By Peter Berton

LOS ANGELES – The name of the website says it all: Alternadudes. Clean-cut, All-American boys these ain’t. Punk, emo, goth guys? Yep, got ’em. Tattoos, piercings and body modifications? Plenty of those, too. The site is rife with edgy, in-your-face attitude.

The site reflects the tastes of founder and Chief Executive Officer Koloff, who explained the genre for the uninitiated.

YNOT.com: If you had to define the website in just a few words, what words would you use?

Koloff: Our slogan is “Alternadudes: because normal guys are everywhere else.” That kind of sums up Alternadudes in a nutshell. You can see the “normal” guy from next door everywhere else. Alternadudes is about showcasing the alt guys of the world who don’t necessarily fit into the mold of “normal.”

A lot of our guys are musicians or artists or into things like designing their own clothes. We showcase the guys who express themselves in a way a lot of other sites don’t.

Wacky hair, tats and piercings are a part of the equation, but we also get alternative lifestyles on board: dedicated surfers who might only be on the site because they have long hair, transexual men and women with tats and piercings, emos who write poetry, and skaters, punk rockers and goths who are also part of the Alternadudes world.

Where did the idea come from?

Let’s face it: I was horny.

I started the company in 2006 after an exhaustive search of the internet for some long-haired guys that I could watch getting naked or fucking or jacking off or whatever. I was able to find a smattering here and there. Almost every site has at least one shaggy guy or one with shoulder-length hair, but there were no big concentrations of guys like that who I wanted to see having sex. Had I found that, I would have joined the site and that would be the end of the story.

It really frustrated me though, because as a consumer I felt I was being told I was wrong or [what I wanted to see] wasn’t sexy, because obviously no one was filming it.

Most of the bigger companies need to appeal to the masses, so the safe thing to do is offer non-offensive, cookie-cutter porn molds of the same types of guys over and over — which is OK. I don’t fault them for that. They make a shitload of money with those types of guys. They have their place, and I find them sexy, too, sometimes. I just like my guys better most of the time.

So, considering all of that and after mulling it over for a little while, I ended up buying a camera, putting ads on Craigslist, and got some business cards printed up. I carried my cards everywhere I went and when I saw guys in a bar or out in public who I wanted to have on the site, I’d give them the cards and hope they’d call back.

To my surprise, some actually did. Then they’d tell friends who would come in, and they’d in turn tell their friends. It’s kind of the model we have going to this day. I still recruit in bars or walking down the sidewalk, but about 90 percent of our guys come to us through referrals or because they’re fans of the site.

I assume not everyone was open to your pitch?

I’ve taken a few rejections over the years. You have to be pretty ballsy to walk up to a stranger in public to ask them if they’re over 18 and if they’d like to jack off on your porn site.

I’ve learned to stay away from groups of straight-looking guys, because they all make fun of each other at the thought of any of them jacking off. The result can be the card getting handed back to you. Most girlfriends can get possessive and try to shut you down right away, too. I also avoid approaching anyone who might be on a date or with their mom.

That’s how Alternadudes got started. I think it helped that I was only about 30 years old and also had long hair and some tats, so it wasn’t like I was some old weirdo in the bar approaching the young ’uns to come home and beat off for me in a wood-paneled basement somewhere.

You mentioned solo action. Is that all Alternadudes offers?

Alternadudes offers gay content with alt guys fucking, sucking and jacking off. I personally like watching deep-throating and ball-sucking and seeing hairy armpits and bushy pubes.

Because of that, the content is a little stacked in that direction, but that’s how I know it’s good. My whole mantra for the site since the day it started was that if I think it’s sexy, it goes on the site.

Our movies usually average around 20 minutes per scene for a good BJ or fuck scene and a little less for a guy jacking off. I still love watching guys jack off. Everyone does it differently. It’s so intimate. Almost as if I shouldn’t be seeing it. The sounds they make, the facial expressions and the technique are different for each guy. That’s what’s so hot about it all.

I try to keep [the content] to action, mostly, but sometimes you get that rare straight guy who will only jack off. Also, my own fascination for watching men masturbate creeps in as well, so I can’t resist putting up good solos.

We also offer photosets that usually start off fully clothed and work all the way through the cumshot.

