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Guess what? Christopher Zeischegg is here this week. You may know him as porn performer Danny Wylde.
I had a chance to read his book, “The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space,” and we talk all about his writing, the horror genre, leaving porn, bi-phobia within the porn world, why he’s grateful to be in a monogamous relationship, how he got involved in creating a hot sauce called Wyldefire and a whole lot more.
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In this episode, Chris and I talk about:
- Chris’s book, “The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space” and where that story came from – the darkness surrounding his time as a sex worker, Danny Wylde, and feeling burnt out on activism which turned into his horror novel.
- The homophobia and bi-phobia in the porn industry. Chris talks about some of where that fear comes from because the safer sex practices are different between gay porn and straight porn.
- How the practices in the porn industry around crossover performers actually forces people into the closet, which is the opposite of what the industry should want – full disclosure and open conversations so performers can consent and negotiate with full information.
- How Chris uses his body for art, for porn, for music and the catharsis of using his body in that way.
- Why the “porn is great” narrative exists and why the narrative isn’t good enough. Chris also talks about how the porn industry has changed since 2008 and how you can’t really make money the way you used to.
- What Chris thought the gig was when he got into porn at the age of 19 and how that’s all changed.
- The future of porn.
- Chris’s desire of moving out sex work completely.
- How Chris experiences sex as a former porn performer, his monogamous relationship, and why he loves the comfort what he has.
- Chris’s new book, “Body to Job,” which comes out in 2018. He wanted to avoid the sex worker memoir trope that’s become really popular and moved into magical realism with his new book.
- Why Chris wants to step away from his porn identity and how he intentionally decided to exploit his Danny Wylde name to move into his writing career.
- Wyldefire, the hot sauce that Chris is involved with.
Resources from this episode
Vice article on Chris and his hot sauce
Chris’ creepy essay “Moral Imperative of Sexual Suffering”
About Christopher Zeischegg (Danny Wylde)
Christopher Zeischegg is a writer, musician, and filmmaker who spent eight years working in the adult industry as performer, Danny Wylde.
He’s the author of two novels, Come to my Brother and The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space, and has contributed to The Feminist Porn Book, Best Sex Writing, Coming Out Like a Porn Star, Split Lips, and a variety of digital publications, such as Somesuch and Nerve.
His industrial metal band, Chiildren, released their second EP, The Circle Narrows, through Records Ad Nauseam in 2015.
He became the face of Wyldefire Hot Sauce in 2016.
Zeischegg lives in Los Angeles with his two cats, Victoria and Isis.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I usually record the interviews weeks ahead of time so that I always make sure I have content ready to go and I’m not super stressed. Then I record these little intros, usually a few days ahead of the episode going live, so that just in case there’s any major news going on. I can fit it in in the intro or talk to you about it a little bit. But inevitably, I always find myself so late on a Saturday night, naked and huddled under the comforter trying to record this before I go to bed, which is where I find myself today, so there you have it.
Dawn Serra: This week’s episode is a chat with Christopher Zeischegg who you probably know as Danny Wylde. He was a performer in the adult industry for a number of years. We talk all about his book, The Wolves that live in Skin and Space, and how creepy and disturbing his writing is, how it takes bits of his experience as a porn performer and a sex worker and then twists it into these really chilling dark stories that he puts out. So it’s a really fun conversation of us geeking out about his experiences in porn and where he’s at now with creating and using his body, and what it’s like to exit out of sex work and some of the stigma that comes with that, which all of you know, because you’ve been listening to the show. Also why he’s so happy to be in a monogamous relationship right now that’s not really kinky or really out there and what that means to him.
So before we jump into the interview, I just want to remind you, you can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/sgrpodcast. You can’t search for the show there because it’s sexual content according to them. So you actually have to type in the URL. Every single dollar matters so much and I appreciate it tremendously. I’m going to be having another little secret online party get-together for Patreon in the next couple of weeks, so be sure to pop over there if you want to hang out and enjoy some time together online with some live chats. Of course, I have my every other week online hang out that you can join for Sex is A Social Skill. There’s links at the website for this episode, which is dawnserra.com/ep176. I also have a whole bunch of in-person workshops going on here in Vancouver over the next couple of months. So be sure if you’re in the area to check those out.
