Jack Mackenroth & Dolf Dietrich Talk JACK’DOLF Smut Factory

LOS ANGELES—In the middle of the summer of 2020, Dolf Dietrich passed another masked, muscular hunk on the stairs at his gym. The stranger said hello, calling Dietrich by his real first name. Confused, Dietrich initially played it cool. “I did not recognize him because of the mask. It’s very difficult to ‘see’ people these days,” he smiles, noting the two soon quickly went about their way. “So I went up to him later before I left and I said, ‘Who are you? I feel like I know you.’ And he goes, ‘It’s Jack,’ and he pulls down his mask for a second.” The story prompts a laugh from Jack Mackenroth, the man now sitting next to him as the two recall the incident. “We had a brief conversation about our mutual disgust with Trump, and then we went our separate ways,” Mackenroth says. “I had his cell number from years ago for some reason, and 30 minutes later I texted him: ‘Hey! Is this still your number?’, and he invited me to coffee. We met up the next day, and it was kind of love at second sight. We’ve been inseparable ever since.” The two quickly made up for lost time—and there was a lot of it to account for. “It’s funny, because Jack and I have been circling each other for about 10 years almost, when I first moved to New York City in 2007,” recalls Dietrich, who at the time started working as the art director at HX Magazine, where he often met club owners and photographers for photo shoots.  “I was doing a lot of covers with him on it, and I was like, ‘This guy is handsome and sexy and intelligent, and making a difference’—never thinking that I would actually meet him. And we actually did not meet until late last year. We had seen each other on the street; I think we might have said hello once or twice. But things were keeping us apart.” Back then, Mackenroth was fresh off his stint on the fourth season of Project Runway and was also known for his HIV activism. “We knew of each other for many years as ‘gaylebrities,’ but we had never met in person until last August…we always had a mutual attraction from afar, but the timing was not right until we literally ran into each other at the gym.” They had coffee the next day and took their dogs for a walk in Central Park. “It’s been a short amount of time and it happened very quickly, but I was single for eight years—I’m not real people friendly,” laughs Mackenroth. “Literally after our first meeting, I knew this was something. The whole ‘love at first sight thing’ I’m a little bit pessimistic about and I didn’t think it existed, but we’ve basically been together almost every day since then. It’s been great.” So great, in fact, that they kept it relatively secret. “We held our relationship pretty close to our hearts for about a month or two,” shares Dietrich (as Mackenroth immediately chimes in: “I made him”). “Yeah, he wouldn’t let me tell anybody, because I love to profess my love—and I’m in love with Jack. But I didn’t, so we kept it secret. We didn’t want everyone to know, because we’re very well known for different reasons, and for some similar reasons. So we sort or organically dated, and when it was right, came out as a couple.” Soon, they would take things one step further in a way neither of them had expected. The Best of Both Worlds Dietrich began his award-winning career in the gay adult industry in 2014, quickly establishing himself as a very professional pig. “Keeping relationships in the industry has been so key for me for the past 10 years. I really value my reputation in the industry, and the fact that it is a sterling reputation. I’ve been on point as I can be for every shoot and every live appearance that I’ve ever done, and I’ve tried to leave the best impression of myself, always,” he says. “I really just think it’s all about forming relationships so we can make a better product.” He focused all of his energy on studio work, mostly eschewing the clip sites that had steadily grown in popularity. “I didn’t think they were the right situation for me, because I thought the production value was lacking; most people just put up their iPhone.” In the middle of 2019, he decided to step away and rejoin the corporate world. That proved unsatisfying (“I didn’t love it”), and he rejoined the industry at the end of the same year. Meanwhile, Mackenroth has since ditched the fashion industry. He worked in public relations and communications—specifically HIV-related subjects—until three years ago, when he entered the adult space in 2018. He quickly built up a fan base through his clip site presence, resisting the allure of studio offers. (“I’m supportive of studios and love their product, but I have always been very firm that I want to own my content.”) Their complimentary backgrounds—and the extra time they had getting to know each other during the pandemic—helped them arrive at a big business decision shortly after they started dating. “For me it was an epiphany,” says Dietrich. “I was just kind of tepidly looking back for work as a creative director in the corporate world, and that’s when I said, ‘Why not? We can make our own studio. We have all the tools.’ I realized that we could do something on our own and have the production value elevated, and use Jack’s experience from his platforms and my experience from the studios. It was a no-brainer.” And so the JACK’DOLF Smut Factory (JDSF) was born in late 2020, the two becoming business partners and drawing upon their diversified design backgrounds to pursue their love of fetish-tinged sex (described as “(Alexander) McQueen meets sexual fetish meets innovative design with a smutty twist”). “We both already had the necessary skill sets and experience with marketing and communications, along with graphic design, fashion design and interior design—and especially with marketing, which is a huge thing,” says Dietrich. “I have always told people that wanted to make it big in the industry that it doesn’t just take a big dick, a pretty face and a great body, you have to have business acumen, which we’ve both honed over the years. So I think that’s really enabled us to take it to the next step.” The two leased a multi-level studio in the heart of Manhattan and “designed the hell out of it,” says Mackenroth, adding it can also double as a living space, with potential Airbnb plans in their future. “There’s a bed and kitchen and two bathrooms and fireplaces…aside from the three slings and the glory hole,” he laughs. “It was originally an ugly white box, and it’s set up perfectly now for us. My brother was a contractor, so I actually know how to tile and do electrical, surprisingly. So I re-wired it, spent so much time and energy making it look amazing, and I also have a degree in fine arts from UC Berkeley. I’ve also been painting, and I’ve made pieces of art for the studio. It’s been fun to bring out all those old skills that I’ve been ignoring for so long, because I just can’t seem to thread a sewing machine anymore.” The space also has also a dungeon, two slings, a fuck bench, a rim seat, about 70 dildos (one on wheels and one on a stool), two fuck beds, a watersports/wet/messy area, a gloryhole setup and tons of gear and leather (“just about anything sex related you could imagine”). It also boasts full studio technology—including high-quality cameras, lighting and backdrops, much of which Mackenroth already utilized for his own content (“my apartment had basically become a functioning studio, so we just added to it”). It’s all wrapped in high design, custom painting and logo representation. And although their first names perfectly meshed into a slam-dunk moniker almost too good to be true, one of them wasn’t quite sold on it. “I said, ‘Hey, say ‘Jack Dolf’ five times over really fast!’” recalls Dietrich with excitement. “Yeah,” responds a deadpan Mackenroth, internally rolling his eyes. “I got it.” “He wasn’t quite sold on it at first.” “It was a little on the nose…I was like, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have our names it,’ but then we just kept going back to it.” After Mackenroth warmed to the idea, the duo expanded upon the new studio name to champion their piggy sides. “We wanted the word ‘smut’—it’s an unusual word that isn’t used that often, it’s kind of a cool word; and we wanted the word ‘factory’ instead of ‘studio’ because we wanted to sort of harken to the days of the Andy Warhol Factory,” says Dietrich. “I would say it’s a Manhattan-specific kind of brand right now, but it’s just very artistic and special and unique in that way. It’s not just a porn studio—we also consider ourselves an art gallery at times, a place to come and stay and be sexual. There’s a lot of things we have in mind. Someone suggested a cabaret the other day, like when Bette Midler used to perform in the bathhouses, so who knows?” The Duo Dynamic Most of the JDSF content will be filmed inside their new digs, on the roof or in its semi-public spaces, and the duo plans to rent the space to other people to shoot as well. In the meantime, they have been learning from each other. “Jack has been amazing at teaching me how he uses about seven different cameras for different angles, and then we have a moving camera and the lighting and all of it. Usually, I just had to show up and look pretty, because I’m a studio guy,” says Dietrich. “So it’s been a lot of extra work and has a learning curve for me and him, but it’s been worth it.” Each has learned how to let go and let the other take the lead when necessary. “Our relationship is really synergistic and complimentary, because we both have design backgrounds, we’re basically the same age, we’ve gone through very similar paths in our lives,” says Mackenroth. “So a lot of that clicked. It’s work, but also, we’re in love. I like to have fun with him.” In one of the first scenes they shot together—with no additional cameraman—Dietrich took over as director. “He’s like, ‘Move your hands away from the camera!’ while he’s got a big dildo up my butt,” laughs Mackenroth. “He’s kind of the directorial bossy one, so that’s a learning curve that we’re conquering. And I also think that because we’re both so driven—and perfectionists—we wanted everything to be completely immaculate at the studio and ready to go, and have all the press releases written in just a month.” Throw in the pandemic and the complications of real life, and the pressure quickly mounted. “I was basically having panic attacks,” says Mackenroth. “So we took a step back. We’re like, ‘This will happen. There’s a good six more months at least until COVID is hopefully under control, so we’re doing great.’ We just have to pace ourselves and not get stressed out.” For Dietrich, it all comes down to communication and compromise. “It’s a lot of common sense, but it’s difficult when you have two creative people together. But thankfully, most of our creativity usually aligns, and it’s just glorious.” The two have also had to learn skills neither of them is proficient in, like editing. “There are things we lack—bookkeeping, for instance,” laughs Dietrich. “We’re very right-brain thinkers, so we’re eventually going to have to get a bookkeeper and things like that. Two creative people together is very interesting.” Scenes will initially be released through their clip sites (a JDSF one is coming soon) before they potentially expand the studio’s website capabilities. “I also have a good business relationship with AEBN; they’re showcased me for years as an entertainer,” says Dietrich. “I want to reach out to them and see about streaming content on their platform, so that’s on our list of things to do. Right now, what makes us unique is that we’re a hybrid studio-slash-platform.” They have more than 12 scenes shot so far, all of them together—but they plan on transitioning other performers in front of the camera with the two of them directing. “We’d also like to do it where maybe one of us is in the scene and one of us is directing, but we’re not quite there yet emotionally in the relationship,” says Dietrich. “We’re actually in a monogamous relationship of our own creation; we don’t play outside of work, so if we’re filming together, we’re filming together and that’s work. But we don’t actually even consider having anyone else come into our relationship privately at the moment; we’re just sexually available to each other. “So directing my partner…it’s not going to be a challenge for me. It might be a little bit more of a challenge for Jack. But that’s just our dynamic at the moment. After being in porn for 12 years, you learn to separate sex and feeling emotions, to be quite honest—but sometimes it’s not always easy.” Dirty Pigs Things come a lot easier in front of the camera for the duo, who are natural exhibitionists. “The great thing is that we’re both dirty pigs in real life, so it’s not like we’re putting on a show. It’s real,” says Mackenroth. “There’s really nothing that we are opposed to exploring as long as it’s not illegal or painful.” That means that big toys, watersports, groups, daddy/son scenarios, feet, ass play and more are all on the table—and Dietrich is excited at the possibilities. “We’re not going to re-invent any fetishes, we’re just exploring them in a unique way as a couple together. There’s certain things Jack was into that I’m just beginning to explore; I’m learning every day still about new fetishes, and Jack is, too. So we’re exploring it and we’re showing it through the lens of a couple exploring our fetishes in the daddy stage of our career—with a very unique artistic flair to it. Jack collects large toys,” smiles Dietrich, turning to his boyfriend, who quickly interjects… “Caveat: I don’t use them all, I just think it’s hot.” “We’re going to have a gallery of sex toys, a whole wall that we’re working on,” says Dietrich as they continue the back and forth. “Like art, almost.” “Where everything will be sort of encased or ensconced in different kinds of viewing receptacles. But they’ll be usable, too, so you can take then out and put them up your butt,” Dietrich smiles. As for fisting? “I’m 49 years old, and I had never been fisted in my entire life—that’s really hard for a lot of my fanbase to believe,” laughs Dietrich. “It’s hard for me to believe!” Mackenroth replies, the two bouncing off each other like tennis balls. “I had actually tried fisting once with Drew Sebastian. We were on set in 2015, and I had told the director that I was able to take a fist. Well, we got on set and I had practiced, but I had never gotten to the fist—and during filming, Drew was not able to put his fist inside me. So we flipped the script and I was the fistee—but I had never fisted anyone, either. So I had to run to the bathroom between takes. I was crying, I was nervous, I was a mess. But the scene came out beautiful, and nobody was the wiser.” “But he definitely had PTSD because the director was an asshole,” Mackenroth adds. “Yeah, the director was an asshole that I couldn’t do it. So at that point I said to myself that I’m just not built for that, it will never happen. I’m a great fisting