The Squiggly Lines Between Art & Porn: An Exclusive Interview With Damien Moreau

It's become almost impossible to be an original in the porn industry in this day and age. With just about every single variation on a theme you can imagine having already been explored, standing out from the crowd for something beyond your looks is incredibly difficult. Through his amalgamation of art and pornography in the short film Kangourou, Damien Moreau has achieved something very few have successfully done in this industry, he's given us something new. A longtime performer for kink.com, Damien is, by his own admission, not a big star yet, but his voice and originality is like a breath of fresh air blowing across a landscape filled with too much of the same. I recently chatted with Damien about Kangourou, his upcoming move to San Francisco, and his sexual awakening courtesy of a weathered porn mag he discovered while growing up in Wyoming.

Vincent Thrice: You grew up in Wyoming, and you’ve spoken about this elsewhere, but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind discussing it a little further, maybe covering some ground you haven’t covered before. 

Damien Moreau: Right, growing up in Wyoming, well I was born in New Mexico, and my father owned dude ranches. He owned one in the Pecos Mountains and he owned one in Jackson Hole, where I often spend my time now that I’m in Colorado, but I’ll soon be leaving Colorado to move to San Francisco, to be closer to the industry, though I’m hoping that AB1576 doesn’t pass, because then the industry will change.

VT: Oh yeah, irrevocably. 

DM: Yeah, it’s really disappointing, but you know I always look at change as a good thing, but I really hope it doesn’t pass. So anyways, I’m going away from your question.

VT: No, that’s fine. 

DM: So growing up in Wyoming was difficult because I explored my sexuality in private and I never had a girlfriend because I knew who I was, but I had to find outlets like that one. That was the first time that I almost felt like it was a gift, like Joan of Arc in the field, I felt like a similar kind of homo spirit out there when I found this magazine (both laugh). I would usually go on chat rooms and pretend I was a girl to get the guys to take their clothes off. It was fun to kind of play a character, and also it was a completely different gender and to see how, in my own naiveté about women, how I could get these men to do vulgar things. I had them do things that, if they knew I was a guy, they’d be so embarrassed or even offended, but it was funny how it didn’t matter. 

I kind of liked playing around in the early ages of the internet, that was probably ’96 or ’97, and I was always really sexual as a kid. I got in trouble for sucking a kid off on a playground in, god I don’t even know, kindergarten. I don’t even know how I knew about that. There was no sexual abuse in my history, but I just kind of had this feeling like, I want to try that. So I solicited this one boy who, I don’t know how I knew, was also gay (laughs), and I would just take him into this playpen at recess and I’d suck him off, I mean as much as you could at that age, there wasn’t anything going on. Eventually we got in trouble because I told him that I was the one that would suck you off and you will never be able to suck me off. Actually, I don’t know what I said, or how I made this clear (both laugh), but eventually one day we flipped and he bit me and I ran because I was afraid he had bit my dick off (both laugh), so I ran to the teacher and told. I outed myself and him, and we both got in a lot of trouble, and this kid ended up switching schools. 

But it was funny because, even at that age I was super-confident, like, “that was good, I can’t wait for more of that.” But then it was years later before I ever had that kind of experience again. And then I remember going to Vegas with my parents, this is just me rambling, feel free to interject at any time…

VT: Oh no, it’s fine, ramble away please. 

DM: (Laughs) Okay. So at some point after I found that magazine, I went to Las Vegas and picked up tons of pamphlets and hid them in the ripped lining of my suitcase so my parents and no one wouldn’t find it except for me. And it’s funny, I always felt that my porn was very secret, but my brother, who’s straight, his was very flamboyant. He would hide his porn in the same place and my mom would always find it (laughs), and he would never learn to re-hide it and he would just stash it back in the same place, and eventually I started reading my brother’s porn collection, which was straight but it kind of did the trick because he had some really cool, old Hustler magazines, and some of the videos. 

So that’s when I started to explore more and become less afraid, although I guess my parents found my porn stash which was very small, because I felt sort of inhibited. It’s not that it turns me off to look at women, it’s just that at that time, I could see it if I wanted to, but I wanted to get closer to what I connected with, which was gay porn. Closer to my own personal identity. I don’t know what else to say, I kind of just threw a whole bunch of stuff at you.

