On his business card, apart from the usual name, requisite numbers and email address, below ‘Paul Thomas’ (where the person’s title usually goes—in his case, director) is instead one word: icon. And like most eclectic emblems, we allow them their idiosyncrasies, such as Madonna’s obsession with Kabbalah, Andy Warhol’s child-like observations (which later became legendary), Britney Spears’ tendency to flash the paparazzi on days she goes commando and so on. Also typical of pop culture avatars is an I’d-rather-be-solitary-because-no-one-understands-me aura that generally pervades their beings that seem to only deepen with age.

Having said that, at age 57 Paul Thomas is the epitome of an icon. With no real professed ambitions, save absolving his inner turmoil over his quest to end his lonely streak, he’s accustomed to coasting through life and will continue to do so when he retires at a certain undisclosed date. Far from abusing the misunderstood card, P.T. is an amiable, genial fellow that speaks of his good upbringing. Often dismissed as a prima donna or a media recluse, PT appeals to the intellectual/spiritual aspect of humanity and reminds us he is just human after all and believes “all there is is love.”

SexHerald: So, you just came back from an Agape [ah-gah-pey] meeting? Are you a religious or a spiritual person?

Paul Thomas: It’s a spiritual one; a faith that I followed for about 10 years. I don’t know how to explain it.

SH: Is it part of the Christian sect?

Thomas: It includes everything and is part of nothing. I like Agape because it doesn’t require that I believe in God in order to participate. It emphasizes very positive behavior and attitudes and positive ways to live your life and share with one another—a lot of obvious things: really nonjudgmental, easy to talk to, and it has some of the best singing and music in the world; beautiful gospel singers. Any given Sunday, Stevie Wonder or Gladys Knight would stop by and lend their voices onstage. And when they’re out there, the soloists and the choir each Sunday are just incredible.

SH: How did you get involved with Agape?

Thomas: My friend Carl Anderson, who was Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar with me, told me he was a member and he turned me onto it… I’ve always had a very strong spiritual curiosity. But I never believed in God, per se—just in a creator. It’s just an attempt to connect myself and my fellow man on the highest plane. That’s all.

SH: Going into your past a bit, and at the risk of sounding like an encyclopedia, you were born Philip Toubus in Winnetka, Illinois to an affluent family. Your aunt is the baked goods queen Sara Lee… It would appear you had a very charmed childhood…

Thomas: On the surface level, I had a very charmed life. Yeah, sure.

SH: Then you studied political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Thomas: Well, I attended classes. As for studying, I don’t know how much I studied. And that was my major.

SH: Did you finish and get the degree or decide to forego it?

Thomas: I quit college twice: once to do the show Hair and the second time to do the show Jesus Christ Superstar. I had a semester left and never went back.

SH: Ever regret not getting that degree?

Thomas: Let me give that a thought: Absolutely not. I’m kind of sorry I ever went actually, because I could have been doing better things.

SH: So, why porn?

Thomas: I had moved to San Francisco to do a play called Beach Blanket Babylon, which is still playing. Porn was the happening thing there. It was the big porn capital of the 70s and I didn’t want to go back to LA. I didn’t have that much dedication to the craft; it didn’t matter to me. I wanted to stay living in beautiful San Francisco, so I stayed.

I took the path of least resistance. I took the most immediate gratification offered me, which was adult films, and found that I was very good at it [both in front and behind the camera] and just decided to stick with it. I didn’t have the dedication to craft the required, or the discipline to wait out, in order to succeed in mainstream.

SH: What’s the difference, in your opinion, between the adult industry then and now? Is porn still big now?

Thomas: Porn is a huge thing now; bigger than it was then but not for an actor or a director. Back then, porno films were films: it required acting, it required directing, and it required scripts. And there were quite a number of decent actors in the business. Now, except for very few exceptions—myself being one—the product that’s churned out is sexual content for the Internet. This business has changed in that most of it is just sex for sex sake and all of the art of storytelling is gone. Once I leave, it’ll be gone forever.

SH: What would you do once you’re finished directing adult films?

Thomas: I won’t work at all for money. I want to live in Europe, study architectural history, learn piano, singing better and maybe perform a nightclub act, go on adventures—mainly in Europe but all over the world.

SH: You’re essentially in the entertainment business. Did you always want to be an actor/director?

Thomas: No.

SH: Then what were your initial intentions?

Thomas: You mean when I was 10?

