where they were just, um, just because someone turned 18 and they could be in porn doesn’t mean they should, but the porn industry would just let people in because they feel like they can make a buck off of them.

Yeah. God, it’s a lot. Like, just hearing you talk about it, I’m like, there’s some, like, intensity there. I get what you’re saying about, like, the dark energy, so to speak. And I think when you talk about, like, the, the drug use, or even people turning it off and on, it does sound like there’s some sort of, like, misalignment a lot of times for people, where it’s like, this is not something you’re, like, genuinely, like, wanting to do, you

Right. Well, I think it’s, it’s, there’s, there’s two sides of it. And I always liked when I saw a performer that came in, like when you were in. People use the term mainstream porn, which I hate and I will never use that term. I say studio porn or company porn because there’s nothing mainstream about porn.

If, if your bank account is going to get shut down because you’re a sex worker, what is mainstream about that? So that’s a, that’s a horrible term. But, but when I say people’s They spend their time in studio porn, especially before COVID they’re really building up their brands and they’re building up a name and that’s their time in the trenches, you know?

So when the performer platforms like OnlyFans started happening, they already had a fan base. So I would like, I always like seeing someone who knew they had a brand. Who knew how to build up their brands and then eventually knew to capitalize and make all the money off of their brands because they spent their time in studio porn.

That makes sense.

And so when I saw that, I loved seeing that. I loved seeing a, a strong woman who like knows that their value and knows that they can make their own money. And, and I’m, I was always about that, but that was every, that was few and far between, I would say.

I hear that. And even, even now, I mean, I know we’re past sort of the COVID like, uh, explosion of everyone, you know, is an OnlyFans creator now,

Right, right. Yeah.

which literally at one point my hairdresser was like, I have an OnlyFans. I was like, does, does everyone have one now? Cause it seems like it, but yeah, I have a couple of clients and a friend that have quite successful OnlyFans.

I mean, it’s definitely possible, but it’s like, they are business women, you know, I think that’s important to realize. It’s just like you said, all the production, all of the like, interacting with fans, like all of the market research, learning how to like, use social media to drive traffic, like it is work.

Yeah. You know, it is work and, but I, I think it’s good because, you know, before girls would get paid a fee and then the company would make all the money for eternity. Now they’re making all the profits. So yeah, the explosion during COVID was huge, but then what happened was the whole. Market got super saturated, but then also what happened in, in company porn and in the porn industry was because of all the influx of new talent.

I, what is company porn? When you say, what is that?

if you’re shooting for a studio like Brazzers or any of the companies, you know, a company or studio porn is what I say instead of, instead of,

thing, though.

yeah, yeah. So, so when all of these new performers start entering the talent pool, what do you think starts happening? More infectious diseases. Yeah, like they had they had explosions of what’s called microplasma genitalium, which was something they had to start doing.

They had to start doing anal and oral swabs because there was like gonorrhea of the throat and anus. I mean, it got really bad. And to be honest with you, when I was a single guy, like in the twilight of my career, I say like the muck was kind of toxic, but now it’s like nuclear, even to the point where, you know, you have these viral inhibitors for HIV.

Okay, so you could be diagnosed with HIV, but if you’re on the viral inhibitors and you have a clean test that doesn’t show any trace of the virus, you can be in the talent pool. Now, as a guy, and I know that someone has HIV or had HIV in their system, do I wanna perform with them? And before COVID and all this, that was always like, you’re, you’re either in or you’re out.

You don’t have to worry about these sorts of things. Now, these are all questions that people in today’s porn world have to contend with. and deal with. So, yeah, yeah.

It is a lot to deal with. Um, I’m also curious what you think about like the future of porn because, uh, obviously I live in Florida and, uh, you know, Pornhub got shut down here because of whatever

Let me correct you on, let me correct you on the shutdown part.

okay.

they, they blocked access because they don’t, they don’t want to comply with the law of age verification. That’s the reality of it. So when it says it’s been banned or, or, or, or all that, not exactly, that’s a technicality and I, reason why I correct people is because Pornhub did a lot of bad things.

In the last 15 years, all you have to do is search about it.

