Joe Diamond Interview

Joe Diamond has written for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, TV Guide, Newsday and Intellectual Capital. He's been interviewed on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN and the BBC. Now he's writing about hookers in Brazil for Hustler magazine and doing other sex-related writing.

We speak by phone Monday, September 6, 2004.

Joe: "I've been reading your stuff. We have opposite trajectories. I went to yeshiva, a Sephardic yeshiva through third grade. The tuition got too high for my mother."

Were you a budding Talmudic genius?

"I did better in religious school than I did in public school. The educational standards at some of these parochial schools are amazing. Once I got into middle school and high school, I started floundering educationally."

Joe has lived his whole life in Brooklyn. He went to Brooklyn College, majoring in Political Science and Communications.

"After yeshiva, I wasn't involved in religious matters. I got bar mitzvahed. I've always believed in God. For a long time, I tried to go to temple on the High Holy Days. But nah, I have not been a good Jew for many years."

So how old were you when you first used drugs?

"Whoa. When I first used drugs? Nah. I was a teenager and I did the usual light stuff. I smoked pot. I didn't do that long either. I've never been big on drugs."

When did you start experimenting with sex?

"About 15."

So you didn't get a blowjob for your bar mitzvah?

"No. It didn't cross my mind at the time.

"[After college] I was involved with politics and public affairs. I worked for Rudy Giuliani. Then I ran an organization (Take Back New York) that fought violent crime. We lobbied for tougher laws against violent felons. We helped to change the parole system. We started the first Web site in the country that gave the public information about violent inmates coming up for parole.

"I worked with the Guardian Angels. I know Curtis Sliwa. He was supportive of my organization."

Did you bring Rudy Giuliani hookers?

"No. It's such a funny question. I mean this in a good way. It's like a Stuttering John question. So out of left field.

"I love the guy [Rudy]. When it comes to matters of sex, he's perceived as puritanical because of the efforts he made to clean up Time Square. There there was a side of his personal life that came out into the open during his mayoralty. He'll always be associated with getting sex shops out of residential areas in the mind of the adult industry."

Do you think Times Square is better for having gotten rid of most of the sex shops?

"It's certainly more family friendly. It's been Disneyfied. You have more tourists coming.

"As far as the industry is concerned, he probably drove up sales on the Internet. When you take away these brick-and-mortar outlets, it means that more people are buying the merchandise online. In that sense, it's been a wash, or maybe even a gain, for the adult industry."

Who are your favorite porn stars?

"Out of all the women in porn, only a handful have stood out in my mind. Montana Gunn. I was excited to meet Rebecca Bardoux at AVN. I've always liked her performances on screen.

"Girl-on-girl porn is the only stuff I'll watch. In real life, I don't like to see a guy get a girl that I am interested in. So why would I want to pay that on screen? Why would I want to see a guy get a girl that I want to screw? That is what happens in real life. I only like to watch gorgeous girls get it on together.

"A lot of times, these girls are beautiful physically but they don't show any real animation. Classic actress Christy Canyon was good at projecting that energy.

"I've always been fascinated by porn. My career was on a very different track. I've always been involved in conservative politics.

"I went on a trip to Brazil last February and I was amazed at how sexual the culture was. I had a great time. I came back thinking, there's a real story here. I haven't seen many articles on Rio de Janeiro, what's really going on there. I pitched it to a few magazines and Hustler was very interested. I went back later that year and did the article. This got me to thinking that there are a bunch of adult magazines I could write for."

Did you get into the she-male scene in Brazil?

"Not at all. In some ways, I am very straight-laced.

"Given the way the culture and economy is there, the only way for a girl to climb up and get into the middle class and beyond is to moonlight as a sex worker."

Did you feel like you were helping them to advance in their social class?

"When I sat down to write, that's the way I started to think about it. Looking at it on a macro scale... When you are actually hooking up with somebody there, no. After I got over my initial resistance.

"My friend Ian had been telling me about it for years. 'The girls will treat you like a king.' My friend and I would make fun of him. 'You're paying them. Of course they will treat you like a king.' My thing was that I didn't want to go pay for sex. It's not only demeaning to the girl. It's demeaning to me. It's going to sink my ego into the toilet.

"I went because it was real. It was the Rio carnival. I figured there would be regular women from all over the world and beautiful girls who live there and are not involved in that business. Then you go and you see the place is flooded with working girls. It's so integrated into the culture. You see all the guys there who are partaking in this.

"I met this one girl on my first night and she just dazzled me. We sat down for a couple of hours and talked at a cafe. Before I knew it, I wanted this girl. To hell with me being on a high horse and not wanting to pay for this. If that's what it takes to have a night with this girl, it's worth doing, especially if everybody here seems to be condoning it.

"It's almost like a United Nations of women over there, such a melting pot. A lot of the girls I met looked Northern Italian. Blonde hair with olive skin.

"I can only imagine what you're thinking. I know this is a source of moral conflict for you."

How do you think your writing for sex publications is going to affect your writing for more conventional publications?

"I've crossed a big bridge."

It was the moral environment in Rio that let you think that whoremongering was ok.