VT: No, no, no, it’s always interesting to me what the jump is between the moment that you discover it and then the moment that you discover that it might be something that you want to do with your life. For some people it is the same moment, and for others, they discover it back when they don’t know that it’s a profession and then when they find out later on, they sort of marry the two worlds. So that was two separate moments for you, then?

DM: Yeah, it was two separate moments, but I always kind of identified with the characters because I didn’t have any other male figures to identify with. So through porn I would envision myself as one of the characters, most often the bottom, I very rarely envisioned myself as a top or a dom. So in those terms, that’s how I discovered that my primary interest was bottoming, and that I would kind of role play from the other figure. It took years for me to say that that’s what I wanted to do, but even as a teenager, that was my fantasy world that I created, so I looked to porn as an escape because I didn’t feel comfortable enough in my environment to do that. 

When I was in high school, Matthew Shepard was killed, and my family’s ranch was twenty miles from where that happened.

VT: Okay, wow.

DM: Yeah, so it was shocking. I was comfortable with my sexuality, but not to the point where I could tell my friends. I receded because those same boys who murdered him went to the same school that I went to, so there was this what do I do? And it was really shocking to see how nobody stood up for the murder. People locally were just as disgusted with Matthew, and felt justice was served in this really fucked up way. So I repressed my sexuality at that point until years later when I moved away from Wyoming to go to art school. 

And then I was just out. The minute I got off the plane, my uncle who is gay, who I went to live with after I came out because I didn’t want to be around my family, and I got off the plane and he’s like, “So, are you gay or what?” And I’m like, “Yes, and I can’t wait to be free,” or some dramatic thing like that (both laugh). From that moment forth, sexuality became a really important part of my exploration of identity and in my own artwork at that time, but I don’t really make art any more in that way. Kangourou is, to me, an art film, but I wouldn’t consider myself an artist any longer. 

So I guess I realized after I came out that that was something I wanted to pursue. It was always sexuality in film, but I didn’t know that I wanted it to be porn until I realized that the sexuality concepts that I wanted to cover, I was avoiding the gayness of it, and trying to cover that up with more of an intellectual veil which it didn’t really need, because there’s so much that can be said with sex and using the body as a medium. It’s almost like I was afraid, and I felt like it wasn’t smart enough to just be sex, but now I realize that’s not true. And that’s only in regards to Kangourou. For me to make that I had to realize that sex really was enough, there’s so much there that I don’t need to have a bouquet of flowery words and a paragraph for people to read to make them feel like it’s important when actually I can just say two men fucking on a bench in the park is enough (both laugh).

VT: Right, well, that’s an interesting segue into my next question which is that art has been titillating and turning people on for centuries, and it seems like porn has gradually had a lot of the art stripped from it, if it was ever there to begin with. Are you seeking to reunite the two? 

DM: Kind of. Anything that I would do and release in that way would be somewhat artistic. I don’t think that art has been removed from porn entirely, because if you think about James Bidgood who made this film called Pink Narcissus which I think you might know about it.

VT: Yeah, yes, I’ve heard of it, but I have not seen it. 

DM: So he made Pink Narcissus in the early seventies, but he’s famous, well not famous, but a cult figure because he kind of brought this pornographic material into this artistic expression. The film is about Narcissus, and pink because it’s gay, and you should see the film because it’s a very early form of color gay cinema that fuses the two, and it’s all artistic, he shot it in his New York apartment which wasn’t that big, and when you see the bathroom scene, it’s shocking to know that that’s his apartment because it looks like a European bathroom, and it has this very similar set of influences from this Tom of Finland aesthetic with the leather, and hats, and the daddies. 

And then it goes off into this very strange kind of dervish dance, and it’s very colorful, and he did a few stage productions, he was a set designer, and it’s gorgeous. I’ve seen that movie twice, and I’ve seen him speak twice, and each time was very different, so that’s a favorite of mine. And I think back to, way before that, to something that Kangourou was influenced by which was Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour. Have you seen that?

VT: Yes, I have.

