Moved to California from New York to get away from the snow. Tried to get into porn at age 17 but was turned away. At 18, he didn't like the way he looked. In 1988 he did a photo shoot for Advocate Men and then Jim Steele remembered him and got him into his first video: The Rites of Fall. Stine's first scene there did not go well in his estimate: nerves and cold set. Performed in a burlesque show that appeared at The Show Palace in New York. Although hirsute himself, he preferred smooth chested men. When fellow performers would say that there was some sex act that they didn't do because they were straight, Stine would tell the director that that was what he wanted to do with the guy, and he made them enjoy it.