Yeah, there’s a documentary on Netflix about it.

there is this book, uh, that I’m holding up right now that, yeah, that I, I actually got to know the author and I’ve been talking to her, uh, because if I had known what that company was up to when I was with them, I’m not sure in good conscience I could work for them anymore.

So, so thankfully all of this came out after I was done with the company. So I, I tried to educate me. So, so what was your question regarding,

Yeah, what do you think about, like, the future of porn? Like, what do we, you know, what should we know about Pornhub, you know? Like,

well, what Pornhub was doing was monetizing on abuse of minors that was uploaded onto Pornhub. Yeah. So you have to understand something a lot. A lot of our marching orders were sent down to us because of the searches that were happening on Pornhub. And I talk about in the book, and this was during second ownership, where they want us to essentially shoot a, they called this website, it was abbreviated as S.

O. H., which meant shame on her. Where you’re basically getting consent and they’re doing a performance where they’re drunk or inebriated or being taken advantage of By five or six dudes and I was like, I was like, I am not shooting this. This is rape I’m not going to do it So it devolved into this this site called porn star punishment where a porn star would get punished for doing something Like like not separating the whites and the darks and the laundry or something stupid along those lines Yeah, and It only, it was short lived for a couple of years.

It started getting a lot of bad publicity from performers.

Understandably.

Right. And, and in my mind, I was like, okay, I had the conversation ahead of time. And a lot of times I would hear that they were, they would have rape fantasies or they enjoyed that kind of sex. So I’m like. Okay. Okay. We, I guess we’ll, we’ll, we’ll do these, but they never sat well with me.

So over time, you know, that got phased out. What wound up happening with Pornhub was once it went to third ownership when second owner Fabian Thalman, I think his name was either Tillman or Thalman. I don’t know how to pronounce it. He got arrested for tax evasion. And so a bunch of people bought his shares and then they rebranded from Manwin to MindGeek.

Okay.

once they did that, then, so if, let’s say you’re a content producer, you could upload to Pornhub without any age verification whatsoever. Yes, and they only had about 10 moderators looking at the vast amounts of millions of videos And the rules were it’s like it has to be blatantly obvious that this person is underage And that was it

How are you to know? Oh, this person’s 18. I

right.

And so, so, so you have these overworked people who are letting a lot of this stuff go through and even if they got a, some kind of request to take it down from the victim, what would happen is it would go back up, someone else would upload it. And eventually, and this is where it became really bad, they started putting a download button on Pornhub.

So, people were now downloading, essentially, underage people, yes, yes, and also, like, sometimes they were, like, these rapists were filming rape and uploading it,

is disgusting.

and so they were monetizing it, deliberately monetizing it, I mean, they, they, they’ve, they, they’ve pled guilty to this, they’ve, they’ve paid the Justice Department 1.

75 million dollars

That’s nowhere near

Right. Right. To say like, yeah, we did, we did do this and they have to be monitored for three years. Right. So, so they had to do all this off. Right. So now the question then becomes is age verification on adult sites. Okay. And people always ask my opinion about that. And before I used to say, I don’t have a dog in this fight anymore.

I don’t care. But the truth is. Okay. It’s a lot different than when I grew up. All right. When I was growing up, you had the magazines behind the counter. You had the section of the video store that said 18 or over. Okay. And you had someone saying, how old are you? And you would get ID’d, right?

Yes.

How is it any different to ask for an ID now when you want to access it, especially you’re not paying for this,

I think because people are afraid of like, you know, people are gonna know I’m watching porn, it’s gonna get hacked, whatever.

okay. But I have the, the contrarian view, the, the, the devil’s advocate here. Let’s say you decide to. To buy a membership on a porn site. What do you have to give over in order to get that membership? Your credit

Your billing address. Yeah.

So what’s the difference? You know what I mean?

it’s a great point. I think, I think people probably should pay for their porn.

that’s it right there. That’s it. And people, I think the reality was the tube sites were wild West for a long time, and now they’re being reined in. So I think there’s this whole campaign of people are banning porn. No, they’re not. They’re not banning porn. They’re just trying to do age verification. Is it a flawless system?

