Portrait : 40 Years in Porn

Meet Bernie Cohen a.k.a. David Christopher. Pussyman! Attention deficit disordered storyteller, marijuana enthusiast, conspiracy theorist, pop culture savant, unabashed exhibitionist, lifelong missionary for the power of female sexuality! Actor, writer, director, and producer of adult films. This book is part family history, part cultural history of the late American century, part porn industry tell-all, part stoner comedy.

David was born in 1950 in a middle-class Jewish suburb south of Boston. Eschewing his filial destiny to become a meatman, he fled to New York City at first chance. He went to college in 1969, came of age in the era of free love, and has been in porn since 1975. His first scene was in the fourth movie by the director of Deep Throat. In the '80s, he was part of the iconic S&M Avon Theater scene (with his live-in dominatrix girlfriend, Candice). Later, he ran the last big production company in New York - Coast to Coast - before the industry relocated to Los Angeles. In the early '90s, he won Film of the Year for the first installment in his career-defining series, Pussyman. Three marriages later, we find him in Encino, California living in a small house with his beloved Lola (half-Lab, half-Rottweiler). His career downturned when his entire oeuvre was uploaded to Internet tube sites and made available for free.

Alternately ridiculous, complex, surprising, hilarious, he is, let's say, a character. Here's his portrait.