Francois Sagat Interview

Francois Sagat Interview
Copyright © 2022 Interview Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
Thomas Persson, editor of biannual culture journal Acne Paper , is Interview’s guest blogger this week. The new issue of Acne Paper is on newsstands in Europe; look out for it stateside in the next month. Here, Persson discusses what didn’t make the, uh, cut:
In the world of gay erotica, French porn-star Francois Sagat has become something of a cult phenomenon. A painfully shy boy in his teens, Sagat grew up to be a strong, almost otherworldly muscle vision, representing the extreme end of gay body culture. What separates Sagat from his peers is his artistic involvement with designers such as Bernhard Willhelm as well as the French fashion label Fade where he can use his skills as an accomplished draftsman. I met Francois in a café by Centre Pompidou in Paris to talk about his trade, the power of body transformation, and why a man should never be afraid of his feminine sides.
THOMAS PERSSON: How does it feel to be the subject of so much sexual adoration and worship?
FRANCOIS SAGAT: I can’t say that I don’t like it but I think it’s too much. Too much for what it is. I understand if someone is a fan of Tina Turner or Cher. But being a fan of a porn star? I can understand the sexual obsession of someone because it’s a desire but being a fan of all the movies you have done, remembering which movies you did when and with whom, and what kind of beard I had in this particular film, that I don’t understand. But an obsession of the new Beyonce video and the choreography, the outfits, that is another story. That I do understand completely.
TP: You are especially discussed a lot on the Internet. With the enormous access to porn on the Internet the whole porn industry is changing. FS: Oh yes, it has changed everything. All the companies in the US and everywhere are worried because they are loosing so much money. The only way to keep their audience is to stream videos online. Nobody wants to buy a DVD anymore. It’s like everybody wants a smaller computer or a smaller phone.
TP: I also think people have discovered that it is more erotic to see an amateur homemade flick on xtube, rather than the slick American porn film. The new kind of amateur porn has a kind of personal intimacy that you don’t get when it’s done professionally.
FS: Yes, I know. In the professional movies the image is very clear, you have a good edit, the guys are hot sometimes, but not always. But the less professional films are more exciting. You like to see amateurs. You like to see strangers. Much more so than seeing a well-known man having sex with another well-known man.
TP: Having become such a star in gay culture, what is it like for you going out on the gay scene?
FS: I don’t go out so much because I get recognized and I don’t like that. In the beginning it was kind of fun but now I freak out. They look at you. They look at what you wear. They look at what you buy, what kind of credit card you pay with, and I just want to escape.
TP: You have a large following of people who are very into you. Not only because of the porn but because you do all this other stuff, like making little films where you show that you are obviously not afraid to break with this very masculine image.
FS: Oh yes, and in that way I feel very secure. I don’t think playing with your femininity as a man is something feminine. I am not a model for masculinity, because I do have many feminine sides. I know some guys in this industry who are trying to push masculinity to the extreme, and it doesn’t work.
TP: We live in a time when people are obsessed about being fit. There are more gyms in the world than there ever was. Why do you think that is?
FS: Well, for me, I think a muscular body is sexually attractive. I am obsessed with my own muscles. I used to be this shy little boy. I am going to show you a picture of me when I was fifteen. You are not going to believe your eyes.
TP: Is that you? You look so tiny and cute. You have changed a lot since you were this shy boy. When did you start getting interested in creating this persona that you are today?
FS: I think it was when I finished fashion school. I was in a video that some friends had made and I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t like my tiny body or the way I spoke. I was starting to loose my hair and it was a tragedy for me. I decided I wanted to change. I started training, not bodybuilding but fitness. In a year my body started to change. I shaved my skull and I did the tattoo.
TP: How did you feel when your body started to change?
FS: I felt relieved but all my friends reacted strongly. Everyone, except my best friend Olivier, rejected that I was changing. People thought I was fucking up my life. Others were laughing. But there were people, of a more intelligent kind, who thought it was an interesting transformation. But in the end I just believed in me, and I did what I had to do. And now everyone has accepted it.
TP: Because now you have become a famous gay icon. Did you have this in mind when you started your big transformation?
FS: No. I did it for my own happiness. I didn’t really think it would become such a big deal. I didn’t really plan to do porn, that just came my way and it worked. That being said, I think that I was made for porn. I’m not talking about the French experience because that was very intimate. I talk about the American experience.
TP: What is the difference between the French and the American experience?
FS: The French experience was very different. We were just three guys in the room: me, my partner and the guy that was filming. Six months later I arrived in the US and it was huge—a large house with a dozen people on the set. I was a little scared the night before but at the day of the shooting I didn’t even shake, which is quite strange for someone who used to be very shy.
TP: Gay culture often has the ability to fetish over things that are frightening, things that one perhaps wouldn’t like to experience in real life, such as prison, war and army barracks, complete submission, slavery.
FS: Perhaps because we are a minority and we are playing with things that we were repressed with before. Firemen, policemen, all these extremely masculine men that in a way represent the opposite of gay men, becomes a fantasy.
TP: Because the erotic is very much in the mind. It is about fantasies and dreams. Your profession is to visualize these fantasies somehow, so in one way you could say you are in fact living these fantasies through your work. But then the reality of it must be very different?
FS: I think I am less sexual than my image. I have experienced all the stuff, from bondage, fist fucking, golden showers. I have done all this stuff but my private sexual life is very different. I am not what people expect.
TP: And then you have this other image, which is much more artful and fun, such as the project with Bernhard Willhelm. How did that happen?
FS: Bernhard knew me from before, and I was familiar with his work. We met and he told me he was doing this project inspired by Peter Berlin.
TP: You did? What did he look like?
FS: He looked like Anna Piaggi. [LAUGHS] No it’s true. He looked fashionable but in a good way. He looked like an old stylist. He did his own outfit, I guess. Anyway, Bernhard Willhelm and the photographer had this very precise vision. They had made a storyboard with me inside it, and I felt very honored. It was very structured. But Bernhard is very organized. It was a big deal for me to do that because it created a lot of publicity. I like it when people contact me and use me for their projects. I don’t go knocking on people’s doors.

