Lexington Steele Interview - Lexington Steele's Movies
December 2001
Also see Rog's first interview with Lexington Steele

After a nice meal at a local Tex/Mex restaurant, Lexington Steele, Mike John & were talking about porn. We gradually made our way to interview type subjects, so I turned on the recorder in the middle of a conversation. Excuse me if this one gets off to a rough start, it just seemed better than stopping the flow of the conversation.

That’s a great point Lex, now that the recorder is on, maybe catch us up.

I was just saying that the so-called feature performer will never have the kind of impact on porn that the gonzo performer will have. I’m speaking of the men in the industry of course. You are not going to see one of the big name guys on the feature circuit go into a bookstore and have the cashier, a nineteen year old librarian type, flip out. She’s not going to see a Dillon Day or an Evan Stone and go crazy. You can have a gonzo performer come in and she will recognize him from a movie she was watching when she was getting off. It’s the popularity of the gonzo market at work.

So you’re more recognizable in part because you’re in movies that people actually watch?

That’s part of it sure.

Mike- Did this actually happen to you?

Lex- Here’s what happened. I came and this girl at the register is staring at me with this wild eyed look on my face. She said under her breath, “Oh my God.” I asked her if she watched movies and she said yes. Then she just gives me this twenty nine dollar book for free. It was going to come off her check and she just gave it to me. I felt kind of bad so the next day I came in and brought her Up Your Ass 18 and Westside, a gonzo and a feature just to let her know that I do features as well.

Rog- (To Mike) That happens to you all the time right?

Mike- Only if I stand near a dumpster and it helps if I have my inflatable date sitting next to me.

Rog- You were saying something a minute ago about the feature market. Let’s get back to that for a second.

Lex- The feature market is a blatant and overt exercise in racism. Unfortunately, this is pornography and it’s not worth fighting over. I don’t make an issue of it.

Can you give a specific example of what you’re talking about?

You take a person who had 75% of the spoken dialog in the biggest feature production of 2000, who was nominated for best actor. The movie was nominated for best movie, best couples scene, best group scene and the movie was cut for B movie status in foreign countries. This guy has not done but one other feature since that movie came out. If that guy looked like Joe All America, how big would he be in this industry? The cable market has no use for people of color in their movies. They won’t buy these movies from the people who make features, so those companies don’t produce them.

Do you think this falls on the cable companies or do we place the blame on the consumers who tell certain cable companies what they will and will not watch?

The consumer will take what’s given to them. There are areas where the consumer can’t get the movies they want in the stores, so the cable market is their only way to get porn. If those consumers say to their only outlet that they don’t want to see interracial sex, then it rolls downhill. The cable company says to Wicked, VCA, Video Team, who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing by the way, and tells those companies that they won’t purchase movies with black people in them. They choose not to shoot interracial because it cuts off the big money from cable.

So as you see it, cable companies are telling porn companies that they don’t want to buy interracial movies and the companies are reacting accordingly?

It’s pure speculation on my part.

OK, speculating, do you think this comes from customers telling cable companies not to show it, or is it cable companies saying that they don’t care what people want to see, they are going to refuse interracial in spite the wishes of the consumer?

There are areas of the country where a number of people would be against watching black on white sex. That’s an easy thing to realize. In many of those regions, people can’t buy porn in stores so they have to cross state lines or watch what they get on cable. If enough people in those areas are also opposed to watching black on white sex, then that will be reflected in terms of dollars, at the cable company level. If a scene between Lexington Steele and Bridgette Kerkove strikes a chord in Billy Bob’s mind and he won’t watch, then the companies won’t buy it. Then a production company has to think. We can’t sell this movie there, what can we sell? Maybe they can put Brad Armstrong with her. It will be a good scene, it could be better, but it sells across the board. In that case, Wicked is going to produce the scenes that will sell in the bigger markets.

That makes sense in a fucked up sort of way.

Of course it makes sense. Why would they make movies that can’t be sold in a good portion of their market?

So you think it ultimately comes down to the consumer?

It has to.

What about the double standard for “interracial” scenes?

We all know what that’s about. You take a black woman and put her with a white man and it’s not the same thing. In fourteen years, how often do you think Heather Hunter has worked with a black man? This is the longest running contract girl in the history of our business. You can count the number of black on black scenes she has done on one hand. Vivid’s new contract girl probably did her last interracial scene when she worked with me for West Coast.