Dawn Serra: So let me tell you a little bit about Christopher or Chris, and we’ll get started. So Christopher Zeischegg is a writer, musician, and filmmaker who spent eight years working in the adult industry as a performer Danny Wylde. He’s the author of two novels – Come to My Brother and The Wolves that live in Skin and Space, and has contributed to the Feminist Porn Book, Best Sex Writing, Coming out like A Porn Star, Split Lips, and a variety of digital publications such as Some Such and Nerve.
His industrial metal band children released their second EP, The Circle Narrows through records ad nauseam in 2015. He became the face of Wildfire Hot Sauce in 2016, which we totally talk about towards the end of our chat. And it’s wonderful, delightful and funny. Zeischegg lives in Los Angeles with his two cats, Victoria and Isis, which all of you know, I love that his cats are in the bio. So here we are talking all about porn, writing, hot sauce, and everything in between.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Chris. I’m very excited to talk to you today.
Christopher Zeischegg: Hey, thanks for having me.
Dawn Serra: You’re welcome. So we got connected because Julia from Rare Bird Books, who I’ve actually interviewed for the show, sent me a copy of your book, The Wolves that live in Skin and Space. Also let me know that you’ve got a new book coming out, is it called Body to Job?
Christopher Zeischegg: Yeah, Body to Job.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So I’m really excited we get a chance to talk. Your stuff is so dark and gritty, and kind of a head fuck, because it’s so real until it’s not. I love to know, let’s start with The Wolves that live in Skin and Space – what was it for you about writing that story that felt really important?
Christopher Zeischegg: That story in particular is fiction, but it’s loosely based on a period of my career as an adult performer. I think that while I was writing that, or at least shortly before, I had been very involved in pro porn activism or feminist porn stuff. I felt maybe a little bit burnt out on constantly portraying the industry in a really positive light. Whereas, I think… Parts of that are totally valid and I’m not regretting doing any of that there’s a lot. There’s a lot of emotional turmoil that can go on at the same time while you’re a sex worker, and I feel like the best way for me to deal with that, at least in my work, is through fiction. So I take things that are real and exaggerate them to a pretty far degree in maybe the canon of horror or things like that, just because those are the genres that I’ve been drawn to growing up.
Dawn Serra: It was interesting because my husband read your book first and then I read it. I think one of the things that was so interesting for me was there was so much of the book that was clearly based on your personal experiences, little tidbits that offered these little peaks inside of the industry. I know there’s this tiny little line in the book kind of talking about the stigma of being a male porn performer who does porn with men also doing porn with women, and that bisexual terrible stigma that exists in the industry. All these moments of realness that I think made the horror of the story a lot more stomach churning. Because there were elements of realness and reality throughout that made it just real enough that it was like, “Oh god, this is going to go terrible places.” But it was so well written and moving. You definitely have a gift for storytelling that pulls you in and then makes you feel very uncomfortable things.
Christopher Zeischegg: Thank you, I guess. I mean, in regards to the bisexual stuff – I don’t really know if you’ve gone into that with your listeners before. But there’s just this – there’s a real separation in the adult industry at least when I was in it, and I’m pretty sure it still exists. That if you’re a male performer, particularly a cis male performer, you either do gay porn or you do straight porn. If you go between them, you can run into a lot of problems. A little bit of that – I’ll play devil’s advocate for a minute to say what the real concerns are. They get muddied with homophobia and so forth. But there is a difference in testing practices that I think is kind of stupid, but it’s the way it is.
In gay porn, it’s a little bit of a don’t ask, don’t tell situation in regards to HIV. However, everyone uses condoms – that’s beginning to change. Some companies now require condoms and testing and all of this, but historically speaking, gay porn has been condoms – no testing. Straight porn has been, we test every 30 days and now it’s every 14 days, but we don’t use condoms. So a lot of people in the straight industry have this fear that if a guy does anything homosexual on or off camera, that they’re going to bring HIV into the straight porn industry and disseminate it among the talent pool. I mean, that’s based on a couple of cases of this actually happening. So there’s a little bit of validity to that.
