Janet Smith
Deon van der Walt’s conversation is blunt. They use “cum doubles”, he reveals, when South African men can’t get it together at the critical climactic moment in porn movies. Unlike our men, American actors can apparently shoot from the groin in three minutes. They’re very professional about it. A quick chat with the director – and the frame is complete.
Van der Walt is one of the national stars of Johannesburg-born porn director Stuart Canterbury’s Africa Rising, the film that has got local porn connoisseurs sitting up to watch the scenery (and the actors) getting chewed by, especially, South African women.
Like Canterbury, who is based in California, Van der Walt believes the South African porn industry is still small, but growing. Both men say we need more experienced producers from abroad to jet in and discover our talents.
“The problem is that a lot of people working in the porn and sex industry in this country are scared their mothers are going to see them on film,” says Deon. (Presumably if mummy is watching a blue movie, she wouldn’t admit to it.)
Canterbury’s experience in porn began when he was a student at film school in California hoping to make mainstream features that would enable him to live comfortably and gain fame and acceptance. Approached by a porn flick insider to make a movie 15 years ago, he never so much as glanced over his shoulder at the regular business again. Now, he says, porn stars seek him out as a director and his flicks – including a few conventional B-movies – have played on cable-access TV in the United States.
He says Africa Rising was a particularly exciting adventure in an action-packed career. Accepting that he appreciates the apolitical atmosphere of X-rated movies, Canterbury says recruiting local actors to make a film here was also a lot easier than imagined. Customary hospitality, perhaps?
“I’m looking for a certain mood, a certain look, and to play with textures. I found all of that in South Africa,” he says. Van der Walt elaborates. A 15-minute fuck-scene can take four hours to create. It’s not continuous. Bits and pieces are spliced together to pull it off.
“It’s all in the mind,” he advises. “You can’t concern yourself with what other people are doing. You have to stand in the corner and fantasise, keep your mind sexual.It takes lot of practice. Sometimes it’s a bit like picking up the ugliest woman you can find and taking her home and trying to have sex with her. You don’t always find the women you’re paired up with in front of the camera attractive. It’s a lot better if you get to choose somebody yourself.”
Of course the issue of women in the porn movie industry is fraught with rancour and self-hatred. Volumes of political documents have been penned on the subject, and women who enjoy blue movies are given a hard time by their hard-core sisters.
Canterbury insists women who have made porn their career are doing it with a lot more style now: “They’re better-looking, more classy. And nobody’s coerced into it, nobody’s using stimulants to keep it up. Now it’s more mainstream. What we’ve lost in the camaraderie, we’ve gained in exposure.”
Van der Walt agrees that the women on film are better-looking. He’s not so sure about the men. Those who watch more porn movies more often testify to the unappealing men working on heterosexual features. Gay porn, on the other hand, has a pool of stars over whom to drool.
“I think it’s because straight men have such fragile egos,” Van der Walt says. “If they see a guy on screen who looks more like them and not so much like a stud, they feel better about themselves. Women don’t have as much of an ego. They accept that women porn stars are supposed to be gorgeous and sexy and they’re fine with that.”
Meanwhile, Canterbury is planning to introduce the South African porn-viewing public to the sauciest of classic sex encounters, with a little help from local porn magnate, Joe Theron.
“And, yes, I would like to return to South Africa to make more movies with South African stars. There’s a more positive outlook on the industry, thanks to movies like The People vs Larry Flynt and Boogie Nights, which should make it easier. It was tough to get into the inner sanctum of porn in the United States, but now that I’ve done that, I can make a good contribution in South Africa as well.”
Van der Walt would be thrilled by this news. He works hard at his career which is dominated by live sex acts with his wife, Sonja.
“After six shows in a week, you’re exhausted. But I love it. It’s great to work for yourself and earn good money. After 10 years of being an ordinary employee, I like being my own boss.”