"Yeah, of course."

If you were in a different society that might've arrested you and humiliated you, you wouldn't have done it.

"Right. It was the absence of stigma.

"I had a friend who was a mentor to me. When I hinted to him about the kind of things I was writing about, he was aghast. 'Joe, you are ruining yourself. You can't go back now.' I didn't know how to respond. This is how my life has evolved.

"Rio is almost a reflection of Porn Valley. But I don't want to intellectualize this too much.

"My main passion is to get a book contract and to live in Rio. Some of the women I met there, I got romantically involved with. That's my ultimate goal. I would love to go there and find a soul mate. I don't care if she's a former sex worker. That would've bothered me at one time.

"The quality of relationships I've had in the United States with regular girls have not worked for me.

"Would you reject a girl in the porn industry out of hand?"

Yeah.

How does your mom feel about your adult work?

"She's not thrilled with it."

Have you lost friends writing on this stuff?

"No. I've probably made friends."

I saw the movie Blame it on Rio at age 17 and fell in love with Rio de Janeiro. But I'm afraid to go there because the local mores might melt my otherwise firm moral values.

"I was firm when I first went there that I wanted to observe the local scene but I didn't want to pay. I didn't want to fly ten hours and then pay to get laid. That was just repulsive to me. I very quickly got sucked into the whole thing. There's still a part of me that says, 'Joe, what the hell are you doing? This is not the image of yourself that you had for many years.' But this is how life has unfolded for me.

"I have a friend from Brooklyn who is in his 30s. He's not happy. He's got a good job. He hasn't been in a relationship in a long time. He's shy. He doesn't like to go out to find romance in New York. So he goes to Rio a lot. You have to do something. You have to express that desire somewhere. He loves Rio and how the women treat him there. Once in a while, he will lament to me, what if I am 50 and still doing this.

"That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. If you are still going there a few times a year when you are 50, there will be a lot of guys who will still worship you like you are Hugh Hefner.

"It is not a mainstream life to go there and play around with all these gorgeous hookers.

"But if you are not in a happy healthy stable relationship at home, and you are not religious, then what do you do?"

What will you say to your wife on your wedding night?

"Why would I have to say anything to her about Rio? If she's reading my articles, she will probably have a list of questions for me."

How do civilian women react when they find out about your Brazil adventures?

"I've only been doing this for under a year. A lot of the women I've met are cool with it. Others have been not too cool with it.

"One girl I mentioned to her an article I'd done. I told her I wrote for adult magazines. She seemed cool with it. I told her I had won this contest and got to go to LA to do a scene with a porn girl. Brittney Skye for BeTheMask.com. Maybe she will think that's really cool. I told it to her and she said, 'Now that is the official end of our date.'

"I couldn't believe I had been so tone deaf. Oh, you idiot. You really thought this was going to impress the girl."

Brittney Skye is cute. What sort of scene did you do with her?

"Just a straight sex scene.

"As I was getting prepared to go out to LA to do this, I thought, maybe it will be a version of what happens in Rio. In Rio, I met these girls who are working girls but then I've had romance with some of them. It's gone from business to romance on several occasions. That's been interesting. It has shown that a lot of these girls are open emotionally. Who knows? There might be a real nice wife over there waiting for me to meet her.

"I'm thinking, maybe Brittney will really like me and we'll have a real chemistry together. After we do our scene, we'll go out for a nice romantic dinner.

"She's a sweet girl. She did a good scene. But there was no chemistry between us. She was getting paid to do the scene and that was fine. She was a professional. It was an eye-opener because it my heart of hearts, I had hoped there would be more than doing a scene."

I had all the same fantasies about porn stars.

"In Rio, there are girls of porn star quality and you can be with them.

"Later in the day, I did a scene with Brittney and Felix Vicious, a goth chick."

Did you have trouble performing?

"I took a lot of viagra. In the first scene, I came quicker than the director wanted."

What's it like coming back from Brazil and dating civilian girls?

"For my friend Ian, that's always a big letdown. He doesn't go out and socialize. All he does is sit around and dreams about Brazil.

"Last night I went to a Jewish singles event in Manhattan. I spoke to one girl. There were no sparks. I told her I go to Brazil but I didn't get into the nitty gritty of it. If someone asks me specifically, I'll tell them. I'm not going to hide.

"Dating in the real world has been getting harder lately. I've been going through a dry spell. I still try to go out and socialize. I go to different clubs. I'll go out to bars. I'll think, why am I still doing this? I'll think about three relationships I've been in where I could've gotten got married. Those were my chances to have a normal life, and for whatever reason, I wasn't prepared to make the jump. I've made my bed. I've set things up in my life, past 40, still searching for a soulmate, still floundering around.

"I envy you. You have deep beliefs. They serve as a rock for you. Every time I've deeply believed in something, at some point, I've drifted away from it. I've lost the touchstones I've had in my life."

What has surprised you about porn?

"I've realized there are a lot of smart people in porn. There are a lot of professionals who want to get the job done and are dedicated to their craft and business. It's a mature industry, around for over 30 years. A lot of performers have impressed me with their intelligence and how professional they are."