Christopher Zeischegg: On the other hand, even though I think there are certain sections of society now that doesn’t give a shit, what your what your sexual identity is, I think, at large, we still have quite a bit of homophobia that is in our culture. That’s not really that different in the porn industry. I mean, it’s interesting to me that porn is actually fairly conservative in a lot of places. I don’t know what to say. I mean, that’s just the way it is. I found that out very quickly and, I don’t know, I guess you could say I’m bisexual or queer whatever – though a lot of my relationships are fairly heteronormative. So I was dating a fellow female performer near the beginning of my career and when I started to find out all this stuff, it just seemed easier to do straight porn and kind of brush away the the first few scenes I’d done that were gay or whatever. Later on, I tried to do some bisexual porn. I mean, I didn’t try. I did some bisexual porn. I was nearly blacklisted from the industry. I mean, one agency just cut me off entirely. If any company booked me with one of their girls, for example, they would just cancel.
Dawn Serra: Jesus.
Christopher Zeischegg: So it was a little bit scary at some point. Then, The Wolves that live in Skin and Space has a lot to do with a relationship that’s fictional in the book, but it’s based loosely on a number of brief relationships I had while doing straight porn, and casually dating men. And how that, even though I felt like I was in this a company, or the people I was really good friends with who are also doing porn, I felt like were very socially progressive and had very radical sexual politics and still – I feel like I didn’t bring it up ever because people talk and I would get – my financial life.
Dawn Serra: It’s so shitty when you think about – ultimately, what the industry needs is people being forthcoming and truthful so that everyone can make choices for their bodies and their businesses, but because of the homophobia and the racism and all the other crap that goes into what you said, somewhat conservative industry, considering that everybody’s naked – ends up driving everybody into the closet and/or hiding certain aspects of their lives and identities because, like you said, this is your livelihood. So if there’s the opportunity that you’re not going to be able to make rent, if you’re honest about this aspect of your life, it forces people to be in the closet, which really sucks and honestly, hurts everybody in the long run, of course.
Christopher Zeischegg: Yeah, I mean, I agree. But I don’t really know what to do about it. I think as long as there’s that pushback, and they have something like HIV and gets behind the lines, there’s always going to be people who’ll be like, “This is real and we can’t do it,” and so forth. It just continues on. I don’t know.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So I’m wondering, for you, you had a number of years in porn and then because of things that were happening with your body and the ways that you were staying hard to be in porn, you had to leave porn, and now you still dabble in some sex work and you work with porn production and that kind of stuff. I’m really wondering, I noticed that so much of your art and your music also really includes a lot of your body. So your body is a big part of, not only how you make money, but also how you express yourself in a lot of these different mediums that you’re involved in. I’m wondering how your relationship with your body has really arc through first starting in porn to now, because it seems to be something that you really use to connect with the world and to share yourself in a lot of different ways.
Christopher Zeischegg: Yeah. I mean early on, I think, that was exciting and I was really into the performative aspects of porn in a way that I could correlate to maybe live music performance or performance art; even though I didn’t really have a word for that back then. Just because it is a very physical thing that you’re doing for an audience and it’s not necessarily about your pleasure, but it has this catharsis associated with it, at least sometimes. Around the time that I got into porn, especially – I was very into underground heavy metal culture and things like that. I was playing in bands and I still am though not as frequently. So that all made sense in this mishmash way. I enjoyed that aspect of it. As I got older, especially after the end of my performance career, I mean, basically I had to quit because of an addiction to ED drugs – erectile dysfunction medication that I was using as a performance enhancer. In the year after that, I dabbled in like some sex work that I really didn’t enjoy.
So I’m not doing much sex work at all these days except for in a very removed capacity, in terms of, sometimes I’ll do some private Skype shows or I have an Only Fans account which is just uploading naked pictures and little videos and stuff like that. But I don’t have any personal interaction with people in the physical sense. I think that both losing my career and then going through this process of doing what I felt was something I wasn’t interested in, which felt very emotionally and physically draining – I started to have a different feeling about– I mean, first of all, I was getting older. Second of all, I was making less money and I felt like I was putting my body through more stress, and that just put me in a pretty negative space. So I think that some of the work I was doing in an art sense around that time was – I was trying to deal with that in some sort of physical way.
