For many adult performers, they are only looked at for their performances on screen, and we rarely get to see the person behind the performer.

 

That is all changing with the new WOW Presents Plus series “Click Boys.” The 5-part docu-series follows LGBT adult content creators who make their income through the internet subscription service OnlyFans. From Matthew Camp discussing empowerment through sexual liberation to Brock Banks describing his work off-screen as a drag queen, we get to see a different side of some of our favorite performers. I caught up with Lance Charger to talk about his own OnlyFans experience, his departure from the industry, and his ongoing mission to be the “America’s Sweetheart of Porn”.

 

 

Lance Charger: I worked really, really, really hard during the two years that I was Lance Charger and one of the most important pieces of that was communicating with fans and building those relationships. Relationships with the guys that I worked with, the directors and the producers and really feeling like I am part of that community. My decision to leave was extremely abrupt. I was at the dentist and I thought to myself “well If I’m going to do it, I better do it today”. I ran home, built the entire retirement campaign, and sent it out within two hours. This opportunity to tell everyone how much I appreciate them, say thank you, and explain who I was, why I left and who I was prior, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. To have some closure and be able to reconnect with everybody again and let them know what happened; it was important.

 

 

LC: That’s a really good question. I think they are two sides of the same coin. I think the hardest part for me were my body dysmorphia and my fears about not being enough, not being masculine enough, virile enough and all of the things that I’ve felt my whole life that I have never been able to shake. And how this business really gently guided me through that and I came out of those two years on the exact opposite of that; I feel the opposite of that now. I am much more gentler on myself, I feel much more secure on how I look and who I am. I don’t work out as much, I don’t eat the way that I used to, I work seventy hours a week and am definitely more of a corporate guy these days. I give myself a lot more allowances than I used to on how I look and my appearance. That was it, it was a double edged sword for me. I remember, I had a therapist that said to me as I was going into porn “I am here if you need me, this is either going to help your through this or this is going to take you down”. It was all that I’ve talked about for twenty years. There is the quote that they pulled from the trailer where I said “Lance did for me what $10,000 and twenty years of therapy couldn’t”. I think it’s more like twenty thousand dollars and twenty years of therapy, but it really did. I would wake up some days and look in the mirror and cry. I would just say “I can’t do it, I have to call in sick today, I can’t go to work today”. I would shake it off, look at my lines again, and show up as a professional and do my job. A couple months later, I am flipping through my Twitter feed and I see something, a guy that I think is hot or a hot sex scene and I look … and it’s me. On that day. It was like “okay, you need to calm down Lance … You’re fine, you’re okay”. I don’t really watch my own content so the only time I really saw myself was when I would be flipping through and things would pop up in front of me. Even on my OnlyFans content, I had a producer who shot, edited and produced everything, did all the trailers, and I almost never watched any of it.

 

 

LC: It’s funny, my first job out of college I worked with three very big-name actresses, I luckily fell into this incredible job. One of them, a huge name, refused to watch herself. I would take her to a premiere, walk her down the red carpet, and she would leave out the back. She would not go in an watch the film. She would say “I can’t do it, I can’t look at myself. I get in my head and I can’t bring the character to life the way the way that I want to. I am too busy thinking about how it is going to look, rather than just embodying the character”.

 

 

LC: Because for me, Lance was another product. The only reason that was able to take off my clothes on camera was because it was Lance. In my personal life, I was always the guy who cancelled at the last minute, didn’t want to go out. I felt too ugly, I wasn’t muscle-y enough, I wasn’t hot enough, I would rather be home watching tv than put myself out there. At work though, I was always so resourceful, so ambitious, so gregarious, so putting everything together, helping everyone and doing everyone’s jobs. I’ve even told girlfriends over the years “don’t invite me to your wedding unless you want a day-of coordinator” because if I don’t have a task, I can’t just sit around. They loved it, they would be like “hold my dress, make sure the guests do this”. This is an AA term, but I just feel better when I am of-service or when I am being useful. To have the marketing and the PR and the work piece driving behind Lance, that is how I got to show up and be my best and do my best and not get caught up in the heady stuff. It was work for me so the trappings of doing drugs and going out to parties … once Lance is off the clock and the guys want to go to a party, sex club, or overnight, I’m Mike then and I’m like “I can’t do that”. I think that is what helped me with the balance and to not get caught up in a lot.

 

 

LC: I have some people from the business that I don’t talk to as much as I would like to. Pulling seventy hour weeks at work is challenging and I require a lot of downtime. There are four or five key people from the business who I love and I talk to them as much as I can and message and FaceTime with them. I even wish I had more time to talk to more of the guys that I really liked and connected with. I just get so work focused, I am like a horse with blinders that sometimes friendships and relationships end up being sacrificed.

 

 

LC: I think when I decided to walk away, I walked away. I tried the directing thing. During my two years, I produced, directed and wrote and entire series of five films called Daddy Fantasies. My videographer shot everything and co-directed with me and I had a business partner, another model, and we did it all together, we funded it and everything. I had an actor in the business who got upset with me because I didn’t want to film with them. They slandered my name and reported me to Twitter. Right as I got one hundred thousand followers, I got banned from Twitter and that was right when Daddy Fantasies was being released. I built an entire press kit, sent it out to every single member of the press with clips, trailers, images, stills and I wrote all of the copy, but I only had ten followers when it launched so no one every got to really see it and it never really took off. One of the things that I didn’t like about porn was my career and livelihood being dependent on social media because it is such a volatile medium and people can be really cruel. I had very big ambitions, I thought about opening my own studio. I started looking at this as a long term career at that moment, but when the Twitter thing happened it sort of jolted me back into reality and I focused on performing and when this job opportunity came up, I jumped at it; this is my sweet spot.

 

 

LC: I want them to understand that for me, for a lot of guys it is, but for me this was never about showing up and fucking random people all the time and having sex. From learning the lines to creating characters, to the spreadsheets to the business and tracking of money, making the right decisions and filming content, there is a business here; and you can be really successful at it. I wanted people to see a different side of what a porn actor is rather than someone who just shows up and fucks on camera. I tried to do that in the very beginning when I first launched my OnlyFans. I did a whole promotion on my OnlyFans about having a free subscription, doing an OnlyFans live, you could log in and ask Lance Charger questions and get to know Lance Charger. One guy showed up without any questions and just said “take off your fuckin’ pants man”. It was then I realized that I think I wanted to be the “America’s Sweetheart of Porn”. That reminded me that people are looking at porn because they want to watch people fuck. It was hard for me to reconcile, but it happened very early on. I was trying to fuse the rest of my career with this career and it was a very different undertaking, so I am glad that I learned that lesson early on. Now I have the opportunity to do that, now people are interested in who Lance is. I am loving to be able to show the duality between Mike and Lance.

 

 

LC: Honestly, here is the thing about me; I don’t really suffer from that affliction because I’m not much of a dater. My idea of the perfect date is to take somebody home; it works out great for me. For me, the sex always comes first. A lot happens for me emotionally and from a connective level, I actually do love being with someone and holding their face in my hands and saying “I love you” and then two hours later being like “bye bye”. I never had throngs of people running up to me and saying “Oh my God you’re Lance Charger”. I could see people looking but I think people tended to stay in the recesses and not really come forward, it didn’t actually didn’t happen to me that often.