Company lures potential porn stars

The sign on the glass door reads "Admittance by invitation only." Steve Houk, 21, pushes it open partway, then walks in and introduces himself.

"I'm a little nervous," he tells Justin Clouse, owner of Bait & Tackle. "But I'm not scared."

Bait & Tackle is the company whose 19 billboards along Interstate 15 (from Valley of Fire State Park to Sloan) solicit budding porn stars. Houk noticed the one near the Blue Diamond Road exit, which asks readers to "show us your package." It depicts a naked man holding a parcel over his privates.

"It made me laugh," Houk says. "Plus, I always thought I wanted to give this environment a shot -- beautiful girls and the lifestyle.

"I'm born and raised in Vegas, so I guess it's kind of natural, right?"

Houk is about to strip to his skivvies and masturbate for a video destined for one or more of 10 Bait & Tackle adult Web sites. There will be no beautiful girls in the room, only three tripod-mounted Sony HDV cameras: one for the whole body, one for nipple to knee, and the other focused on his package. Houk will get $500 for his "audition tape," $250 if he fails to reach orgasm. All this was previously explained to him during a phone interview that followed his e-mail photo application. (Clouse must approve all applicants.)

"As long as I don't cross the line into doing anything with guys," Houk says while checking Clouse for a reaction, "I'm fine with it."

The Metropolitan Police Department is fine with it, too. According to a statement from public information officer Barbara Morgan, "it is not illegal to call a company and volunteer to appear in a video that involves adults and sex."

Houk enters the aqua-painted solo audition room. He plops down on a couch draped with a blue Target cotton sheet, 200 thread count, which will be discarded after the taping. "Do you burn that or what?" Houk will later ask.

He is told to read on-camera statements indicating that he is not drunk or high, and that he's aware that he's appearing in a pornographic video.

"It keeps the lawyers happy," Clouse explains. (Earlier, Houk had to produce a driver's license proving that he's older than 18, which Clouse scanned with a bar-code reader.)

Like a quarter of the company's male applicants since the economy soured, Houk used to make his living as a construction worker. And his unemployment insurance is about to run out.

"There's none of that work left," he says.

The Bait & Tackle phone rings about 200 times a day, resulting in about 20 new auditions. As the economy flings more people onto the skids, the calls have increased.

"Especially before Christmas," Clouse says. "We were swamped from people who needed $500 to buy presents."

Nine of 10 callers are men.

"Girls can be strippers and make thousands a night with no video trail," he explains. (Women are invited to the studio as soon as they're approved; the backlog of men is more than 100.)

Back at the taping, Clouse provides last-minute instructions before flicking on a video with various heterosexual porn snippets, which Houk can watch as an aid.

Don't lean back, Clouse says, because it looks like you have a gut. Don't act like it's the best orgasm you've ever had, but don't act bored either.

And if you don't get excited right away? Don't stress out, he says: "That's a one-way ticket to not getting aroused."

Eight years ago, Clouse started the company that became Bait & Tackle in San Diego. He had just graduated from the University of Southern California with no career goals and a gay porn habit.

"I just got tired of what was out there, and I said we're gonna do this better," he recalls. "Let's use nice cameras, get good-looking people, and help bring porn out of the closet."

He says about 5,000 people -- most assumed to be gay men -- pay $15 to $30 a month to subscribe to his Web sites. (He refuses to identify the sites because he thinks the names might scare off potential models.)

Bait & Tackle revenues exceed $1 million per year, he says, but "we're getting hurt like everybody else."

Clouse stops a second, then adds: "Probably not as bad."

Two years ago, he opened this office in a strip mall behind the Deja Vu Adult Emporium at Tropicana Avenue and Arville Street, a district that stands out for its sleaze in a city with an international reputation for it. Then the billboards went up, most facing traffic that exits the city.

"They cost less that way," Clouse says.

Police report no complaints about the billboards. But community activist and middle school teacher Heidi Wixom thinks their messages belong in the back pages of alternative newspapers, not along the valley's main thoroughfare.

"This type of involvement doesn't perpetuate the good of society at all," she says. "And I think it's sad that people fall to those levels for entertainment or ways of earning money."

Heidi Harris, a conservative commentator for KDWN-AM, 720, agrees: "This is what you're going to tell St. Peter that you did with your life? I paid people to do this?"

Houk -- who dropped out of Palo Verde High School in 2004 and later earned his GED -- says he's not concerned about the consequences of the video he's about to shoot:

"I have no cares. I really don't talk to my parents much. They both burned their bridges with me." His friends "would probably love it more than anything."

And future employers?

"I want to be a porn star," Houk says.

But Craig Gross, founder of XXXchurch.com, a Las Vegas Web site offering Christian-rooted counseling to porn addicts, says Houk's thinking is short-sighted.

"When you decide to leave, or you decide to get married, these things will not come off the Internet," he says. "They will always go with you."

According to Clouse, the videos remain on his sites "indefinitely."

"Someone will see this," Gross says, "and, long after that money is spent, he's gonna have a lot of explaining to do."

Back at the taping, Clouse wishes Houk luck, tells him where the lubricant is located, and exits. But the privacy is only simulated. For the next 17 minutes, Clouse will watch a security camera feed, off and on, from an office next door, where his four employees are busy editing other videos. One computer displays two men hugging in a bathtub.

"They're straight," Clouse explains. "Really. That's what we pay the big money for."

Almost every male applicant wants to star in the guy-girl scenes that Clouse's billboards suggest. But Bait & Tackle pays no more than $500 for those.

Ask most straight men their price to engage in guy-guy behavior, and most will say a million dollars. But $4,000 entices enough takers for Clouse, who can afford to pay more for these sessions because he charges more to view them on some of his Web sites. (The pay is $1,000 if the man agrees just to be masturbated -- or "tugged" as one billboard calls it -- by another man.)

Clouse glances at the security monitor.

"Oops, he's done," he says.

He enters the studio, tossing Houk a towel.

"Hey, hey, porn star," he announces, "you did great."

Clouse checks that the door is open behind him. (He doesn't want models touching doorknobs before they wash their hands.)

Houk seems ambivalent about the experience.

"It's was definitely something different," he says before cleaning up, getting dressed and claiming his pay.

Clouse promises to call in a couple of weeks. If he and his employees like Houk's work, it could lead to an exclusive contract. His chances, however, will be better if he caved into the same-sex scenes.

Houk remains adamant against crossing that line, calling it "very straight, not even dotted."

Clouse has seen stranger things happen: "Once you work here, you realize that it doesn't take that much for people to go outside their comfort zone and do whatever."

Contact reporter Corey Levitan at clevitan@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0456.