DM: Great, so some of the references there with the black and white and the silence of the characters. But I think that as a writer and as a visual artist, when he made the film, he brought that in, which is of interest to me because even further back they were bringing that in, like when you look at Jean Cocteau, his drawings and the homoeroticism that came out of that, and how that fueled the whole art movement, and then there’s their collaborations with Man Ray and all of these other queer figures, so I don’t know. I don’t think it’s been absent, but what I think is interesting is that for a while, when it started to come into the mainstream it was maybe like, oh, this is porn, this is something I watch to get off to, and then with video, that’s when they started to remove it and make it more of a real experience, make it as close to reality/fantasy as you could have without all of the bells and whistles that you get when you start creating art. 

I guess they were trying to figure out their audience, you know, who’s going to buy it, how is it going to make money? Then as it started to develop into an industry, it lost some of its artistic value, and that’s where I think it dipped off, but now I do think it’s back because we have so much contact with media. We’re so influenced by everything that we see, and with Instagram and things like that, we can so easily relate how we feel through images, and our experiences in that way. And also there you have filters and people have started to really exercise their creative impulses, and this bug in their bodies that’s allowing them to think in a fantastic way, but it’s still within their own reality, and then that sort of harkens back to those influences like James Bidgood, or whatever. 

In my own personal venture I want to add an artistic side to it, but mostly what a lot of people are doing now is with varied camera angles and maybe some soft focusing, or a tilt-shifted blur, just something to add a little more dimension instead of it just being, you know, “Your pizza’s here,” you know? (Both laugh) Which can be hot, but it’s more cheesy, and for me, my whole attempt to being back the artistic form is that I want people to have something hot to look at, but they also leave thinking about it, and it stems off from there and they can create their own fantasies, allowing them to be creative from that experience, if that makes sense? So people enjoy it, or they don’t enjoy it, I just want people to see it at this point. 

VT: Sure yeah, and again you keep finding ways to segue into my next question which is fascinating. You cited Jean Genet as an influence on Kangourou, which is funny because his collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder & Jeanne Moreau is very famous, and Fassbinder’s influence on your work is very clear. Am I drawing straight lines here, or at least squiggly ones?

DM: Definitely squiggly ones, yeah. Squiggly maybe with a line through them. I can’t say that I have great knowledge of Fassbinder’s work, but I can say that I’ve heard that from people who have seen the film, they make references to that. But Moreau and Genet are definitely people that I look to, and I don’t look to them as film figures, I look to them as queer figures because I don’t consider Genet a filmmaker, I consider him more of a conceptual person.

VT: Yeah, well I think he only made the one film, as far as I know, at least as far as him behind the camera.

DM: Yeah, and that’s why I feel like he’s really not a filmmaker, and I don’t want to exclude him from that if that’s how he wished to be described but for me, the influence came more from his ideas and the way that that group at that time was talking about queerness and being homosexual was this sort of outside society, ruffian, you have to protect yourself because it’s violent and dark. It’s something that I don’t know if the whole gay culture now can relate to, but at least the subcultures of gay culture can relate to that with people accepting trans now, it’s kind of absurd to me that that’s kind of like the next thing, where now this next product of homosexual culture is being revealed and we’re just waiting for mainstream to purchase it, so that we can move to the next, it’s sort of like this weird business concept to me. I don’t know why it’s just now that those sorts of things are starting to be accepted.

VT: I definitely see the corollary, and it is strange to me, the terms that people put things in is when they’ll say things such as, for example the argument you always heard against gay marriage was “well, now a guy’s going to marry his dog,” or “this guy’s going to marry six women,” and so it becomes this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in a way where we think, if we can get you to accept this one thing, then we can get you to accept the next thing. So yeah, I definitely see the correlation between those two. 

DM: (Laughing) I love the self-fulfilling prophecy thing, it put this image in my head of a cave wall with hieroglyphics foretelling the marriage of a man and his dog, and how homosexuality was the downfall of civilization (both laugh). 

VT: Yeah, that’s it exactly. So, do you feel that it’s easier to work in references and homages to French New Wave Cinema in gay porn than perhaps Straight porn, where the references might be lost on the audience? 

