An Interview With David Benjamin: Thoughts On Rentboy, Bareback & More

When it comes to being a hot commodity in the adult world, there are many that come in like a lion and out like a lamb pretty quickly. In other words, they can’t figure out how to keep the flame bright and the chatter loud after a certain period of time.

There are others, however, that figure out a way to go beyond what has become the “Flavor Of The Month” mentality and really make their mark in this industry in hopes that it will pay off in the long run. This can be said about the very charismatic and beautiful David Benjamin.

David, who was nominated as 2015 Best Newcomer for both the Grabbys and Hookies, has made quite the name for himself with his stunning looks and ability to perform in front of the cameras. Within a short period of time, he has developed a great following on social media—19,000 Twitter followers and counting—and that number continues to rise as he keeps going upward in this industry.

I recently sat down with David to discuss a myriad of topics from inspiration, how he got into the business and more.

– Ryan Shea

Photo credit: Club Inferno Dungeon

Read our interview and see more pics of David below:

Thanks for sitting down with us David! So The Hookies just passed, and you were nominated for the coveted Best Newcomer category. How excited were you when you found out that you got nominated?

Really excited! I really am new, just starting nine months ago. The fact that anyone is taking notice of what I am doing is a real honor. It is a really good feeling to know that my colleagues respect me as well. Rentboy is a great organization. They do great work in not just running their website, but for the sex worker committee as well. They are really dedicated to that cause, especially in New York City. The people who do such good work and do it so professionally were the ones that ultimately nominated me, and it really was such a great privilege.

All of the nominees are talented and wonderful guys. Someone is going to get a little extra special recognition, and even though I did not win on Friday night, I am hopeful that I do win in May at the Grabby Awards.

Awesome. So what inspired you to get into this industry in the first place?

I lived with the idea of wanting to do porn my entire adult life. I remember growing up looking at the men who did this kind of material and really being fascinated by the men that were doing it. They were so proud of their bodies and comfortable with their sexualities that I myself wanted to be like them and participate in that sort of thing.

I grew up as a good kid in a good family, went to a good school, got a good job and met some good guys, so the idea that someone like me from my kind of background would do porn… Let’s put it this way—I didn’t know anyone with my background who had similar experiences and did porn. So I never thought it was something I could do, but like clockwork, it just kept coming up.

I would fantasize and continue to think about it. Following a breakup of a significant relationship in my life, I asked myself a question. I said, “David, what do you want to do? You spent your twenties trying to be a good son to your parents, and then spent your thirties trying to be a good boyfriend and be the kind of man you want to marry and be responsible. Here you are looking down the barrel at forty where the biggest relationship of your life is over, and now you have the time to do what you really want to do.”

That damn thought of being in porn jumped into my head again. Even though I fought those thoughts, I told myself, “Why not give this some oxygen, and just say yes?” So I sent out a few photos to a couple of different companies, and eventually, Falcon Studios got back to me.

After shooting one scene for Hot House, Falcon signed me as an exclusive, and I haven’t looked back since. My friends may think I’m nuts, and I’m sure when my former colleagues discover what I do they will be shocked, but the truth is, I’m happier with this occupation in my life than I have ever been with anything before. I feel more self-fulfilled and self-possessed now than I ever did in the past, when I would put on a suit and tie to run a board meeting.

You had to have inspirations that got you into this industry. Have there been any, in particular, for you?

The biggest one has to be Chi Chi LaRue. Her name was synonymous with gay porn in the nineties. If you landed a Chi Chi movie, you were doing something very special. I had the chance to meet her in June of last year. My first shoot for Hot House had a lot of scheduling problems to the point where I was on the set for eight days, which was unheard of. By day four, I was having a bit of a mental breakdown and having a moment, if you will, and it got to the point where I wanted to leave. All of a sudden, I get a phone call from an LA number, and it was Chi Chi.

She talked me down that day, and since then, she cast me in a movie and gave me my first box cover. I’ve also traveled with her to a variety of locations. I consider her to be an exceptional person who grew up in Minnesota and turned herself into a gay persona in the nineties when no one else was doing that.

That kind of character is really something I admire. The ability to take something that has never existed before in the history of mankind and realize it, and then be successful at it, takes a lot of guts. It takes a lot of creative energy to do that, and she has done it so successfully and became somewhat of a fairy godmother for me and a ton of other men in this industry. I love her to death.

Another person who influenced me is my good friend Rocco Steele. We fight like brothers, but he is a really good guy. We are both really neurotic, which I think Rocco would appreciate me saying that. We are thinkers and worriers and consider what is happening, so we speak a common language. I admire and love him very much.