Francois Sagat On... His Tattoo, Drugs, Porn and HIV

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Interviews
7 December, 2016 .

Posted by aidanquigley

At the age of twenty five François Sagat became one of the biggest gay porn stars in the world, with a body he’d carefully sculpted at the gym, and a tattooed hairline that became his trademark.
Nowadays he’s retired from the porn industry, but still does live shows across the world and has his own successful clothing brand.
This article was originally found in GCN December 2016 Issue 324, the first ever Sex Issue of GCN .
I was a very shy and introverted child, always dreaming, expecting aliens to arrive in the garden and believing in ghosts. I was a very feminine teenager and I was bullied a lot. It was something I didn’t want to tell my mum about, that guys were treating me like I was gay. It was a very hard to say, so I kept it to myself and I suffered.
I was saying that I was bisexual at the beginning. I wasn’t lying to myself; I was trying to go slowly because I didn’t have any sexual experience. My first gay sexual experience was at 19.
After leaving college, I found myself going to the gym more than I was expecting, and I began to change my appearance. It was to do with issues of identi cation in the gay world. I was always a tiny little guy, always the shortest, the thinnest, the most discrete.
I started losing my hair when I was 20. I didn’t like the shape of my head when it was completely shaved, so I came up with the idea of a tattoo. Getting it was a nightmare. Ten hours of pain and blood.
Now it’s been more than ten years and it’s fading away a bit, but at the time it was shiny and black, like boot polish. People on the streets would stop when they saw me.
Keep reading to see what François Sagat had to say about getting into porn, the first English he learned on a porn set, and drugs.
Somebody came to me online to ask me to do porn. I had it in my mind because I liked watching porn. It was fascinating because it was more like a dream; they were like the chosen people, an elite.
At the time in my life I was not very sure of myself. It was new experience, and I’m very experimental, so I said to myself, ‘just do it, don’t think too much’.
It wasn’t very hard to do. There was a very small team, just the guy who was filming and my partner. With porn you know how to do it or you don’t, you make love to the camera or you don’t.
When I made my first movie in America six months later, I spoke three words of English, so it was a bit complicated for me to learn the specific words for a porn shoot, like ‘bend over’. I didn’t know what ‘bend over’ meant. ‘Chin up, chin down’ – within a few months my English was a lot better.
For me doing porn was a great experience; I always enjoyed doing it. I’m not an angel, but I chose to be on set in good shape, after getting my hours of sleep. I was always disciplined. I’ve seen some guys on shoots who were not able to do anything because they were so high.
When you discover some chemistry on set, it makes the scene amazing. I’ve been in scenes with people I didn’t really like, but I won’t name them. It’s a question of energy and style. There are good-looking guys, but it happens a lot that when they talk, it’s a turn-off. But then you focus on some detail and you can do the work.
Keep reading to see what François Sagat has to say about his future hubby, HIV and gay clubbing.
I had a few experiences where the guys were not very aware. If I was bottoming
and it was painful I’d say to the guy to be gentle at the beginning, but some of them wouldn’t listen. That’s the worst thing, when somebody doesn’t really listen to you. But in 99 percent of my movies, it was easy most of the time.

I think the porn industry has a responsibility to educate younger guys. I come from a generation where HIV was still dangerous and could kill. I’m from the generation that’s aware of protecting yourself, of being conscious that you can’t really trust that the people you have sex with are HIV free. It’s about taking care of yourself, not trust.

I haven’t shot any porn in ve years. I was seeing myself too much and if I was fed up with myself I was thinking people also had the same feeling. If I come back it will be more for fun than for my career. Of course there is money involved, otherwise I wouldn’t do it – it’s for money and fun.

I’m not crazy about going into gay clubs by myself. People want to talk to me, which is ne, but sometimes I don’t have the energy to talk to so many people at the same time. Sometimes you just want to dance or have fun, or you just want to kiss someone because you like him, and you don’t want to talk about your life.
My clothing company, Kicksagat, is three years old now. It’s evolved differently now because we’re more about underwear. The basics are still the best sellers, like total black or total white. The printed stuff is harder to sell. It looks good, but I’m not going to be able to sell that stuff because I’m a porn guy more than a designer, so I have to adapt.
I have a little problem nding someone or staying with someone. I don’t get attached, so it’s not easy for me to keep a relationship. I’m a supporter of gay marriage, but marriage is not my first dream – unless I marry someone very rich!

Find out more about Francois Sagat’s clothing line at www.kicksagat.com
© 2016 GCN (Gay Community News). All rights reserved.
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Francois Sagat On... His Tattoo, Drugs, Porn and HIV

7 December, 2016 .

Posted by aidanquigley.

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GCN has been a vital, free-of-charge information service for Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community since 1988.
During this global COVID pandemic, we like many other organisations have been impacted greatly in the way we can do business and produce. This means a temporary pause to our print publication and live events and so now more than ever we need your help to continue providing this community resource digitally.
GCN is a registered charity with a not-for-profit business model and we need your support. If you value having an independent LGBTQ+ media in Ireland, you can help from as little as €1.99 per month . Support Ireland’s free, independent LGBTQ+ media.
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