Not to make excuses, but during that fourteen years, how many black performers have been A list guys? You, Sean, Marcus, who else?

That span would include all those guys, plus FM Bradley, Billy Dee, Ray Victory. With the guys you listed, that’s six. At least four of those six would be A list.

That kind of proves my point though doesn’t it? She’s worked with the three A list guys we just mentioned.

If you don’t want to work with FM Bradley, fine. But there is no reason for her not to work with Marcus or Sean. They are A list and have been from the start. Ray Victory was an A list guy. And don’t forget Jake Steed.

All of this kind of brings us back to the AVN article of a few months ago. You and Jewel De’Nyle were mentioned in the same article. Was that an actual interview?

Not really. AVN contacted us separately. She gave her statement, I gave mine. It wasn’t the two of us speaking out together.

That’s how it looked.

Make no mistake, as of June of this year, Jewel did not do interracial scenes. How she became an authority after her first scene with Marcus, I have no idea. Before that scene, she was the same as Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, Serenity and the so called A stars who refuse to do interracial.

Why do you think Jewel changed her policy?

I believe she changed because she is a very smart businesswoman. Now that she is doing interracial, she picks up a whole new fan base. She now has 100% of the black audience. The way she looks and the way she performers, every brother in the world is going to look at her as the next Nina Hartley. She is a cool person and a good businesswoman. I would say that she’s not a racist in any way. There have been women, Hypatia Lee, Christy Canyon, women like this had problems racially.

Christy did a scene with Jake for Vivid.

You have to remember this though, she was in the twilight of her career and looking to add some spark. It’s very clear how these things work. I don’t fault Jewel at all. She is one of the women I fantasize about when I’m working with other women. This is a business where you are forced to accept certain conditions. You can play within the rules or you can get the fuck out.

One of the arguments used by women who don’t do interracial is that it will hurt them in the cable market and dancing. What you were just saying would seem to back up at least the possibility that this sort of financial impact may exist.

That is a common way of thinking, but I look at it this way. Seventy percent of the viewer ship is white males. Thirty percent are black males. Do you want 100% of seventy or do you want 100% of the full hundred. Jewel now has one hundred percent of the viewer ship of adult videos. Everybody. She is going to make more money on the road. She can go into every club in DC, every club in Omaha and fill up the club. She does to Detroit and she’ll have a line around the corner. Inari Vachs has never had a position on interracial because she doesn’t think that way. Why is she the most popular female other than Tera Patrick if interracial hurts? I will tell you this, Tera has a fan base that is one hundred percent white. Black viewers don’t know Tera at all. If you put Tera up against Jewel in a popularity contest. Tera will take seventy and Jewel will take one hundred. You want to tell me that it’s more important to worry about some club owner in Tennessee who says he won’t book her if she does a black guy? She is still Tera Patrick, you have to book her. The girls are being told not to work with brothers and they aren’t being shown the reality of the situation.

Who is telling them this?

I’ll give you another example. Ryan Connor shot a scene for Oral Consumption with me and Erik Everhard. She sucked my dick, ate my ass and swallowed cum. She took a break for a while and came back into the business. Ryan was told by her webmaster and boyfriend that she shouldn’t do a scene with me because it would ruin her career. How in the hell is doing a scene with Lexington Steele going to ruin her career?

Mike- Doing Oral Consumption might ruin a career.

Lex- Why is that? Because I’m black? This guy is Asian and he’s telling her not to work with me. Now she’s not with him in any more so we’re going to do scenes. Me and Ryan are cool, but here is this guy trying to fuck things up. I’ll give you another example. Monica Mayhem has a husband who I shoot for all the time and am good friends with, Craven Moorhead. I’m pretty sure Monica has done interracial and she has told me she would do a scene with me, but it just never happens. I have been told that Craven told Monica not to do interracial. I’m cool with Craven, have hung with Craven, smoked herb with him and now I hear this? That because she’s his wife or whatever, but still fucks strangers for money and is basically a whore, can’t fuck black men?

All this said, we know that there are some people out there, I don’t understand them and I don’t want to, who really don’t want to watch women who have done interracial. This cuts both ways of course, with white guys who don’t want to see white girls do black guys and black guys who don’t want to see black girls do white guys. Since we know these people exist, if, and this is a supposition, if there are enough of them out there to actually cause harm, is that enough of a reason for a woman to refuse to do interracial and if not, what should be done?

