Sure, for some a past stint in porn might be a career-wrecker. Not so for David Mech, who in a past life strutted his stuff on camera as Dave Pounder.
Earlier this month, the Boca Raton math tutor's porn history was revealed after Palm Beach School District pulled the ads he had around schools for his business. But he's not hiding from his time in the trenches of adult entertainment, and he isn't just some blockheaded woodman. In fact, Mech will soon publish a book on the business, not some trashy tell-all, but the PhD's guide to porn.
Mech's entry into the business was simple enough. After breaking up with his girlfriend of six years he sowed some wild oats while earning a master's degree in information management at Arizona State University. Friends dragged him to swingers' clubs, and soon he was introduced to the porn business in 2003. But the adult world didn't turn out to be the flesh-free-for-all he thought he was diving into.
"I thought, 'I'm getting into the business because I want to meet girls that are like me, that just want to have fun with no commitment,'" he says. "But those girls don't exist, even in the business." Instead, he saw the same male-female song and dance playing out backstage in porn as in the straight world: guys wanted to run around with a lot of partners, girls wanted to lock down a single provider.
"I started reading a lot on human mating, evolutionary psychology, and then cultural anthropology, and then taking the theory and apply the practice to what I learned through working in the business over a decade," he says, waxing brainiac.
Pounder left the business in 2010, but his impressions from the scene didn't go to waste. This summer he's publishing his book -- Obscene Thoughts -- under his old nom de porn, Dave Pounder. The text takes an academic look at "the evolutionary psychology of sex, love and dating," Mech says. "It basically explains why men and women behave the way they do in relationships."
As for Mech's sideline as a high school math tutor, he tells New Times his past life hasn't hurt business. Mech figures his openness can help the mainstream get over their hang-ups with the industry.
"People have an ignorance of the business," he says. "I figure the more I'm on TV, the more I'm on the news, the more I can articulate myself as a non-threatening person."
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