pornstar blues

One of my favorite blogs is "Christian Sings the Blues" (link here), a daily online missive kept by leading pornhunk Christian. (Like Sting and Madonna, he uses no surname professionally.)

While many pornstar blogs are exercises in narcissism or clumsy self-promotion replete with horrid prose, "Blues" is a refreshing exception. Christian writes very well and quite frankly about whatever is on his mind that day. He's not afraid to reveal some of his most personal feelings and opinions in candid, unvarnished posts. His daily entries are usually very detailed; some run as long as 3,000 or 4,000 words. And for the more prurient readers, he provides explicit outtakes featuring whatever vixens he happened to bang that day (sample link here and here), plus numerous candid shots of him about town with other adult entertainers, some of whom thoughtfully provide boob-flashes. He also includes occasional shots of his pet hedgehogs.

He has caught flack from some XXX industry divas because of his online candor, but you sense from his writing that he values honesty above all and just has to get it out on the page. As he wrote recently, "I have a gift, my friends, for pushing people's buttons..." He has embraced the idea that a blog is a diary, and he's not afraid to let his soul spill onto the pages at times, no matter who's reading. That's what makes the blog addictive for me and other women I know who are regular readers -- he's letting you get inside in a way few men can or will allow you.

One recent entry, for example, began "it's hard to shake the feeling of angst I have (and probably many other performers as well) about my future in this business." Another started as follows: "the phrase 'no man is an island,' quoted from John Donne, is probably correct, but there comes a time in everyone's life in which they have to understand that there will be times when they are in fact out on an island by themselves. This is where I find myself tonight."

Still another: "I just don't understand my life sometimes; I really don't. Today should have been a good day that started well and ended well, but for some reason it didn't. It rarely does actually. And I can't put my finger on why that is. Is it all me?"

That kind of candor is almost exclusively the domain of anonymous blogs, not public figures who post openly for tens of thousands of daily readers.

It's clear from reading "Blues" that Christian is very intelligent and has an excellent head for business. He will let you know exactly how many times he's fucked any particular girl onscreen, how many scenes he's shot in a given month, how that compares to last year, and so forth. But more telling, he demonstrates a keen understanding of why the porn business is in such a rut and what the industry could do to improve its future. I sense there's an entrepreneur in him begging to come out to play.

The nice cap on all this is that Christian is very easy on the eyes (that's his picture at the end of this entry). He's an extremely fit 6'5", 240 pounds, and a seasoned triathalete. Unlike many male porn actors who have that sort of prettyboy gym-bunny look but don't look like they'd be much help on moving day, he has the natural musculature and strength of a professional athlete. He was, before his porn days, both a college basketball player and coach. His blog will often include details on how much he ran that particular day, what he lifted, what cute girls he saw at the gym, and the like.

Unfortunately for his loyal readers, Christian plans to end his daily entries on December 31. He obviously puts a lot of work into his blog and that takes considerable time, for which he receives almost no compensation (he has some affiliate links on the site but that generates only a few hundred a month; the site is free for readers). You have to hope, however, that the blogging bug might bite him on occasion, and he'll reappear in the future to make occasional entries.

Although a blog lacks the narrative structure necessary for a book, you can easily see how he might adapt a great deal of what he's written into a memoir. I've caught a little subtext on his site about that, so perhaps it's something in the works. Let's hope so. I also think he would make an excellent monthly columnist for a major men's magazine.

Whatever he does in the future, however, I have a sense Christian will land solidly on his feet no matter where. Most porn actors disappear by their forties, if not long before that, and he's made clear he knows he can't be a performer forever. I would not be at all surprised if he reappeared behind the camera in a directing and/or producing capacity and a very successful one at that.

That may be the ultimate reason why he and his blog have caught some flack: he has his eye on both the present and the future, in a business where few seem to have that level of awareness. So perhaps it's not anger being directed at Christian at times; it's envy.