If a woman is not attracted to a man for any reason, she shouldn’t have to work with him. You can’t force a woman into something and I wouldn’t advocate that at all. If she is not attracted to a certain type of person, so be it. I have my own preferences and I would rather work with some women then others. If a woman were to say that she’s not attracted to black men, I would respect that. Just don’t hide behind some other excuse.

It can’t all be about attraction in porn though.

No, there are a lot of guys working who look like these girls’ fathers. The average age for a lot of these girls is what, nineteen? Many of the guys in porn are old enough to be their fathers. It’s a lot more likely that a boyfriend a manager or a webmaster has told a girl not to do the interracial thing. There are people in charge of certain modeling agencies who direct girls away from interracial scenes.

Let me throw this out to you. It could be said that this sort of positioning, racism or not, cuts both ways and can help you as much as it hurts you.

How do you figure?

Because there are some people in the audience who still find the taboo of black on white sex to be a thrill, there are movies and performers who make it because they are black.

OK, yeah.

It doesn’t really apply to you. You’re a good looking guy with a huge dick, you’re going to work regardless, but there are white fans of interracial who drive the market to a certain degree. The lower end black performers can be thrown into a White Trash Whore movie because of the taboo.

That’s true to some extent. A person like myself or Marcus or Sean Michaels has to set a standard though. We have to deal with the fact that we are tokens. I realize that this is my position. I’ve had idiots on the internet direct the term Uncle Tom at me and that baffles me. I make six figures having sex with beautiful women and I don’t give a fuck if they are black, white, brown or purple. If a guy has a problem seeing me have sex with a white girl, then they shouldn’t watch the video.

So you’re reaching beyond the interracial genre.

Yeah. Look at all the work coming out of Anabolic and Diabolic. None of it is predicated on interracial action. Up Your Ass is the only interracial based theme and that’s not always black on white. Panochitas is another one, but that’s black and white on Latina.

Technically interracial, but not in the myopic world some people live in.

There are over twenty lines and none of them are based on race. We pair up performers with performers and that works quite well.

There are also a lot of very popular lines that are totally predicated on black on white sex.

Sure, Chasing the Big Ones, I participate in that one hundred percent.

What about All-Black lines.

I am going to be working on a line that Sean started back in 1994 called Women of Color. I am going to resurrect that line and make it my own. It will feature black women, but it won’t be a black on black line because that will make it weaker.

All black lines are weaker? How?

What I mean by that is this. If I shoot a black on black movie then I can only put myself and Marcus in it. If it’s an Anabolic movie I can put Marcus, myself, Erik Everhard, Mark Davis, Jon Dough and these guys. The list of talent is wider.

Going back to last year, you had said some things in the interview that were misunderstood by some people on the net and then it exploded into this whole big thing.

In the past, I had hired a woman who wouldn’t do interracial. The thing is, it wasn’t her policy, it was a decision handed down to her by her manager. I needed a blonde and I knew she was going to be hot. I will no longer shoot a woman who refuses to do a man of color. It doesn’t have to be me, but she can’t just have a blanket refusal.

Because some women might have legitimate size issues with you.

Right. I would much rather have a woman tell me that they don’t think they can handle me. If they can do a better scene with a smaller guy, I’ll hire someone else. If I know that the girl has a policy of not doing brothers, then I don’t need to spend the money on her. I don’t have to jeopardize my morality by spending money on someone who won’t shoot with me or someone who looks like me.

Moving on, you made it onto the AVN Male Performer nominee list this year.

I actually got twelve nominations this year, including Male Performer.

Do you expect to win?

I don’t think their list is a very strong list. I don’t think that the Americans are well represented compared to the Europeans. They have Rocco, Nacho and Christoph Clark. How can you send up the collection of Americans that they did? The absence of Erik Everhard is the most glaring omission in the history of the AVN Awards.

More so than your omission last year?

Yes, absolutely. I have been around four years and I worked my way to where I am. Erik came in and has been the best or second best performer on American soil since day one. I would still say that Rocco is the greatest performer on the face of the earth. It would be nice to win, but over Rocco? That’s a tough thing to say. Without Erik on the list, I sincerely don’t think there anyone who deserves it more than Rocco or myself.