DM: I think that’s a really interesting question because I don’t watch straight porn except for when I was younger and raided my brother’s porn bin. I think it would be interesting only because, and I’m not assigning a gender by saying feminine, but doing that kind of thing in straight porn would have more of a feminine quality. I’m not trying to get all spiritual or new age on you, but I don’t look at feminine as just being, I’m female, I have a pussy, you know? Feminine is a broader term than that, or accessing the feminine is.

VT: Yeah, yeah it’s an aesthetic, without a doubt.

DM: Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see more of that in straight porn because I’d be curious to see if gender-wise, because you’re accessing that more creative side, if it… (laughs) I don’t know too many, and this isn’t a dislike at all, but I mostly know lesbians and gay men, I don’t know too many just straight people, or at least not a lot of queer people who bounce back and forth, I don’t know many who are just straight. And if I do, they’re very about talking about porn, what they watch, etc.

I would be curious to see that in straight porn, just to see how it was received by both male and female. I feel it might increase… I don’t know too many women that watch porn, and I know that’s a generalization that I don’t want to subscribe to because I know it might be wrong, but from what I’ve heard from friends and what I’ve noticed from the people I hang around with, it seems like, in that straight world, women watch porn because their partner wants to watch porn, but they’re not really that into it. 

VT: What you’re saying is true for the most part. I think there is a sea change starting to happen, and as there are more female directors, things are starting to open up a bit, and get a bit more of that feminine aesthetic or sensibility, but it is still primarily a male-dominated industry at least as far as the consumers.

DM: Right. So, I guess to sum that up, I would just be curious to see, not just statistically, but just in general, if women started watching porn more. Would straight women watch porn more if that started to happen, and how would that fluctuation between the genders be affected? I know that for me to make a film like Kangourou that’s gay, most gay people that I know, or queer or whatever, are going to be intrigued by it, it’s something different and their minds are easier to access, it’s not just I’m going to get off on it, they can appreciate it on many different levels. 

I don’t know if that’s because gay culture is so much about sex on many different levels, whether you’re gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgendered, or queer, or whatever, we as a whole look at porn differently. Although there’s not a great deal of trans-porn, or queer porn, or bisexual porn, that’s one way that I think it’s changing, is that there’s more of that coming up than there is straight porn starting to become creative and beautiful instead of just what I understand it as. But that’s uneducated because I haven’t watched too much of it.

VT: Well, I mean, stereotypes exist for a reason, and it’s mostly true, and you can find exceptions to every rule, but for the most part you have that conception because it’s true. 

DM: Yeah.

VT: It feels as though your colleagues are incredibly supportive of Kangourou. Any chance you might get them to start featuring in more of your work as opposed to the other way around? 

DM: How do you mean?

VT: Some of the things that you’ve said about kink.com for example, and how they’ve been really supportive of your work, are you trying to get them to be in stuff that you’re directing instead of the other way around?

DM: You know, I’d love to direct something for kink. I love kink, and before I ever worked at kink or even thought I could work at kink, that’s the website that I watched. That’s the porn that I love. I love Naked Kombat, it’s so hot. I’ve only done one, and I don’t know if it’s really my thing, but it’s something that I’ve always been turned on with since I found it. So then when I started applying to porn, after working in the art world and applying for grants, and all of these sorts of things, you become fearless. You think, well if I don’t get it, I don’t get it, but I have to apply. 

So I approached this with that same mentality. I thought, this is a mega-company and the odds of shooting with them are very slim at this point because I had just started, but they were the first people to really pick me up. They’ve been so supportive, and everyone’s so nice, and I think that if anyone has a mystery about the porn industry, they need to go to kink, especially in reference to AB1576 in San Francisco, they really need to sit down with those people because it’s humbling. They’re all very professional, all very nice, very well taken care of. They’re very supportive of their actors, especially on set, you’re never asked to do something that’s outside of your comfort limits, and that’s what I think is great because they’re not trying to make you do something that you don’t want to do because that wouldn’t be hot. They try to get to know what you really like.

I kind of like everything, I have less of a threshold to say no, but some people, I don’t know who they are, but I’m sure that some people have a list of, I don’t like these five things, and although there may be only ten options, and that kind of limits you to only five things that they can do with you, they really push it. Sure, there’s no foot play or piss play in that video, but you don’t really need it because their directors are so great at directing how it moves with the actors’ personal interest and comfort level. I’m really grateful to them, and I am by no means a porn star, but I wouldn’t be participating in this conversation without their support, and without them seeing something in me as an actor, and to keep using me. 

