Sir Richard Wadd (John Healy) shows off Tristan (Michael Facciolo) to his audience at the world premiere of Sir Richard Wadd, Pornographer

Porn, we oft hear trumped (or lamented) from all points of the moral compass, is everywhere. And regardless of whether you despise or adore it, chances are you find it difficult to avoid, no matter how daintily you click along through the shadowy forest of the Internet.

Personally, I’m of two minds about porn. On the one hand (usually my right, but occasionally, just for a change, the left), I have no trouble admitting that, like most males with access to a private computer, I’ve indulged in my fair share of looking. And I generally manage to achieve the intended biological response that such images are expected to elicit from me.

But here’s the rub: In the 10+ years I’ve been accessing the Internet’s offerings of naked men doing their thing, I’ve begun to grow a little weary of the pornographic tug. Because from an intellectual standpoint, I’ve come to associate porn with a pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction. In fact, I’ve arrived at a peculiar mental state that I’m going to call “post-pornographic” ­ a presence of mind whereby naked men doing their business before a camera lens can only get me so far ­ especially as I’ve begun to recognize in myself a certain ennui at the ritual of hardening and hunting, ogling and oozing, wiping up the mess and then sheepishly checking my e-mail in a feeble attempt to convince myself that I was actually being productive.

A few years ago, while working on the writing staff of a certain notoriously gay television show, I was searching for a personal writing project that could help me explore some of the frustrations I was feeling with regard to the power of web-based pornographic images. At the same time, I was keenly aware of (and derived much of my livelihood from) the potency of the written word as a means of erotic storytelling. As my mind galloped like a messenger back and forth across the border of these two warring kingdoms ­ the first defended by a vast and growing militia of disposable naked youths, the other by a small but brawny equestrian class of artfully arranged words ­ I wondered if there was a way to unite the two through some grandly dynastic marriage of royals: Johan Paulik meets William Shakespeare. What would their unified kingdom look like? And, far more provocatively, how much would the tabloids pay for the rights to publish pictures of their baby? Hmmmm…

Challenged and intrigued by this strange and audacious possibility, I set upon a quest to unite porn and poetry together in a way that had never before been seen ­ or read. And lo, within a year I had developed a self-contained little world filled with the irreverently erudite flourishes of a Falstaffian cyber-sex operator named Sir Richard Wadd.

In homage to the Bard, my initial foray into the character was a one-act stage play entitled Sir Richard Wadd, Pornographer. In it, the ebullient showman paraded a pair of dashing models ­ Tristan and Troy ­ before the webcams that were placed strategically throughout his living-room studio. Together, the three of them romped happily about the stage and, with the help of Sir Richard’s very lofty brand of “iambic porntameter,” self-aggrandized to their audience about their fantastically literary sexploits.

When the play premiered at the Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival in June 2005, I nervously sat in the audience of all seven performances. With each iteration, I watched my very own creation ­ the character of Sir Richard Wadd, played by actor John Healy ­ reminding the entire auditorium (as well as the vast ranks of his imaginary Members who were logging on from home) that his website, SirRichardWadd.com, was “a marvelous device”; that his distinctive brand of pornographic poetry was unequalled anywhere on the Internet; that he was creating something new and exciting and challenging and special for all those people (namely, me) who had grown weary of the same-old glossy photos that somehow all looked the same. Not surprisingly, the very propaganda that I had put into Sir Richard’s mouth started to have an effect on me, and I began to wonder what his versified porn-site might look like, if it actually existed.

So I built one for him.

Today, the very real SirRichardWadd.com is putting down roots in a small but self-assured corner of the web. It’s a place where I (either as myself or in the costume of my alter ego) invite my visitors to explore the many facets of Sir Richard Wadd’s universe ­ be it the plays (aye, ‘tis now a trilogy) or the free porn (yes, there’s a modest but growing collection of Sir Richard’s pictorially enhanced poetry). In addition, I’ve also tried to create a space where surfers can begin to think critically about the entire cyber-porn experience ­ be it in good times or bad.

Naturally, friends and colleagues have been curious (and worried) about what I’m up to. After all, I’m supposedly a “respectable” writer: someone who theoretically earns his living from the creation of (relatively) mainstream entertainment. To both appease and provoke them, I’ve discussed ad nauseam the theory and intent of Sir Richard, and together we’ve spent many hours speculating about the site’s ability to find an audience in light of Sir Richard’s uphill battle. Why uphill? Because the “blow-and-go” porn hunters (and that’s about 99% of them) probably haven’t got the patience to actually read through the densely composed verse, while the literate and upscale theatre/academic crowd probably wouldn’t be caught dead talking about (much less looking at) something as pedestrian as porn. So Sir Richard is in danger of being caught in a kind of cyber-spacial no-man’s-land; a niche that, paradoxically, can’t be easily defined.

Personally, I’m not quite sure what to do about that. But I’m not too worried about it either. SirRichardWadd.com was never intended to generate scads of money. It was conceived as a way to satisfy an intellectual hunger and, at the same time, cure a bout of pornographic indigestion. It was created to expand what was once confined to the stage and turn it into an enriching experience beyond a single night’s performance. And even though I’ve built it, I’m still not convinced that anyone will (*cough*) cum.

But one thing is certain: I’m having a great deal of fun. SirRichardWadd.com is challenging me to look at gay porn in a whole new way; to find the stories and the characters that exist deep within it; to go beyond the mindless looking to a point where I can meet and converse with those models who once appeared so lifelessly on my screen. It’s a strange and ongoing experiment in which I’m attempting to interrogate and respond to the Internet’s pornographic beast. Whether or not that beast can ever be tamed remains, alas, to be seen…

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This article was published in the January 2007 issue of BoysBlock Online Gay Men's Magazine