from www.differentscene.co.uk – Over six years, Mason Wyler became one of the best-known faces in the gay porn industry.

The Texan model’s blue eyes, ripped body and willingness to work for every major studio made him a hit with producers and porn fans alike.

But aged 26 and after shooting scenes with more than 300 men, his career came to an abrupt halt when he was diagnosed with HIV in 2010.

In a candid interview with DS, he lifts the lid on what a career in gay porn involves; how his diagnosis became public and why he still has unsafe sex.

Q: There’s a perception that adult film actors escape bad family backgrounds by doing porn…

In my case, I had a good, decent childhood. I got on well with my parents and I have an older brother who I’d fight with a lot, which was pretty normal for kids.

Q: Were you extrovert as a child?

Yes. I had no filter or concept of shame and embarrassment. I was obsessed with Spiderman as a kid and had a Spiderman T-shirt and pants. I’d continually wear them to school well beyond the time frame they fitted me. So the pants became shorts and the shirt became a Halter Top. It got me noticed but I wouldn’t say it got me a lot of friends.

Q: Were you always aware you were gay?

I knew I liked guys, but I thought that was normal and that every other boy did too. I thought as you got older, you had to get married and have kids. But you could still be attracted to the same gender. When I hit 14, I was in the Boy Scouts and a kid bought a Playboy magazine in with him. All the guys were crowded around it starring at the girls and I realised ‘oh, I’m different’. Until then, I really had no clue. But I never dated girls like some other gay guys do. I thought it was wrong if you were gay to trick a woman and use her as cover.

Q: How old were you when you became sexually active?

Not until I was 18. I wasn’t aware of hook-up Internet sites, so the only way I knew how to meet other gay guys was at clubs. If I was horny, I’d go out to a club. The first time I ever went, I went home with a guy. He was in the Air Force and I didn’t leave his hotel room for three days straight. Sex suddenly became a very big part of my life. I wasn’t promiscuous though.

Q: How did you get involved in porn?

I was a student at college in Texas and thought I’d become a High School teacher. I was doing typical jobs you do while you’re studying, like working in retail, which I hated. When I was 20 and I’d just gotten into a relationship, my boyfriend had the novel idea of suggesting I did porn. He thought I had the look and knew I had no problem showing off. He took pictures and helped me send my details to 25 production companies. And every one of them said ‘yes’ which was awesome. Even though I had planned to be a teacher, I didn’t think how a career in porn might affect it. It was a little after the fact I thought that it might prevent me getting a normal job.

Q: Where did the name Mason Wyler come from?

Actually Mason was my high school crush! But I changed the spelling a bit.

Q: Tell us about your first porn shoot.

I was fairly nervous. I mean, I’d get my dick out at parties but I’d never been directed by anyone on how to have sex or have an audience watching. My first scene was a three-way with two other guys and I bottomed. The guys I worked with were fairly new to it too, so they were easy to work with.

Q: Do you find it easy to get turned-on on camera?

Yes. It’s about chemistry and I have good chemistry with most of the guys. For the first two years, I was attracted to every guy the studios put me with. Once I established my name I realised I could have a say on who I worked with. I only ever twice refused to work with someone. And 90 per cent of the time I was a bottom.

Q: What are group scenes like to film?

In my private life, group sex is out of this world when I can get a few guys together and it goes well. But in porn, it’s often more work than pleasure. You have one director trying to tell a whole group of people what to do, and they often run six hours or longer and you’re exhausted. If you get a group scene where it’s all gay guys, there are barely any egos so the chemistry is good. But a lot of time there are gay-for-pay guys involved, so there’s less chemistry.

Q: You seemed to rise up in the industry quickly. How many shoots were you doing at your peak?

It was sporadic, but when it rained it poured and I was doing up to five scenes per month. I have blonde hair, blue eyes and an athletic body and as much of a cliché as that is, people liked it. And I enjoyed my job a lot!

Q: Did you make a good living from porn?

The pay range is huge. There are websites that pay shitty and you’re better of flipping burgers. But there are others where your pay is in line with TV actors. During my career I pissed away half of my earnings and the rest I have lived off and saved. I’m back at school and hopefully it will pay for the rest of my education.

Q: When did you tell your family what you were doing for a living?

Around the halfway point. A former friend of mine had a problem with it and told his mother. Then she emailed my mother. She brought it up and her reaction was a little rocky at first but it’s now a funny thing to discuss when we’re around the dinner table! But it’s not something we talk about very much.

Q: Were you still having a lot of sex off-screen?

Yes, I was. I have a good sex drive. If I’m alone, I masturbate four or five times a day. Even when I do have sex, I still masturbate during the day.

Q: Are you a sex addict?

No, because I don’t spend my life looking for sex. I’m more of a slave to my urges. I’m an extremely horny person and when I’m horny, I go jerk off. I wont spend hours pursuing someone to have sex with me. If a hot guy walked in front of me and pulled his dick out, I’m not going to say no. But if I came on to him and he rejected me, I wouldn’t pursue it.

