Porn stars in love: “Off The Set” with Paulie and Pauline

Jesse Jane, who is both adorable and super-sweet.

In yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle column, I was excited to feature and interview NYC-based, erotic photographic couple Paulie and Pauline about their upcoming book “Off The Set“. It’s such a cool book, and it features a diverse group of porn performers showing us what it looks like when they have sex for love, not for work. Hot. It’s nice to see mainstream porn performers smiling so much, and while Madison Young and Lorelei Lee are always smiling, I can never get enough of that. Here’s a snip from Porn Stars in Love:

The first thing people notice when looking at excerpts from “Off The Set: Porn Stars and Their Partners,” a forthcoming book (publishing in April) of erotic photos and essays, is porn stars doing something seldom seen when porn stars have sex. They’re smiling.

Not all the photos in “Off The Set” depict sex, in fact many do not. Paulie and Pauline (paulieandpauline.com) are the dynamic photographic duo behind the book who’ve spent a lot of time around the mainstream and not-so-mainstream porn businesses throughout the last decade, shooting luminaries and aspiring luminaries alike. Their work has been published both in print and online (such as Nerve.com), appeared in several group exhibitions, and are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Sex in New York City and the Kinsey Institute for Human Sexuality.

In “Off the Set,” the photographers spend time with some of the most famous names in the porn business and performers of all genders and sexual orientations — when they’re not on set, that is. The stars are shown with their lovers and true loves, in their homes, in bed, fully dressed out on romantic dates, at the corner cafe, wherever Paulie and Pauline saw a moment between real-life lovers that came from the heart. And in the resulting photos, these moments are tangible.

Controversial, revered and well-known erotic photographer Barbara Nitke (link NSFW; “Kiss of Fire”, Kehrer Verlag, 2003) describes “Off the Set” as “a playful, insider’s view of [these] stars in a way they are never seen. Paulie & Pauline have given us a glimpse into the everyday, shockingly normal sex lives of these hardcore stars who look like they could be your next door neighbors.” (…read more, sfgate.com)

* This is the first time sfgate has run a gallery without complete photo attribution. Though I’m happy to see Buck Angel accepted in the selections I gave them.