Dawn Serra: I think it’s really interesting. I think this ties back to you talking about being burnt out on a lot of the advocacy work around, “Porn is a great thing and there’s ways to do porn that are super ethical,” and this need to paint porn in a really positive light because we’re trying to destigmatize and remove shame, and all that kind of stuff. But, there’s this, I don’t know, I think there’s something really interesting and important for us to hear and what you’re talking about of – sometimes, all of us, regardless of what industry we’re in, have to do work when we don’t really like it and maybe it’s not the best choice for our body. Maybe it stresses us out and it can feel really bad when we’re in it and trying to find different ways to find new work and new money. That’s part of capitalism, but then the vilification that comes from being associated with porn and how people really see porn through either these rose colored glasses of, “Oh, I would totally love that. It’s a dream job.” Or the opposite of porn is the downfall of our society, when it’s actually much more complicated and nuanced. But we don’t have a lot of space for these conversations and for this kind of storytelling that you’re offering around your experiences that I think more of us need to be hearing.
Christopher Zeischegg: I agree with you. I mean, I think that’s kind of where I was. I was feeling like when we talk about feminist porn and things like that, I think you said, there is this pressured to say, “Everything about porn is empowering.” Because there’s a certain narrative we’re trying to push, because there’s so much – there’s already so much backlash. You know? I mean, we have anti-porn feminism, we have anti-porn conservatism. We have slut shaming in the culture, so there’s all this sex negativity. So if you’re trying to be like, “Well wait a minute, this is just a job.” It’s very easy to get in this thing where you’re being like, “No porn is great. Believe me, porn is great.” But it’s also just a job and all jobs aren’t great all the time. Especially when you’re using your body on a very regular basis and in light of the industry post 2008, I would say, getting worse and worse in terms of how easy it is to make money. I think people can still make money in the industry. But it’s much more complicated. It’s not as simple as, “I decided to be a porn star. I go and work for a bunch of companies, and I make tons of money, and I go home and don’t have to think about it.” I mean, nowadays, I think it’s like – you have to be much more in control of your brand and of shooting your own content, and posting in different places, and subsidizing that with working for other people. But there’s just not enough work to go around. I mean, aside from the handful of people that become real porn stars, I think, become household names, which is also very few these days.
Everyone is making a living in porn – it’s doing a lot, and that’s not, that wasn’t my experience first getting in. I think a lot of people because it’s stigmatized in a certain way – I felt as a 19 year old that the deal was this, “All right, everyone thinks porn is stupid and it’s not really a real job and it’s having sex, and people are going to get mad at me, etc, etc.” But I could make really easy money and if I worked really hard, for example, if I was a woman at the same time and worked every day of the month, I could put a down payment on the house really quick. So who cares if some guy says I’m a slut or whatever – I bought the house. But now, the opportunity for that is also deteriorating, it seems almost like what is the point. You’re just getting bashed on both ends.
Dawn Serra: So I’m wondering, because I think that’s definitely a theme in some of your work around – in your essay on The Moral Imperative to Commodify Our Sexual Suffering, you talk about Manwin and Mind Geek and Pornhub, which we’ve talked about a little bit on the show in the past and this downfall of mainstream porn and how, like you said, now porn performers often have to do a variety of other kinds of work like caming and having their own websites, and selling clips. I’m wondering, do you have any ideas of where maybe we go next as far as our erotic content? Does porn just keep becoming more and more mainstream until we’re all doing it and consuming it? Or do you think you see some people who are doing really radical things and that might be where the next swell of erotic content’s moving?
Christopher Zeischegg: I mean, there is the general, in a way, I feel like it is more mainstream but not in terms of the industry. I feel we all send nudes. A lot of us are have made little sex clips with our partners and so it seems not that big of a deal to see stuff on Pornhub. I mean you see a lot of times – Pornhub actually does have a way to pay people now. They have an amateur payment program. So there are couples, for example, who upload these amateur videos and make a few thousand dollars a month or something like that. But in terms of industry, I don’t know. There are definitely people doing radical work and it’s hard for me to say whether they’re succeeding or not, I think it’s becoming like any other type of media, from what I can tell, in which we have more and more niche markets. So there’s a lot more porn out there. There’s a lot more variety of porn.