But all that aside, if kink were to ask me to direct something for them, I would gladly join forces with them because I really admire what they do, and I really admire how they work with their audience. Van (Darkholme) is always trying to talk with the audience and find out what their thoughts are and their criticisms, and what they like, what they don’t like, and down the line, he works that into his films. I think that’s pretty impressive, because not too many porn companies open themselves up like that, to say, what did you think? It’s customizable, and he customizes it to who’s paying, who’s subscribing?

VT: Yeah, and that’s something that the internet age has afforded the adult audience is the ability to be more interactive with their fan base. They’re no longer relying on figures that come from a third party anymore, they’re just removing that middle man and tailoring it to the audience that’s actually paying to see it. 

DM: Yeah. I would totally do that, and what I plan to do after I move to San Francisco and start working on my own projects like Kangourou, but a little more accessible, a little less arty. I’ll continue to make my little arty films, but I want to have something that’s a little more connected. What I really want to do is to have a web series that collects from a few people out there and tells their stories, not in an interview, but more like they’re playing the characters or themselves in these short, thirty minute weekly videos. 

And it all revolves around sex. Sex starts to become a character in the way that people are working through their relationships, or the way they interact with the world, or the city, or whatever it’s going to be, sex always grounds the experience. So whether it’s two people, and I don’t want it to just be gay, I want there to be a straight story because I can’t relate to that, so it would be interesting to explore that with two straight performers, and get their input, and build chemistry with them, and see where that kind of storyline would go because it’s so foreign to me. But then the more queer stuff, I have a better understanding of, and everyone has a story to share, and it would be interesting to see how their worlds intertwine. 

So this is something I’m working towards, and this goes back to your question, is that eventually I’m hoping to team up with some people that I’ve met out there, and see if they’re interested in participating. I think there’s something valuable about collaboration, there’s a really great sex positive scene in San Francisco especially. Did that answer your question?

VT: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, I don’t like to think of interviews as I’m going to ask you a question and then wait for your answer, I tend to try and pick questions that will lead into more of a discussion or exploration of a concept, so don’t worry about answering my questions, believe me, it’s the least of my concerns. 

DM: Oh, okay, great!

VT: So, are you personally turned on by submissiveness, or are you just able to take it and realize what a turn on it can be for others? 

DM: I am really turned on by submissiveness, and being submissive. There are so many things that I find attractive about someone telling you what they’re going to do to you, and I don’t look at it as punishment, I look at it as, you’re going to have to work a little harder to get what you want, speaking in the kink sense. 

I don’t know what it is about me, but there’s something about me that really loves to serve my partners, whether it’s one on one, separate from being on camera. I love to give head, so if I don’t get off, and this is in my personal life, it’s almost not an issue because it depends upon the things that I get to do to serve my partner. It’s almost like I’m getting off in that way. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s a very mental/physical thing. I mean, most of the time I get off (both laugh). If it’s a really good fuck, I almost don’t have to cum because that’s fulfillment enough, if that makes sense?

VT: Absolutely. I think that it’s become more prevalent as a result of porn in general that the orgasm is considered the ultimate goal, but I don’t think that in a real world situation, that’s not necessarily the goal for everyone. I mean, I don’t know, for the vast majority I’m sure it is…

DM: Yeah, there is always that pressure that you have to cum. I mean, I want that cumshot. When I watch porn, I watch bareback porn, because that’s what I love to watch, and that cumshot or cream pie, or whatever you want to call it, that’s the moment where I’m the most turned on. And I think so many other people can subscribe to that, but there’s intervals, whether it’s rimming, or sucking dick, or whatever, but I can relate to the general population in that regard that I want to see the cumshot too. 

That’s the question though, is that so important? Is it that important, or have we been brought up on porn to think that that’s the most important part?

VT: Yeah, you wonder if it’s one of those conundrums where you think to yourself, do I want this because I’m conditioned to want it, or do I want it because it’s actually pleasurable? Now, I can’t think of a single orgasm that I’ve had that wasn’t pleasurable, but at the same time you wonder, is that the end all be all of this?

