Welcome to Now Loading, a column about sex by award-winning journalist Chris Roney. This week, we rang up the most recognizable, commercially successful man in porn: Johnny Sins. (Big talk, but the credits don’t lie.) Who is Johnny Sins? A doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a plumber, and an astronaut, it’s fair to say Sins contains multitudes — the range. But beefcake sex symbol-hood aside, it’s his magnetically sweet personality that’s won him millions of adoring fans on TikTok as of late. Who would’ve thought? Here, Sins steps into our confessional to talk being wholesome, getting censored anyway, and one of his greatest “sins.”
Chris Roney: You have this lovely TikTok with 8.3 million followers, and it’s just so pure and sweet. It’s like, you nursing an injured butterfly to health, or trying to fit in a very tiny cold plunge, or putting a silly filter on — it’s very wholesome. Fans are often in disbelief over how wholesome it is, actually: they comment things like, “Bro's fr just a normal guy;” “Johnny is unironically the most wholesome guy in the industry;” “Bro why [Johnny Sins] seem like da nicest dude you’d ever meet.”
There’s something here I want to tease out with you. That people are so shocked and amazed to learn that someone can do porn, be their openly horny self, and be a wholesome, sweet person too, says a lot about sex negativity! What do you make of that?
Johnny Sins: I think it’s funny too. I mean, people have watched me mainly in porn scenes, and they think they get to know you through your acting, or a scene. I always get everybody, like, “I thought you would be a dick in real life!” But in real life, I’m just a regular dude, you know? And I don’t know, I don’t try to act like I’m a dick in porn scenes, so I don’t know why it comes off that way. I think it’s really interesting, being able to show a different side of yourself on different social medias. Because TikTok— I don’t want my TikTok to be porn-related at all. I want it to be more a reflection of me and who I really am.
CR: Right, and I was thinking about that! I don’t think you act like a dick in scenes, either, but it speaks to the larger stigma that still exists around sex work and sex itself: that it’s unpure, that it’s a sin, so to speak. And so, to see you be your sweet self, not the person they’ve conjured up, kind of throws a wrench in that one-dimensional, “this is who you are, sex demon, and this is who I am.”
JS: Yeah! Everybody has their perception of sex workers, you know, that we’re all kind of assholes and come from terrible backgrounds. We’re all different in the industry, like any other job. So, the same with the porn business, you know? I grew up in a very normal childhood, both of my parents were married and together forever, so I don’t know how I ended up here.
CR: That’s the thing! There’s nothing wrong with ending up here.
JS: Yeah, I don’t think so: a lot of people would disagree. I mean, we [sex workers] have been able to break free sexually, and a lot of people don’t in life. A lot of people hide their fetishes, even from their partners, and then they’re never sexually fulfilled in their lives because they’re afraid to say what turns them on: they fear people will judge them or think it’s weird. Us sex workers, we’re all out in the open about it.
CR: F*gs too, which is where we find kinship. I mean, PornHub is, what, one of the most visited sites ever? The sex-freak call is coming from inside the house, America!
CR: This is the big question, but how would you begin to answer the question of how being an adult film star has shaped your relationship to sex, be it as a performer or in your personal life?
JS: Well, I consider shooting for OnlyFans content a sort-of, like, sex hack? Because you get to have sex basically as much as you want, with as many different partners as you want. Especially nowadays, it feels like everyone is doing OF: not only the mainstream porn girls. It’s the Instagram models, all of these different people coming in wanting to shoot sex scenes for OF. It’s really interesting, because 10 years ago, these Instagram models wouldn’t give you the time of day. Now, they’re all in your DMs trying to shoot with you.
CR: It’s interesting, too, because like we talked about with Boomer Banks recently, so many Instagrammers are, like, half an inch away from showing hole anyway: those lines are very blurred.
JS: Instagram has kinda become a soft-core porn app in the last few years, which is funny because they discriminate against sex workers! I think my first IG account was deleted in 2019, I wanna say? For no reason, either. My IG was like my TikTok: very much just focused on me, mainly workout, travel stuff. Hardly ever posted about porn, but it still got taken down, which makes me laugh now when I see Reels all over Instagram: soft-core porn.
CR: Soft-corn porn. It is discriminatory! And it’s pretty ridiculous, considering you have, like, millions of followers.
JS: Well, TikTok I always wanted to keep very PG because that account did grow fast. I started that account at just about the same time as everyone else during quarantine, and it sort-of blew up right away, and I always wanted to keep that account. It’s funny. In the industry, people will kinda have TikToks, but they know they’re gonna get deleted eventually if they’re putting their OF through TikTok: they just wanna get as many views as possible before it gets deleted. But I sort of went the opposite route. Like, let me preserve this account, although they still haven’t verified me yet.
CR: I hope it comes one day — maybe at 10 mil. Twitter, do your thing. But it’s crazy: sex workers are taken down all the time just for being sex workers, but folks who aren’t can sell sex all they want and get verified, no problem.
JS: It’s an interesting dynamic… I don’t know if anyone understands besides whoever’s pulling the strings.
CR: It’s big incel behavior, I’ll tell you that much.
CR: Alright, rapid-fire: what’s your favorite sex position, and why?
JS: Definitely missionary because, one, I like to be in control, so I like to be on top. And two, I like to look at my partner in the eyes while I’m f*cking them: basically I like to read them and look into their soul, so — for that reason, I just love to look into someone’s eyes.
CR: Hot, one. But two, it’s funny: everyone’s answer is missionary, but a lot of people have hesitation around admitting it! It’s like, ugh, it’s missionary, but missionary’s fun! Getting f*cked or doing the f*cking.
JS: Especially for mainstream scenes, that was always my pop position — so, the last position before the pop shot — because that was always the position I knew I could cum in. Doggy’s okay, but it doesn’t really do it for me, you know? So I always save missionary for last and I can always pop in that position.
CR: I’m now contractually obligated to say, “And wanna pop bigger and better? Pop some Popstar.” But okay, my sales shift is over: wildest place you’ve had sex that isn’t that helicopter.
JS: Probably a church? [laughs]
CR: Are we talking, like, in a pew?
JS: Uhhh, so there’s this church — I definitely won’t say the name — but a church here in LA that’s open 24 hours, open to the public, the doors are always open. This was quite a long time ago, but me and my ex-girlfriend, we liked to f*ck in public a lot. So we always had this fetish to f*ck in a church. One night, I think we’d had a couple drinks, it was around midnight, so we went and checked it out: there was no one around. I think we were up where the preacher would be.
CR: [laughs] On the pulpit, yeah.
JS: So that’s probably the craziest place.
CR: Johnny sinned.