Q: Do you still watch porn, even though you know what goes on behind the scenes?

Oh yeah. It’s still two people having sex, isn’t it?

Q: What was it like working for almost every major porn studio?

Having your face seen everywhere has its pros and cons. It means I can reach a much wider audience. But it puts a lot of studios off who want their models exclusively. So when my career started slowing down, I signed a contract with Next Door Studios and worked only for them.

Q: How many men have you had sex with?

On camera, between 300 and 350. And off camera, about 70. Sometimes I’ve hooked up with my screen partners before or after the shoot. That’s not allowed and the studios would’ve been furious if they’d found out. They want you to save it all for the film.

Q: What percentage of your films was bareback?

0.1% or about three scenes in my entire career.

Q: What about off-screen?

About 99.9 per cent.

Q: Why?

I don’t like condoms so I don’t use them. I understood the risk of not using them but I probably didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. But I didn’t prepare to have sex with the people I hooked up with. I’d never go out with condoms ‘just in case’ I got laid. I’d get caught up in the moment – I’d meet a guy, have an attraction and then have sex.

Q: When were you diagnosed as HIV+?

It was May 2010 during a routine test that I discovered it.

Q: What was your reaction?

I was a little depressed – who wouldn’t be to discover they had an incurable disease? But it’s a disease you can’t blame anybody else but yourself for getting.

Q: So with the lifestyle you were living, was it inevitable you would eventually contract it?

Being a gay man, and one who has bareback sex on a regular basis, yes. Unless you and your partner are both tested on the same day, then stay together for the next six months before you hook up, that’s the only way you can be sure you are both HIV negative.

Q: Do you know whom you might have got it from?

Not entirely, but I do have a slight idea. Around that time when my sleeping around was trending upwards, there were 15 people I had unprotected sex with. The two I continued to sleep with after I was diagnosed were positive as well. The other 13 I don’t talk to.

Q: How did it come out publically you had HIV?

It was my old flatmate of mine who Tweeted it. I don’t like the person that did it and I don’t condone what he did. It was very wrong, as it was a very private matter. It wasn’t like his Twitter had a huge audience, but when he Tweeted it, someone who has a much bigger audience picked it up and put it on his website. Then it exploded.

Q: How did that make you feel?

I wasn’t ready for people to know. I was pretty angry at the time but it forced me to go public and open up about it. In the long run, it was a blessing in disguise.

Why? Because I didn’t have to tell anyone I hooked up with of my status because they already knew. And people told me they were proud I had opened up about it, which was great.

Q: What was the immediate fall-out of your diagnosis?

I lost my contract with Next Door Studios, which I had exclusivity with, and that was really depressing. It pretty much ended my career in terms of it killed off my only lifeline to the porn industry. Had it not been known that I had HIV, my career wouldn’t have come to such a quick halt. I would still be shooting scenes.

Q: Do you know other HIV+ porn actors?

Yes. Other people are out about it in the porn world, they just haven’t chosen to go public about it. Because of who the character of Mason Wyler is… because he has been so outrageous and crazy and crossed the line many times in what he’s said and done … it means anything traumatic that happens in my life gets written about or blogged about within the gay porn industry.

Q: How does that make you feel?

To an extent, I am very flattered that things which have happened in my life be seen as important enough for a decent amount of people to want to read about them. Even the bad things. But that’s the business side of me, and porn is part of the entertainment business. If I’m not grabbing and keeping people’s attention and interest in me, I’m not doing that great of a job. Porn is there to get people off. And as a performer it’s my job to play the game – you need to differentiate yourself from everyone else. I chose to put out my crazy, sex-hungry side and with that comes repercussions of losing my career.

Q: Does the gay porn business care if their actors are HIV+?

There’s a good amount of studios that work with HIV+ people. I don’t think they’d be willing to work a lot with someone who’s status is very well known. But there is a good amount that are willing to work with HIV+ actors as long as they aren’t promoting it, like I did. As long as the studio thinks that viewers don’t know, they’re fine with that. But I’m not that person – I’m the one with the status plastered over every major gay website there is.

Q: Is there any demand for your work now?

I recently did a scene for Falcon studios which was nice. But I’m not under any illusions. I don’t think one scene means my career is back after six months of doing nothing. I’m realistic.

Q: Since your diagnosis, do you use condoms?

No. But I only hook up with people who are HIV+ too. There are some doctors who say that’s dangerous because of different strains of HIV, but there are others that don’t agree. There are more risks of getting other diseases like hepatitis or other STIs. I’m turned off if someone is HIV negative. I associate them with using condoms and as horrible as that sounds, I still don’t like using them if I’m the bottom – which 99 per cent of the time, I am. In my mind and my body I can tell the difference between condoms and bareback.

Q: Looking back over the last six years, what would you change if you could?

If I could go back I wouldn’t have slept around so much. I’d have probably used protection too. But it’s easy to say I wouldn’t have done this or that – but it’s hard to control your urges.