If you want really feminist porn or something the complete opposite direction that’s weird and fits what you’re into – I mean, I think you can find that now. But I think in terms of making a substantial living or even a decent middle class living. It’s really difficult because the overhead is still pretty high if you want to be a company and pay out to talent, and make videos and you have to deal with crazy legal paperwork, at least in the United States. I think there’s only a couple of brands that are really killing it in that way. That’s also similar to how mainstream film works. We just saw superhero movies and bare bones indie movies. There aren’t the $10 million indie movies anymore, it barely exists. I think the same thing could be said for porn. I mean, we never had the $10 million indie movie, but you don’t have the middle of the road stuff. I think it’s being very amateur, where it’s just one or two people doing everything. Then you have Brazzers and there’s not much in between that’s actually doing well that I can tell.
Dawn Serra: You were talking about how, for you now, you’ve really moved away from any kind of in-personal sex work and it’s largely naked pictures and things like that for your fans, and the occasional Skype session. I’m wondering, for you, would you like to move completely out of that space at some point or to still have some ties to being able to share yourself in that way, feel like something you could see yourself doing for a while?
Christopher Zeischegg: I would definitely like to move away from it eventually. I just think in terms of getting older, that’s inevitable. Of course, there’s all sorts of people in the world and some people want to see older men and women, and so forth. But that’s not really interesting to me. I mean, from a personal perspective, me getting in and then getting older, whether it’s politically conscious or not like I fetishize the youth in that kind of way and my own youth. So I’m not really interested in being 40 years old and posting porn videos online, but whatever. More power to the people that are.
But it’s not like – where I’m at right now is not that much of a bummer for me. It’s easy enough and I think when I see people really appreciate it, that’s cool. But I feel like my disposition is such that when I open myself up to one on one interactions, I seem to facilitate this desire on the other end for emotional connection. Maybe I’m open to that very briefly, but that becomes such a labor for me. It’s hard for me to really continue that and I don’t really want to open that up anymore. I feel like I’m definitely trying to get away from that, at least.
Dawn Serra: One of the things that I think is really interesting is people who do sex work often end up experiencing sex so different from everyone else that’s not in sex work. I hear from thousands of people who write in questions and share stories around places where they’re stuck and… For a lot of people, they’re either not having enough sex and so it feels like this thing that they’re chasing, and it takes up a lot of time, the pain that they’re experiencing chasing the sex that they’re not having, or they’re feeling ashamed of the types of sex that they want to be having. I’m wondering for you having done sex work and had all these experiences with performers and on camera and privately, how has your relationship to sex in your own life changed, if at all, because of all your experiences?
Christopher Zeischegg: Well, that’s a little bit complicated. I mean, it’s gone in a lot of different directions. I can basically say, at this point, I got into a monogamous relationship about a year and a half ago that I think is incredibly fulfilling for me at this point in time, and it really makes sense for my life right now. I would say our sex is great. It’s not especially kinky or like, I have to go through all these things. I used to have this fear in my head that doing all of this sex work would would make me jaded and I’d have to seek out more extreme stuff, but I don’t really find that that’s the case. I mean, to a certain degree, we are into rough sex, and we do – I guess we check off the list of normal stuff that’s a little dirty, like anal sex. But I don’t think things like that are really that weird at this point in time. I don’t know. I just feel like I came to the conclusion that I want something that’s a little bit more conventional, honestly. After spending the entirety of my 20s doing sex work and being in relationships that were sometimes emotionally monogamous, but were always sexually open. I was yearning for something that had some stability, and right now I have that and I really cherish that.
It’s interesting for me, because a lot of times if I’m invited say to be on a panel or something that has to do with sex, and a lot of the people who show up to these things, I think are going through shame or they’re trying to find other people who are into what they’re into. I don’t even know what to say to them because I feel like that’s not where my head’s at. I don’t care about trying to find a poly community or swingers or get involved in a BDSM community. I really don’t want to be inundated by that stuff. I just want to be in my own little relationship that works. But at the same time, I was given the opportunity to experience basically everything within 19 to 28 or something. So I totally understand if you have the opposite experience and you’re trying to find something sexually fulfilling, I mean, go for it. I don’t really know where to find that though. There’s people out there. I think, with the internet, it has to be easier than ever before.