DM: (Laughs) Yes, yeah. 

VT:  It’s interesting, definitely. One of the things that porn is constantly accused of is dehumanization. Do you feel that at least part of what you’re trying to do is to prove that conception to be false?

DM: My intention is not to disprove that, but I think I’m just adding to the fire against that argument, even if that may not be my intention. It depends upon who’s looking at it and how they take it, etc. I’m not trying to make a statement that porn should look a certain way, I’m just looking at it as, I have a vision in my head and I want to see something that maybe I’m not seeing, so I have to create it because I’m not seeing it. 

I think of the film, is it I Need Your Love? I Want Your Love? Naked Sword released it…

VT: Yes, yeah, yeah, I Want Your Love.

DM: That is something that I think is trying to get around the misconception about porn, because it’s talking about real people in their real lives and they’re using sex as a mode of communicating that, so it becomes normalized. I just think that film kind of tackles it on a normal level, where you get that vibe, and in that way they’re trying to normalize it for people and it’s less of a shame thing. I also don’t agree with the way people patronize women in porn. Sometimes we as people get into situations that we can’t out of, and that may be damaging to us, but I think that negativity that is directed at porn is very wrong, and there’s nothing backing it up other than personal shame and disgust. 

So it’s really unfair to say things like, women are mistreated in the industry, because if women were mistreated in the industry, I don’t know that many of them would keep coming back to it. The actual industry, from my very young experience, is such that women are in it because there’s a sense of power, and control, and protection, and it’s a safe place, and I even sound patronizing now, and that’s not my intention, but it’s what they love to do. It’s something that they’re passionate about as part of who they are. It’s no different if a man did it, but we would just excuse it like, it’s disgusting, but what do you expect from a man? But with women, they’re being taking advantage of, and yeah, there are certain situations where they’re being taking advantage of, but I think there are more serious situations where women are being taken advantage of than the porn industry. 

I would say that if women were paid less than men in the industry, then that would be a point of discussion and argument, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I don’t know, but that’s not my personal experience.

VT: I don’t think that’s the case, but a lot of this stuff comes from people that have no knowledge of what porn is, or what the industry is like today. A lot of those perceptions come from the 70s, and have not evolved.

DM: Yeah, I totally agree with that, and that’s the thing it could have been like that before my experience, but that’s not what I’ve seen. I guess I would just say to people that might have that thought is to sit down and watch a porn, sit down and maybe watch an interview with someone talking about porn. Kink has a great blog “Behind Kink” where they talk openly about people’s experiences, and kink started out primarily as a BDSM website, so there’s something there that if people are coming to do it, it’s not negative.  

Lorelei Lee is a very interesting person, I personally have not met her, but I follow her on social media, and these things that she posts, and I’ve watched her talk in these videos on kink, and I think that she’s a great person for someone to look at who has that vision. She’d also be someone who I’d be really curious to hear what she has to say about that, because she’s pretty empowered by this career she’s in. It seems like she would have more power in the porn industry than she would working in a law firm, you know?

VT: Yeah, absolutely.

DM: So, yeah, that’s weird, why doesn’t it translate across the board? But that’s ideal, I guess. 

VT: My last question, is there anything else you’d like your fans to know, or perhaps anyone that’s discovering you for the first time?

DM: (Laughing) Well, it’s funny because I don’t feel like… sometimes my friends will say, “You’re a porn star,” and I’m not really a star, you have to be in this game for a long time and you have to make it there, and I feel just like a blip on the radar. Although I would love to be part of that larger scene, and make a change in porn, and leave my mark on it, and that’s what I hope to do by making this move to California, and starting my own productions. It’s funny to think that I have fans (laughs) because I come home and I lead a pretty, I wouldn’t say mundane, but I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, I lead a pretty normal life outside of that world which seems bold or daring.

So I guess if I have fans out there, who give a shit what I say (both laugh), I would say just keep following me and I’ll eventually produce something in the coming year, which will hopefully be something that they can watch and enjoy. 

Follow Damien on Twitter @ohdamienmoreau or tumblr at ohdamienmoreau.tumblr.com/