SH: You can start there…

Thomas: I didn’t have dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t have dreams or aspirations as to what I wanted to do as a profession. Even when I did it, I didn’t have dreams or aspirations of it. I just matriculated into it; I sort of meld or melted into it. I am blessed with a really wonderful singing voice and I sort of went with my God-given talent. I am bigger than most men in show business—I’m 6’2”; I’m not that tall but I’m taller than most men on Broadway. So, I was a needed commodity—that tall, heterosexual leading-man type who could sing really well, which I can. So, I went with my natural talent which led me to other opportunities. I did porno; I had the ability to fuck on camera. I was letting my God-given talents to steer my path. And when given the choice to having to study and work and sacrifice developing other talents, be that dancing or the technical aspects of filmmaking or acting, and really work hard at it—work hard, work hard—I chose more immediate gratification. In adult films, I was a superstar immediately. I’m still a much better filmmaker than most people in adult films because it does attract people with talent, or designers to be a great filmmaker for the most part. So, I’m still just floating around on my natural abilities. I was able to find new natural abilities to allow me to move happily in the future.

All of this matters little. What’s incumbent upon me now to have a happy life, all of this matters little. Frankly, other people aren’t even interested in who I frequent. I’m trying to have a normal life and I find it difficult.

SH: Why do you think it’s difficult to have a normal life?

Thomas: It’s difficult to have a normal relationship for me. I’m surrounded by beautiful young women all the time that are fairly available to me. And, they mean nothing; it’s just tempting. So when I try to shift gears and go with a middle-aged woman my age, with life experience that would generally interest me… I’m jaded; I’m a jaded fuck. It’s not a quotient for happiness. I’m not too much part of normal society; I’m alone a lot. I can’t hang with the porno people; it’s not a mindset that I want to be around. And my business, it’s who I am. It doesn’t ostracize me; it just puts me on a different rhythm with a lot of people.

SH: Because you’re in the adult entertainment business, you think it has jaded your opinions or viewpoints on relationships and love?

Thomas: No. It’s just made me very hard to please sexually. Therefore, I am reticent; I have fear of intimacy, because intimacy will require sex and I’m very difficult to please sexually.

SH: Do you believe in monogamy?

Thomas: If that’s the only way you could manage it, yeah. It’s not ideal at all. Monogamy is silly. But if that’s the only you can manage to obtain and hold the love you have with someone then monogamy has to be the thing because all there is is love [doo doo do roo roo]. I miss being in love.

SH: Are you currently doing anything to rectify your situation?

Thomas: Well for one, I’m trying to reconcile with my wife of many years. The bigger picture is that I’m trying to learn and appreciate and love women of my own generation—with women who I’ll have a much better chance at a relationship that’ll last for the rest of my life. I need to wean myself off of the other women. It’s a dead end for the both of us.

I’ve reached a point where I want an intimate, passionate, sexual, loving relationship myself and my head is so attuned to the feel of a 30-year-old body that the 50-year-old woman who I should be with, with the life experience closer to mine, she feels like my grandmother and that’s a shame for me.

SH: Don’t you think that’s a little shallow?

Thomas: Absolutely. It’s just my reaction to how flesh feels; it’s not a reaction to personality. Grabbing a 55-year-old woman’s ass is not the same as grabbing a 30-year-old woman’s ass. And it shouldn’t fucking matter, and ultimately it’s not going to matter, but I’m at that strange nexus where I’m just becoming desensitized to one and sensitized to the other.

SH: Concerning your work, it has often been criticized as lacking passion to make room for more dialogue, storyline, character development, etc. Your thoughts?

Thomas: Passion and sex are two separate things. I don’t sacrifice the passion. With my story and characters, I’m creating the possibility for real passion by creating real people. I sacrifice sex all the time, thinking that I don’t want more, or longer, sex scenes. I want sex scenes that mean more, or fit into the story more, or more important to the development and resolving of the characters. I think I am creating more passion, but usually there’s less hardcore sex. Most porno films have a ridiculous amount of hardcore sex.

SH: Lastly, let’s briefly talk about your involvement with Vivid for a minute.

Thomas: I started with Vivid in 1985. I was an actor for them to begin with. I started in Ginger Lynn movies with her. I acted for several of their productions. Shortly thereafter, I began producing with Ron Sullivan, who was my mentor in New York. I then began directing most of the stuff a year later in 1986. From ’86 to ’92 or ’93, I directed for Vivid as well as lots of other companies, and about ’92-’93 Vivid put me under their exclusive contract and I’ve been with them ever since, and I expect to be with Vivid until the end of my career.