No. Um, can you say that, that the companies are not going to use that information or that information can’t get hacked? Of course it can, but you find the hackings happening in any site, in any kind of, uh, major site. Hacks happen all the time, so

I think if we were more comfortable with our sexuality, we wouldn’t think that’s such a big deal.

Right, exactly. So, so where do I think porn’s going? I think you’re going to have two categories of people. You’re going to have your organics and you’re going to have your digitals. And AI is where it’s going to go. Because to me, I look at it like this, especially as someone who produced this and had to dealt with a lot of liabilities, especially when you’re dealing with a human who may not know how to communicate.

Well, guess what? That liability is gone. You know, and paying for me and my eight person crew and all that gone. You’re creating someone in the system. And I did a podcast, you know, last month where, uh, there are people who, if they knew they were talking to AI, they were okay with it, but they weren’t okay with it if they weren’t told ahead of

Yeah, if they’re being tricked.

when I tell you there’s two types of people that people are going to want their real people and they’re going to want their digital girlfriend, like Ana de Armas in Blade Runner, um, that’s, I think where it’s going to go. And if I wanted to be in this business any longer, which I don’t, I would unload fully into the AI side of things because that’s where it’s all going to go because it alleviates a lot of issues.

Uh,

That all makes sense. I mean, so hopefully we shifted some minds today about porn, but like if someone’s like, okay, I still kind of like some sort of video turn on. I’m a visual person. Like, are there some ethical porn sites that you would recommend? Okay.

a site, you know, the thing is, is like some of these memberships are 20 bucks, 30 bucks. Okay. And you can download all of this consensual porn, which is age verified. Okay. So, so let’s say you want to like two drinks, one drink in Las Vegas costs that much, you

true.

You know what I mean?

So, so it’s like, just do that, download it. You have your spanking material for as long as you want. Um, I would just say, do that, pay for porn. Or if you don’t want the studio high glossy stuff, support an OnlyFans, uh,

Yeah,

You know what I mean? Like let’s, let’s reverse it. I think the truth is the p-rn industry needs to be raised and rebuilt because, uh, unfortunately of the company that I worked for for so long, really destroyed it in a lot of ways.

So,

That’s very real. Thank you for being so honest with us. This is, this has been an awesome conversation. Um, your book sounds amazing. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Um, anything else, uh, in terms of if people are like, Hey, this guy’s cool. Like, how can I connect with him? Where can people find you?

so I’m on Instagram and I’m on X at, @VicLaGina. Um, I also say go to VicLaGina.com there is a trailer that I shot for the book that stars, uh, James Duvall. He was in a lot of the Gregor Rocky movies. He was in, um, uh, Donnie Darko. He played me. I played someone else. And the reason why I did this was when everything was wrapping up.

So I had bought my second studio. Okay, when they told me to save money and shrink down the studio, I wound up taking a huge leap and buying it, which was the smartest thing I could have done because when we parted ways, not only were they paying my mortgage for, you know, almost six years, uh, when it came time for me to be done, I decided to sell, uh, get a tenant first and then sell the building and a tenant.

And I made double what I paid for it in six and a half years. But, but one thing I wanted to do was. Out of the two studios I always had, I was always shooting movies that ended with a facial. And being of someone from a film school background, I just thought it would have been a tragedy to not shoot something creative.

So that’s what we did for six days before I transferred and moved out for the new tenant, was I shot this thing and it is the trailer for the book. So, Go to VicLaGina.com check that out, and if, if you like the audio book, I narrate the book and it’s, um, it’s a very immersive way to digest the book. Uh,

I would think I love audiobooks for that reason

I had a lot of fun, right?

And then the print book, I’ve, I’ve showed it once. I’ll show it again. I spent a lot of time just making sure that this is a nice package

It is! It’s a nice looking book. Yeah.

It’s, it’s good. And then, like, I spent a lot of time on it. Just, you can, you can order it any way you want through the website.

Okay. Well, your stories are not boring, so hopefully people will check it out.

I hope so. I hope so.

Yeah. All right.   📍 Well, thanks for being here, Vic. Uh, thank you everybody for listening and we’ll catch you next week on Ask a Sex Therapist. Bye, everybody.

Bye.

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