Do your models have any say about what they do on camera?

I let the guys have input on what direction the scene is going to go. We talk beforehand about what they find sexy, their fantasies and what they like to do alone and with other guys. If they throw out some good ideas, that’s what we do. I shot a guy the other day who likes to beat off in the shower, so that’s where we shot him beating off.

One of my guys was fiddling around with a keyboard one day in the studio. I had no idea he could play, so as we talked, I found out his scene partner is a script writer. Between the three of us, we came up with a quick storyline and shot it. It makes it fun for everyone while allowing them to express themselves and show off the fact that they’re not just about sex. They all have other talents and interests outside the bedroom.

The site has been very successful within its niche. Has that made it easier to find alt male models?

We get a lot of guys applying to be on the site. Many of them are in areas of the country we just simply can’t reach and it’s not feasible to fly every single model in from somewhere else, so last year we started having some of our guys located in faraway cities film their own content.

The content they provide is mostly jackoff scenes and it’s usually a bit more amateur than what we put up normally, but I think that’s what makes the material work. [The models are] in their own settings showing off what they like to do.

It’s been a great idea that allows us to feature guys we wouldn’t always be able to feature. Those homemade scenes are few and far between, though. It’s hard to get guys motivated from across country, so 99 percent of them never really follow through.

Is this a niche market? A fetish? Or is it just a broadening of the mainstream sex market as people become more open-minded?[b]

[B]Do the site’s members tell you what they like and want? How do you handle that?

It’s kind of funny. Our customers and fans are pretty quiet on the site. They rarely make a peep in the comments section other than to suggest tags or to say someone or other is cute.

Every now and then I’ll get an email or a tweet requesting a certain model to come back on the site. This is cool, because most of the time I’m shooting in the dark with models, simply basing my choices on what I find attractive.

Some of our fans suggest fantasy pairings with their favorite models. It’s a great idea on paper, but the reality of it is some models work once, never to be heard from again. People move away; some lose interest. Others stay in touch, and I see and have drinks with them regularly.

I try to accommodate the fans as much as possible. If someone asks for a fantasy pairing and I know both guys and they’re around and available, of course I’ll shoot it.

Everyone kind of has their own thing. I’ve had requests for everything from more feet to pissing in jeans on a public park bench. Filming a guy pissing his jeans in a public park goes a bit beyond my comfort level for what I’d be willing to film on the fly without much planning in an urban area, but I always appreciate the suggestions.

I always laugh, too, because people are so passionate about socks vs. no socks and the top vs. the bottom of the feet. Some people are adamant that socks ruin the entire scene. Others go crazy for socks. I’ve always said that in order to please everyone, we’d have to have each model wear only one sock (one clean and one dirty) with one model showing the bottom of his bare foot and the other showing the top.

What are your thoughts about the future?

I want Alternadudes to be more of a household name. It’s a great brand with great content, and I want more people to see and appreciate it. We’re always tinkering with the design and making things easier for navigation and throwing out ideas.

One of the things I’d like to see done is to film the scenes live via webcam for our customers so they can watch it all unfold, uncensored, with bloopers and all, and then see the finished product in a couple of weeks when it goes on the site. It would be cool to take suggestions almost like a live webcam session so the fans can interact and get a custom-made scene with feet, piss, socks, no socks, armpits and whatever else they all want to see. The problem I have with that is my shoots depend on the availability of the guys, and sometimes they call me up and I have to do a shoot an hour later, which makes it hard to schedule something live. But it’s something I’ve been wanting to do.

A few years ago at conventions people were predicting the end of pay sites, much like everyone thought cable TV was going away because of the internet. We’re both still here, and whatever that future is, we’ll morph and survive.

I always get the question “Do people still pay for porn?” — with a condescending laugh and a dismissive wave. People are proud to proclaim how they get it for free whenever they feel like it. My response is, “Who do you think is putting all that free stuff out there for you to see? Someone still has to make it.” Also, if you’re looking for free porn you can no doubt find it, but do you want to search for 35 minutes to find the exact scene you’re looking for and have it end a nanosecond before the cumshot?

That’s why our customers keep coming back. They know what to expect and they like our guys and don’t need to search for the content when they know it’s all in one place.