Dawn Serra: Yes, I make that offering to listeners frequently, that no matter how obscure or different your fetish your interest may be, because of the internet, I promise. There are others in the world who have the same thing going on. I also really appreciate – I think it’s really interesting, because I’m moving a lot of sex positive circles. So of course, I bring a lot of people on the show who are moving in those circles, that there has been this really big bubbling up of conversations around polyamory and non-monogamy, and opening to your kinks. I think all of that is wonderful because I want people to know that they have options, and so if something doesn’t feel like a good fit, you shouldn’t feel ashamed of wanting to find something that is a good fit. But I think sometimes, too, there’s so much cheerleading for all of these various ways that we can be experiencing life, that sometimes we forget that it can be really sexy and amazing and lovely and fulfilling, to also be in monogamous relationships; that aren’t full of lots and lots of kinky adventures and that don’t involve other people.
I love that you’re offering that for you right now, where you are, being in a monogamous relationship where you have great sex on your terms, and being able to really cherish that connection feels really good and satisfying to you. I think sometimes we don’t hear enough of that from people who have a sex positive background. So I love that you have found something that feels really good and I love that you’re sharing that with us.
Christopher Zeischegg: Well, thank you. I mean, I also say, with my partner, we’ve talked about the idea that say, if we’d like to change that in the future, that the conversation is at least on the table, but I think a lot of people are in these types of relationships and maybe that’s just culturally expected. But sometimes it’s just because you like it.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, exactly. So I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit. I know you have a new book that’s coming out, again through Rare Bird – the Body to Job book – and I haven’t had a chance to review it yet, but I will be pinging Julia for that at some point. But the reviews on Amazon from the folks who have had a chance to check it out like Gaby Dunn and Cindy Gallop, and Tyler Knight, and Jiz Lee – reviews are really, really powerful and intense. I’d love to hear a little bit about the stories and what parts of you are in that book.
Christopher Zeischegg: Sure. I mean, this book initially started as me pitching Rare Bird a short story collection to tide them over until I had another novel. Then we discussed that Further and it ended up turning into me writing a whole bunch of new stuff. I had some short stories that I posted on my blog and they’re really just autobiographical accounts of my life in porn. Some of them were emotional. Some of them were like, “This weird thing happened.” But once I talked to Rare Bird, it seemed like what I wanted to do and what they wanted to do was for me to flesh this out into something that really was an autobiography of my time in the adult industry. I think what was maybe more interesting is what happened right after. But again, I find that when I’m reading a lot of stuff, I see a lot of people putting out porno memoirs lately, I don’t know, a lot. But there’s enough that it’s a thing now.
I started to be like – my stories, they’re personal to me, but there’s a certain amount of these tropes that we see end up in these stories over and over again. I really didn’t want to get caught in that. I think the style I had developed with The Wolves that live in Skin and Space is taking – starting in reality and moving into this magical realism and this extreme place that is representative of how I was feeling and has bits of what actually happened but goes way off the deep end. I found that that just made the experience fun. So if I’m recounting something that’s hard for me to deal with, I just take it and move it in such an extreme direction. It makes it a little bit more creative and fun for me and that’s basically what this book is for me. It’s a memoir that’s toward the last third of the story, I think, goes into some very dark and maybe horrific places.
Dawn Serra: I’m noticing a theme. Yeah, it’s actually interesting because when I was reading your essay on The Moral Imperative, I was reading it like, “Oh, okay. This is a non-fictional account of your experiences and your life and your story and how you got into porn. Then I started getting these – I don’t know if this is still real, and if it is, it’s really fucked up. It just got to a point where I was like, “Oh, clearly, we’ve moved into something else now,” and it started getting really dark. I think what’s really interesting about you is when you move into these darker places, and this is clear in Wolves and also in your essay, and also in your short film, Danny Wylde that you did – It’s like you’re not afraid to say the things that everyone is afraid to say.
You’re not afraid to mention libertines of old being really interested in fucking kids or you’re not afraid to talk about, I don’t know, just these things that are culturally super scary and people even don’t even want to say the words. Then you come in and you just drop them so casually, which adds, I think, to the discomfort a little bit and the horror – then talking about necromancy and death and snuff films. I think there’s something really brave about that. Also, I think it’s scary for people to even just see those words on the page and to know you’re like, “I’m putting these things out there that make all of us uncomfortable. So let’s just see how far we can go into that.” It’s something I haven’t seen. I’m not a horror fan. So maybe, it’s more common than I think. But there’s definitely something very unique in the way you pull people from reality into these really squishy places, but effortlessly. You don’t really notice when it happens, and you’re just suddenly someplace different.