Brian Bonds is another great guy. We have been together in two movies and have traveled together to places like Los Angeles, Massachusetts and have an upcoming event together in Cleveland next month. He really is like a brother to me.

Finally, I would have to say Chris Ward over at Falcon Studios, who made me an exclusive. It is amazing to have the history and experience of Falcon behind you, molding you and helping you make good choices. He went out on his own and made some fisting movies under a new banner in the nineties called Raging Stallion.  He then grew that business and bought the biggest and baddest company on the block – Falcon Studios.  Then he bought the next biggest & baddest one – Hot House.

Today, all of them exist under one banner. He has gone from a director, gonzo, performer to CEO of the largest producer of gay porn in the United States. I admire that a lot. All of them are very sweet people.

Is there anyone in the industry that you are dying to work with?

I would love to work with Rocco, actually.  We have worked together, but part of a large group. There wasn’t much action between us, so I would like to work with him individually.  I think Rogan Richards is incredibly hot and would love to work with him. I have been pretty lucky so far and worked with some pretty amazing people. Dato Foland is sexy as shit, and his eyes are just ridiculous – would love to work with him as well.

So tell me a little bit about your upbringing…

Well, I am originally from Guatemala City, Guatemala. My dad is Spanish by way of Guatemala, and my mother is a Southern California girl who met him while traveling. When he finished school, my parents, younger brother and I went to Detroit, where my dad found a job right outside in Ann Arbor.

I went to school there and graduated with a political science degree, yet didn’t really know what I wanted to do. It wasn’t like I was dying to be a civil servant, but I went to Washington and pursued my career there for fifteen years before I decided to make a shift into the gay adult business. I view this as a second career and a passion, not an opportunity to make a quick buck or something.

I ask this to all the men I interview in the adult industry regarding their take on the prevalence of barebacking on the rise.  What is your take on it?

At this point in my career, I am not interested in pursuing bareback porn. Bareback, in my humble opinion, is here to stay. It is not going away. People being concerned about HIV transmission, the advent of PrEP and drug cocktails that allow people living with HIV to decrease the transmission rates are really indicators that barebacking is here to stay, unless something else presents itself.

That being said, there are ways to demonstrate bareback sex that don’t involve fifty load weekends and toxic loads. That’s not even shocking, it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing in the sense that, in order to sell a product, someone has to create a sense of disgust among people and lure people in based off of that.

That being said, there are ways of being more responsible when it comes to barebacking, and it is up to the producer to showcase it in that light without stigmatizing people who live with HIV and, at the same time, not put the fear in men who are HIV negative that happen to be sleeping with men who are knowingly positive.

Has your experiences in Rentboy been mainly positive? 

Oh, without a doubt! First of all, the people at Rentboy have been nothing but wonderful to me. Coco Lopez, Sean Van Sant, Hawk Kinkaid and Tyler have all made a point of making me feel like a special member of the family. I really do appreciate that.

As for my clients, they run the gamut, but this is why I really like my life today more than I ever did before. When I wore a suit and I was responsible, quote unquote, I was very detached to other people. My world existed at a desk, behind a computer, hiding in emails and phone calls and coordinating things, which made me very detached from other people.

My experience as an escort is that I am meeting people in their most intimate experiences of their life. People have a lot of shame, concern and nervousness around sex and sexuality that a lot times doesn’t serve them. Often, I sit with them in a scenario where they have never done something like this before, and in these situations is where all of that comes alive with the idea that they are powerful and beautiful sexual creatures and that those powers were given to them in order to be experienced and shared. So I get this one-on-one sense that is a very powerful thing for me. I really do appreciate it.

For your career, what are you hopeful for in 2015 and beyond?

People ask me that all the time and, back to the idea that I am a neurotic mess, part of the experience for me was trying to let go of some of that concern in a responsible way. Not plan so much what will happen, but really taken appraisal of where I am so often and see what opportunities present itself.

I can’t speak too much about it, but I will be partnering with a very popular underwear line in the next month or so, which I am very excited about. I certainly have ideas, and maybe I’ll open up a flower shop in South Florida, open up a gym in Southern California or even become a porn mogul who has his own line of dildos. Ultimately, where I think will actually go is something life-related. I’d like to represent a mature, confident and sexually powerful man.

I think men like me are underrepresented in the gay adult world, which seems to still be caught up in the late nineties to early 2000s eastern European jock thing. I think, today, trends are changing. In a world with economic upheaval and political uncertainty, people are looking for a more mature and stable kind of sexual icon. Men like Rocco, me, Billy Santoro and Nick Capra are popular in a large part, because we are a part of that movement.

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