When I was first approached to write a porn screenplay, I thought it would be easy. I thought I could probably crank out a finished script in less than an hour, with time to spare for a snack and a short nap. But I wasn't willing to make it so easy on myself. If I was going to write trash, I wanted it to be intelligent trash.

I wasn't foolish enough to believe that I could create a porno with any degree of artistic significance. I wasn't going to buy the cliché that had plagued the porno industry long before I'd entered the game. Films like "Behind the Green Door" notwithstanding, porn has rarely succeeded in rising above its filthy roots. There are already enough reasons to laugh at porn, but when it aspires to something more than its assigned cultural niche, it only confirms the belief that art should be left to the artists.

But what if I could find a way to bring porno into the mainstream through the back door (no pun intended)? What if I wrote a script that was so funny, so original, so utterly campy that no amount of bad acting or poor production values could ruin it?

I had a vision. At first, a few observant viewers would notice the change. They'd begin paying attention to the plot without a thumb hovering over the fast-forward button. Eventually, they would invite their friends for late-night screenings, and together they'd howl over their favorite lines. Before long, midnight shows of my porno would become the latest rage among young urban hipsters, and fans would show up dressed as their favorite character. It would evolve into an international craze, and soon even the critics would come around, admitting that my porno, though by no means culturally relevant, at least qualified as a fairly decent guilty pleasure.

It was the difference between being Ed Wood and John Waters. If porn was destined to be a joke, I wanted to be in on it. I began calling friends I hadn't spoken to in years to announce my porn ambitions. I expected them to be horrified, but they were surprisingly supportive, even encouraging. More than a few of my writer friends admitted that they had dabbled in porn from time to time, if only to pay the bills while they waited for more substantial work to come along. I suspected I was involved in something far more universal than I'd originally believed. By agreeing to write porn, I had begun a modern rite of passage among aspiring scribes.

I finished my script in less than a week and mailed it to one of the top porn studios in L.A. In a matter of days, I received a phone call from a director/actor named Brandon.

"It was brilliant," he said. "Funny, funny stuff."

"Wow," I said, struggling not to appear unnerved by his kind words. "Thank you. I --"

"Of course, funny doesn't matter," he said, a trace of giddy malice in his voice. "This is porn, right? Who watches porn for the dialogue? Am I right or what?"

He broke into crunchy laughter, and I joined him, despite the fact that I was pretty sure he was insulting me personally.

"But seriously, I loved it. I get a lot of crap scripts on my desk, but you managed to write something very special. It moved me, it really did."

I felt oddly gratified by his flattery. Sincere or not, he was hitting all the right buttons. True, I firmly believed that I'd written something better than average. But moving? I couldn't tell if he was just yanking my chain, or if I actually had an innate talent for crafting plots that managed to be both erotic and emotionally revealing.

"That was the easy part," Brandon went on. "Now you have to watch your beloved words get butchered by a bunch of high-school dropouts who wouldn't know a nice piece of prose if it up and bit them on the ass."

"Well, I --"

"I just want to prepare you, sport. I know how difficult this process can be. You think the actors are going to bring your vision to life, but then they rip out your heart and spit it back in your face."

I could only whimper in response.

"I mean, I love them and everything. Don't get me wrong. They're my people. Without them I'm nothing. But come on, we all know that they're just shaved apes. You can't expect a miracle of evolution to happen overnight. You see what I'm saying?"

I didn't, but there was no point in telling him that. I had to give this guy credit. His ability to build up a writer's ego and then bring it crashing down in a matter of seconds was simply awe-inspiring. I wasn't sure anymore if I was a genius with the potential to revolutionize an unfairly maligned industry, or just another cog in the oily, malfunctioning machine of porn. If my conflicting emotions were at all transparent, Brandon showed no sign of detecting them.

"There's a lot of excitement around here about your script," he said. "We're putting this project on the fast track."

"That's great."

"I just have to call the actors and crew. I'm guessing we'll be ready by Tuesday."

"Tuesday to start production?"

"No," he said. "Tuesday to shoot it."

"The whole thing?"

"Well, yeah." There was a brief moment of tense silence, and then Brandon began to laugh again. "You're serious, aren't you? I'm sorry, I forgot you were a newbie. Listen, why don't you come down to the set next Tuesday?"

"Uh ..."

"It'll give us a chance to meet face-to-face. And you can watch all the action up close and personal."

"Actually, I'm not sure if --"

"Fantastic! I'll see you then," he said, before abruptly hanging up the phone.

At least a part of me was elated. It felt like I had been accepted by Hollywood, or at least Hollywood's retarded half-sister who lived down in the basement. Sure, I was involved in an industry whose films were outlawed in most of Middle America, and even considered a felony in states like Utah and Florida, but this seemed like an irrelevant detail. I had moved to L.A. to become a paid screenwriter, and I could finally count myself among their ranks.

At the same time, I was anxious about what I would soon be witnessing. After all, I wouldn't just be watching actors speak my words. I would also be watching sex. Actual flesh and blood humans, engaging in carnal hydraulics right in front of me. I could easily justify writing for these smut fiends if I could keep a safe distance from their world. But visiting the set would be crossing a line. I would be right inside the belly of the beast, where the distinction between porn professional and casual participant wasn't quite so clear anymore.

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