Would it mean more to you to win Male Performer or to win for your Balls Deep series?

At this point in my career, I am still learning the directing end, so to be recognized as a performer would mean more. I am still learning way too much about directing to put myself up with Mike John or Rocco or the other great gonzo directors. I am not ready just yet to be recognized for my directing. It’s nice to be nominated though.

What lines are you working on now?

I’ve got Balls Deep and number four is just about out.

Got a preview for us?

There is this girl named Shyla who is nineteen and brand new. We have a beautiful, tall sister named Cashmere. There are a number of girls from Canada, Kimberly, Judy Star, it’s a good line up. Jessie J who is really good and Jodie Moore from Australia.

OK, what else?

I’m working on the Initiations line, starting the Women of Color line. We are going to take the hottest black and Asian women on the market and shoot them at the top level. There are other lines out there, like Color Blind, but we are going to put women like Cahsmere and Vanessa Blue and pair them up with guys like Mario and Erik Everhard.  We are going to make this series the best of its kind. It’s a soft market right now and we’re going to crush them.

You are still performing in other movies, but as a director are you locked in to Anabolic and Diabolic?

With all of the lines I’m working on, they keep me very busy. I don’t have a Diabolic line yet, but that should be coming soon. Yes, I will work in other people’s movies, but only for Evil Angel and West Coast Productions. I have a good relationship with Jules Jordan. We did Heavy Metal 1 and 2 for Rosebud. He’s with Evil Angel and we will work together on his series called Lex the Impaler. I shoot for Joey Silvera, John Leslie, but mostly I will be shooting for Jules.

When John Leslie calls you’re not going to say no.

You know, he’s amazing. The last time I worked for him, I didn’t understand what he was going for. Now that I’ve been on the other side of the camera and seeing things from a new perspective. All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. All of a sudden I get it. I get the hype and I know why he is an icon and bigger than a legend. The way he shoots, it’s fantastic. I see it now. It is mind blowing and now I know why he is John Leslie.

You have a web site in the works, isn’t that right?

I do. I’m working on a site called www.lexsteele.com that should be up and running by CES. I also have a site called www.liquidsteele.com that is for a vitamin supplement deal. It’s a great thing for guys who is looking for something natural.

Mike- Hey, hook me up with some of that. If anyone needs a vitamin supplement it’s me, with the pale skin and the bags under my eyes.

Mike, if you get any better looking, you will lose your every man appeal and turn into an Evan Stone type with the long flowing hair. Besides, no straight man should be asking Lex for a vitamin supplement. It’s just wrong. Lex, you’re from the East Coast, right?

From New Jersey.

We had originally scheduled this interview right around the time of the September 11^th bombings. Being from back there, this had to be especially hard for you.

It hit me very close to home. I came out of Syracuse University in 1993. By early 1994 I was a licensed broker and was in the World Trade Center 2 for four and a half years as a stock broker. I worked in that building and had I still been a broker, I would have been in that building at the time. I would have been at my desk or in transit under that building. I know people in that building who died, there are places I used to have lunch in every day that are not there any more. It affected me in a very personal way. My best friend recently lost his job to layoffs following that event. This is a crazy world we live in, but all of these things we’ve been talking about, porn and the racism in this business pale in comparison to the bigger issues in the world. I have no complaints compared to what these people have to deal with. I am blessed in so many ways.

I’m going to put you on the spot. We were just talking about Jules Jordan. He is one of the best all-sex shooters in porn. The guy next to you, Mike John, is another of the very best. You work with both of them and I’m going to ask you to compare the two.

First of all, let me say that Mike and Jules are, to me, the best shooters in the business. They are both equally good, but just have different styles. I think that Mike is more focused. You know exactly what you’re getting when he get a shot. Jules doesn’t always know what he is going to shoot. He will canvas the whole scene and not give you a sustained shot. Mike will focus on a particular shot and stay with it. The way I look at it is this. Are you the type of person who would like to walk around two people having sex or stay in one spot and keep a steady view. That’s how I see them. They are both far above the average gonzo shooter. They can both come up with shots that other people just don’t get.

This seems like a good time to switch and get Mike’s reaction. So thanks Lex and we’ll talk to you again soon.

Thanks Rog and thanks to all of the people out there for their support.