top, people love my big hands and all that. And then Jack said, ‘Well, I want to do it to you.’” “…but in a playful, light version.” “Like a semi-fist! So we worked our way up to it and we filmed it—just me and him, because I wanted the intimacy. And we released it as a two-parter. I was able to take his fist—not for long, but I did it. And it was amazing. We’re going to try that again.” “My hands are wide,” adds an impressed Mackenroth. “But he has a size 14 shoe.” “That’s another thing—I’m really known for my feet, and Jack has beautiful feet as well. I love pretty feet. I’ve filmed for a lot for foot fetish companies, and it’s something that I have a big following for because mine are so big. There’s actually even a community that’s into people with big feet stomping on food—strawberries or sheet cake or things like that, and doing closeup videos of people licking it off. So we’re going to be doing videos like that.” “As you know,” says Mackenoth, “if you can dream it, someone likes it.” “Jack has really pretty feet, too, so I want to showcase those.” “I’m not really a foot person, but I’ve just become very open to possibilities,” laughs Mackenroth. “If it’s a good piece of sheet cake, I’ll eat it off whatever you want.” Reversing the Stigmas For all the talk of fists, feet and food, Dietrich and Mackenroth have a much bigger purpose in mind with JACK’DOLF Smut Factory, one that hits home for both of them. “We stand on a platform of sex positivity. It’s been one of the blessings about being in porn—learning about your own sexual inclinations,” says Dietrich. “I get messages all the time from people who just love that I embrace my sexuality in such a public, piggy way, and I want to keep promoting that. I think it’s really important for people to just be proud of what they are. Be a proud pig. So we’re going to share that. It’s not a big deal to us.” Not only do they strive to become one of the top gay, pansexual and fetish studios in the world, they also want to give back to their community. “That’s a huge part of our platform and what we stand for, as two people with a disability in the LGBTQ world. We both suffer from depression and anxiety, so it’s something that we reach out to support a lot. I know I do; I think Jack might wear it a little bit closer to his sleeve,” shares Dietrich. “It’s really important that people know we’re real people, and we can share our foibles with them and just talk to our fans like that.” He adds that the two continue to support HIV causes and promote U=U. “I’ve been involved in that campaign, and I know Jack has done a shit ton of work to represent that. We want to really reverse the stigma, so those are really important causes—and so are anti-bullying and anti-body shaming. We were both given a voice right now, so it’s something that I don’t want to take lightly—especially for all of the people in Middle America or small towns who don’t have the same options for help that people who live in big cities like New York have. So it’s something I want to make really sure I stand up for. After all this time in the industry, it’s definitely our duty.” Adds Mackenroth: “I’ve been like the HIV poster child since I was 18, so of course I’m on board with that.” And with the coronavirus forcing many people to cope with new levels of depression, that message has become more important that ever. “It was a terrible year, let’s face it. It’s almost over, we’re happy about that,” says Dietrich. “I personally went through some things. Both of my parents died and I went through a divorce—amicable—and I sort of was dealing with all that…I started moving out to California for most of the period of the pandemic, and I was terribly unhappy there, so I moved back to New York and ended up meeting Jack.” Together, the two managed to make the most out of what was going on in the world. “In a weird way, it’s been frustrating but also perfect timing, because it’s letting us get all our ducks in a row,” Mackenroth reflects. “And his wheels are always spinning on what kind of scene to do.” And that has been the best medicine for Dietrich. “It’s been really exciting to be creative again during the times of COVID. When you’re a creative person and you just become stagnant for whatever reason, whether you’re out of work or you’re just not being creative because you’re down and you suffer from depression and anxiety like we do—and we talk about that a lot on our social media—it can be really difficult. It can be like lifting a mountain up to try to be creative. “So when you get the opportunity and you meet somebody else you can vibe off of and just start being creative again, it’s just like a rebirth. And the skills that Jack has, I lack—like his being able to be a contractor and tile wall is just crazy to me! I could never do that,” laughs Dietrich. Without missing a beat, Mackenroth quickly has the final word. “I’m the butch one.” Follow Dolf on Twitter at @DolfDietrich, Jack at @jackmackenroth, and the JACK’DOLF Smut Factory at @JDSmutFactory.