Christopher Zeischegg: Yeah, I mean, I like that. I mean, you can tell at the end when we’re definitely in fiction. I don’t think that you can tell the switch. You know what I mean? I’m not the first person to do this. I think there’s other people that have come before me. One of my favorite authors, his name is Dennis Cooper, he comes from this queer punk late 80s, early 90s type of thing where he was writing about really extreme sexual stuff, but always in a very emotional place that I think was coming from – I think for him was a youth culture in the extreme emotional place we find ourselves in as teens trying to deal with their sexuality and love and things like that. I don’t know, whenever I’m thinking of a story, it usually comes from a moment of conflict. Because a lot of my stuff has – a lot of my stories have to do with sex work and porn and all of that. In my experience of either clients or people in the industry, where people start to reveal, I think, they’re secrets and their sexual desires. I mean, it can get really weird.
I don’t know, some of it is just being provocative but at the same time, that’s interesting to me to deal with those extreme cases and the bottom of the whole emotionally speaking that where I’ve been in the industry and sex work and all of that. But I think in my new book, Body to Job, you’ll also see the opposite of that. You’ll see the high points and the parts that, I think, were really good to me in the industry. Because I don’t want to say that porn was just a piece of shit and did nothing, because that’s not true. A lot of my identity now and my experiences and friends, and so forth have come from that. So I think in a lot of ways, it was good, but that’s not, to me, that’s not a good story to say, “Oh, I did porn. It was great.”
Dawn Serra: At the end. I know you just said that porn has now informed so much of your friends and your experiences, and your identity. One of the things I didn’t want to do was to start with you telling the story you’ve told 1000 times of how old you were when you got into porn, and what those scenes were like, and then why you got out. Because I’m sure that’s the thing that everybody most wants to ask you about. Because when you do porn, everybody wants to ask you about what it’s like to do the porn. But I’m wondering, do you want porn to continue to be a part of your identity and why people really know you? Or is there a point when you would like for that to be a much less significant part of your personal identity and also your public identity and how people know you?
Christopher Zeischegg: Personally, if I’m going to be completely honest, I would like to move beyond that at some point. However, a lot of the work that I’ve done over the past two years, for example, which is going to culminate in Body to Job and even in some unreleased work that I’m not going to talk about yet, but I think I’m trying – people do know me as Danny Wylde, at least that was at some point, and probably still is the reason most people know who I am. So I think I wanted to exploit that in my own capacity to be like, “Well, that’s just the way it is. I mean, I’m on Pornhub with millions of views.” Maybe not everyone recognizes my name, but it’s out there. So that’s something I can work with to springboard into something else, which is, I enjoy writing. I like to tell stories. I feel like I’m okay, at it at least. It’s something I’d like to do much more of. So for the time being, to play with both of those identities in a way that makes sense right now because I don’t think people really know me as a writer except for my really hardcore fans. I’m just trying to bring those two worlds together.
I’d like to move beyond them. But right now it seems relevant. It seems like that story, I think after Body to Job and maybe a little bit after that, it may be that story might be done. But for right now, I’m trying to hype it.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Make it work for you.
Christopher Zeischegg: Yeah, totally.
Dawn Serra: I was reading this article that you’ve linked to a couple of times about the hot sauce that you’re working on. One of the things that was in that article by Vice, so I’ll link to it on dawnserra.com/ep176 for everyone who wants to read it. But you’re the person who’s making the hot sauce, I guess like your co-creator of the hot sauce. Words are literally failing my brain right now. We’ll just keep moving on and pretend like I’m smart. So he was talking about how porn performers traditionally have, one, this “expiration date” because youth and certain types of bodies are very valued by the industry as a whole. Then also just because of the stigma of doing porn, so many sex workers and performers can’t leave the industry because they’re considered un-hirable. So, people really struggle with letting folks who have done porn or sex work, forget that they’ve done porn or sex work. So that was one of the points of conversation that the two of you had had, that then led to creating the hot sauce. I’m wondering, is this another way for you to take control and say “Here’s a story that you know me for. But now I’m going to use that story to create new things that are interesting to me on my terms.”
