Where Are They Now: Will Tantra Talks Becoming a Porn Daddy

There are porn stars who come and go; some stay for a while, some leave and return; then there is a select group who leave and return as completely different performers and professionals. One such performer is Will Tantra (also known as Skip Piston and Nick Forte at different points in his career). Will first started at Colt Studios in the late 1980s. Over the years, he went from just a print model to an active performer to now being an OnlyFans star, as well as a sex teacher and trainer who helps gay men learn how to fuck and get fucked like all the best sex professionals. He joined us for an interview to recount his lengthy journey and the business and even give us a few pointers.

Could you tell us about your journey from first joining the industry to becoming famous?

I was pre-med in college and my first career was in medical equipment sales. Suit and tie, company car, the whole thing. I was newly out and just discovering the gay world in Los Angeles. I'm 56 now, so this was the mid-nineties. I started go-go dancing on the weekends and then traveling around the country working circuit parties. On one trip, a fellow dancer introduced me to the infamous Gaiety Strip Club in Times Square. Guys would dance naked onstage for a theater audience while working the stage and stroking their cocks. Then after the show, we had the opportunity to meet men in the lobby who would proposition us for a private "show" back at our hotel rooms. Besides some muscle posing, I had never done sex work, but this situation really excited and intrigued me—I had to try it! It was awesome. I fucking loved the sessions with customers and it felt so natural. Several times at clubs, I was approached to do naked photoshoots and porn. I said no for several years because of fears of what other people would think about it. The invitation to work for COLT was what helped me get over it and after that, I worked for most of the major studios. Nude shoots and porn have been fun side jobs for me over the past 28 years. Only in the past few years though has it become my full-time work. During the pandemic, I took a career pivot from doing massage therapy to creating practical sex and Tantra education videos. Basically, I'm teaching sex education through porn. It has grown to become my full-time work and I'm more passionate than ever about erotic videos and having a blast creating my own.

You were at Colt Studios in the 1990s, when that studio was one of the top producers of gay erotica. What was it like working at that studio at that time?

Jim French, the creator and photographer for COLT, asked for my number one night while I was dancing at the Rage Bar in West Hollywood. He had me mail him some of my pictures (there wasn't email then...haha) and he invited me to his Hollywood Hills home for an interview. I was only 28, easily starstruck and SO nervous. He was very friendly, and polite. He showed me his beautiful home and work studio, then asked me to take off all of my clothes. He had me move and pose and walk around a bit as he took test shots. I remember feeling awkward and trying my best to look cool. It was chilly that day and my dick was trying to hide and I kept pulling it down to stretch it. That was it, no crazy casting couch story, but a few days later I was thrilled to get a call to set up our first shoot. We drove to a beautiful house in Santa Barbara where we shot for two days. This was before digital cameras and real film were used. Film is expensive and every shot had to be set up perfectly. Also, there was no Photoshop back then and very little could be done to a photograph once it was printed. These days photographers will easily shoot 500 images in a 1-2 hour shoot. Jim probably shot 50 or 60 in three hours. He had an assistant who did makeup and was an excellent fluffer (haha). It was hard to stay hard for that long and this guy's talented mouth is responsible for many of the early COLT boners. We shot two more times and Jim was equally kind and professional and his assistant was equally naughty.

The 1990s, when you were a big star, is often looked back on as "The Golden Age" of gay porn. Do you agree? What do you think made that period so special? 

The porn industry was completely different back then. There were very few studios, porn was way more expensive to create and it was much more controversial and socially risky to be involved in the industry. There were also very few guys doing porn and we all knew who they were and which studios they worked for. Porn was on VHS tapes and you had to go to the local adult store (if you were lucky to have one) and either buy or rent them. The choices were narrow, but we were happy to have them and you would watch the same scene over and over again. While now folks look back on the '90s as The Golden Age, as a performer there was A LOT of stigma and judgment around sex work within the gay community and even more so with the general public. It wasn't as easy as it is now to express your sexual self so freely. Everyone now has the ability to create their own porn and most people have at least shot some naked pics and jack-off vids that they share with buddies and hookups. It's so mainstream and normalized to have nude videos of ourselves and there is so much content out there that it feels more like The Golden Age of porn for me now.

Who were some of your contemporaries that you worked with? How was it working with them?

Most of the work I did in the '90s was for magazines, calendars, greeting cards, and jack-off videos. It wasn't until the 2000s that I started working with scene partners. While being a Daddy now is a passion of mine, back then I was definitely a boy. I bottomed more than I topped and loved doing scenes with Daddy types. Some of my favorites were Paul Barbaro, Tony Vega, and David Teal from Pantheon, as well as Tony Buff from Titan and Nick Moretti from Kink.com. The studio shoots are usually hot and fun, always interesting, but long, long days. I feel fortunate to have been matched with great guys who made the hard work easier.

What was your favorite scene and why?

My favorite early scenes were with Treasure Island Media. I did a series of cocksucking videos with them that I still jack off thinking about. They would shoot the scene from a few different angles and they liked to get a lot of footage to work with in editing. Good long suck sessions... I got to suck some of the most beautiful cocks I had ever seen and the videographers were adamant that every drop be licked up, even off the floor. Fucking loved it! The studio was right by my gym and the shoots ran quickly so it was great to swallow a big load and head right to my workout.