Christopher Zeischegg: I wish that that was true. With the hot sauce in particular, I mean, it’s turned into, subtly, way different. I have a hot sauce called Wildfire. The guy you’re talking about his name is Chef Royce Burke. He’s a real chef. He just opened a restaurant. Well, it’s a kind of a walk up place that also you can order on UberEats and so forth. But anyway, he’s an amazing chef. He’s like the real thing. We have a mutual friend who’s an artist – a she. They just transitioned. Luca, this artist, came up with this idea out of it was initially a joke, and now it’s like a real thing. We did all of the things and it’s kind of amazing. I think the hot sauce is actually good, which what makes it real, because I think it was a novelty thing. There was this joke that I was that I had quit porn to become a DJ because that’s the most generic thing you could do. But then, I met a chef in Palm Springs, and we decided to make a hot sauce but we did. But in this one case, it was less my idea. I just ran with what everyone else wanted to do and I think it’s a lot of fun. We’ve made a few really silly commercials. I don’t know, I hope people enjoy it. We’re trying to get stores and stuff.
Dawn Serra: I’m kind of in love that this started as a joke, and now it’s like a thing and people are like, “Hey, this actually is pretty good.” Yeah, I have watched a few of the hot sauce challenges and the YouTube channel with the guy who it’s hot sauce with famous people.
Christopher Zeischegg: Oh right.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So we got the Mad Dog 357 -which is 357,000 scoville is for people who know their peppers. It tastes like ass and not the kind of ass you want to eat because you’re super turned on. I mean, it’s bad. So even though it’s really hot, you’re in lots of pain. There’s literally not a single part of it that’s enjoyable, because the flavor is so bad. I saw people talking about your hot sauce and saying that it actually has really good flavor, and so I’m looking forward to trying it. When I do, I would be happy to promote it on the show because I always look forward to tasty, spicy things so good for you on making one that actually tastes pretty good.
Christopher Zeischegg: Well, I’ll talk to Royce and see if we can hook it up for you. That’d be wonderful. It’s hot. It’s hotter than Tabasco and Sriracha and all that stuff. I don’t know if it’s as hot as the one you just talked about. But it’s also a different – I wasn’t sure what to expect when he was making this. I’m used to a lot of the kind of Mexican style hot sauces that you put on tacos and so forth. I feel like he has a Filipino background, I believe, at least, makes a lot of Filipino food. I feel like this hot sauce is geared towards that, but I use it on eggs and on hot dogs and stuff like that too. I think it’s really good, but I kind of don’t like it on Mexican food.
Dawn Serra: Well, we’ll just have to try it and all the things see where it works best, but yeah, that’s cool and random, right? I’m sure at no point does you think, “I’m going to be a writer and a musician and a hot sauce connoisseur.”
Christopher Zeischegg: Not at all, but it’s going alright.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Well, I’m wondering for folks who want to stay in touch with you, check out your essays, get alerted when Body to Job hits the shelves – how can people stay in touch with you and kind of see all the cool stuff that you’re up to?
Christopher Zeischegg: Well, I have a website and it’s my name – christopherzeischegg.com, but I feel like it’s incredibly difficult to spell. So I’m going to direct you to my social media accounts, which are twitter.com/chriszeischegg. You can find me on Instagram, the same thing. It’s at Danny Wylde. You’ll have links to my website there. If you’re super interested, I just set up a mailing list. I’m going to be giving away free books and merch and stuff, I think every month. I actually have a cool surprise that’s coming out next month, which is a little rerelease of something else. I guess my first book is going to be rereleased in updated form. So I think that’ll be pretty cool. That’s going to happen prior to Body to Job being released. So yeah, that’s about it.
Dawn Serra: Cool. So for everybody listening, I will, of course, have links to all the things on sex gets real for this episode, and be sure to join the mailing list so that you can potentially get cool stuff and see what Chris is up to. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your stories and talking about your writing and where you’re headed with all your cool projects.
Christopher Zeischegg: Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. To everybody listening, be sure to head to dawnserra.com and grab all of Chris’s links. Of course if you have any comments or questions about this episode or anything that you’d like me to share on a future episode, you can use the contact form there. I love hearing from you. Until next time, this is Dawn Serra. Bye.