(GAY) Gay-for-pay porn article in "Details" magazine
teva...@earthlink.net
1) Vince Rockland had a nervous breakdown?? First I've heard of it.
2) Mark Slade has retired? First I've heard of it (and I talk to the guy).
3) All right: $5 to the first person who can ferret out "Jake's" identity.
Shouldn't be hard, with all the clues. In fact, he's probably fucked his
career again with the admission that his latest gay-friendly attitude is
just a pack of lies.
4) Why does this article read like Susan Faludi's piece in "The New Yorker"
way back in 1996?
Tim
PS: I don't know if "Details" has a Web site, so I just typed this in.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Gay-for-Pay"
Details Magazine
December 2002
BYLINE: Deanna Kizis
December 2002 -- Jake's a nice, normal guy from Colorado. Has a girlfriend.
Has a baby. Has a high-paying career. Of course, the career involves giving
blowjobs and taking it in the ass, so that's kind of a drag. He's a
straight man who makes gay-porn films, and there are more men like him than
you'll ever imagine. So many, in fact, that the industry has a term for
them: gay-for-pay. Nobody said the working world was going to be easy.
Jake is a talkative 25-year-old who uses words like "dang" and always holds
the door open for women. He's lived his whole life in the same Colorado
suburb.
He walks with a swagger that matches his Eminem wardrobe -- oversize
hoodie, navy nylon warm-up pants, Adidas visor pulled down low on his
forehead, mint Adidas sneakers. He's six-foot-two, weighs 225 pounds when
he can go to the gym every day, 200 when he can't. Girls go for his green
eyes, perfect teeth, and freshly cut, spiked brown hair. These days,
though, he spends most nights at his girlfriend's apartment helping take
care of their daughter, a pink-cheeked baby whose picture he keeps on his
keychain.
His girlfriend, whom Jake describes as "pretty possessive," gets pissed
when other women stare at him. This comes up as he and I stride through
Hops, a chain brewpub that was his favorite place until a hostess started
looking at him a little too much for his girlfriend's taste. As we walk
toward our table, I worry the girlfriend will spot Jake's car in the
parking lot, assume we're having an affair, and kick my ass. She'd be right
to suspect that he's hiding something -- but it's not what she might
imagine. We're just here to talk about Jake's secret career in gay porn.
It all started shortly after high school. Jake hadn't applied to college
and didn't have any special skills that would lead to a good job. The
carpentry work he fell into, installing banisters, didn't particularly
thrill him. "You can either work a 10-hour day trying to get two rails up
or a four-hour day to get one rail up," he says. "I was like, 'screw this.'
Four hours works for me." He did enjoy clubbing, and one night while he was
dancing, he realized that people liked what they saw. "I'd get enough
attention where I started thinking, "'God, you know, maybe I should check
into actually dancing for a living,'" he says.
So Jake looked in the phone book and came across an ad for a company called
Strips to Please. "I went to check it out, and the guy asked me to get
naked right in his office, to see what I looked like," he says. "So I did."
Duly impressed, the agent got Jake to pose for a spread in Playgirl, which
led to nude shoots for dozens of other magazines.
The agent also lined up a few dancing gigs at gay clubs. Jake wasn't
entirely comfortable with this -- he says he's "terrified to take my
clothes off in the men's locker room" -- but he was even more afraid of
dropping trou in front of women. Besides, strippers in gay clubs make
better tips. "I was making so much money, I felt like, 'This is so
awesome!'" he says. "All my friends loved going out to the V.I.P. rooms
with me after work because I'd shell out all the money I'd just made,
buying champagne. I felt like a god." The extra income helped with girls,
too -- Jake says he got laid all the time.
But there was a catch. From the moment Jake started stripping, his agent
began pushing him to make a porn film. And not any old porn, either.
According to the agent, the real money was in gay porn, and to prove this
he flashed $25,000 four-movie contracts before Jake's eyes. That was more
than Jake could earn in a year of banisters, and it made the dollar bills
tossed on the stage at strip clubs seem like chump change. "To a
19-year-old, that's dang good money," he says. "I started seeing toys in my
mind, like, Ahhh, I could get this, and I could get that."
Jake grew up with expensive playthings and ready cash. His parents split
shortly after he was born, and from then on he was shuttled between the
modest townhouse owned by his mother -- a police officer -- and his
father's nine-bedroom lakeside home. Dad started dealing cocaine after the
divorce, and business was booming: He had two speed-boats, a yacht, a
fishing boat, a ski boat, a fleet of sports cars, big-screen TVs, dirt
bikes, and a Nintendo. There was always a fat wad of cash in the dresser
drawers, and Jake used to give 100-dollar bills to the older kids so they'd
hang out at his house and make him look cool. It was heaven, until the Feds
broke the door down and sent Dad to prison.
Jake never forgot that big house, and everything he's done since seems to
be put through a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it will provide
the lifestyle to which he was once accustomed. (He quit his high-school
soccer team in disgust after it dawned on him that soccer pros don't make
the kind of money football and baseball players do.) Even so, when his
agent first waved the contract under his nose, Jake had two words for him:
Hell no. But the agent kept up the pressure, and soon the modeling and
dancing gigs petered out. "He'd say nothing was coming in for me, but 'Oh,
we have this movie deal!'"
Facing what seemed to be increasingly limited prospects; Jake finally
agreed to make a gay-porn video. The set was a Los Angeles backyard pool,
convenient since Jake was sweating profusely and could jump in the water
between takes. "It was nerve-racking," he says. "Scary. Humiliating.
Degrading."
But the money was excellent.
This was the first of 12 gay-porn movies Jake has made over the past six
years. In the first year alone, he says, he pulled in around $70,000
between movie contracts and stripping. (Thanks to his video fame, the
dancing offers started rolling in again.) But in his haste to tell me how
well he was doing, Jake fast-forwards past the subject of that first shoot.
Sorry to be so blunt, I interrupt, but exactly what did he have to do?
"Suck and get sucked," he says with a smirk. "Sorry to be so blunt."
Jake goes by two names. For this article, he'd like me to use his first
name only -- his first porn name -- and not reveal his real name. Both his
girlfriend and his dad, with whom he shares a house, know that Jake
sometimes works as a stripper in gay clubs. Neither of them knows that he
earns most of his income making gay-porn videos -- with all that entails,
from jack-off scenes to blowjobs to anal sex. (From the beginning, Jake
stipulated that he had to be a "top.")
The porn industry has a term for guys like Jake: gay-for-pay. According to
insiders, about 25 percent of the men in gay porn are said to be
heterosexual, including some of the biggest stars of the past decade --
Jeff Stryker, Ryan Idol, and Rex Chandler. Gay-for-pays have sex with men
for money and then go home to their girlfriends or wives. They manage to
maintain erections on-set, typically while dosed up on Viagra, but say they
aren't attracted to their male co-stars.
Because the industry is so freewheeling, it's impossible to tell how much
money is being made in gay porn, but it is big business. Aside from videos
and DVDs, there are countless Internet sites, magazines, and strip clubs
that pay stars a thousand and up for a single appearance. For straight men
who are young, handsome, built, and open-minded, the opportunities are
endless.
Naturally, heterosexual men who hear the call of the adult industry want to
work in straight porn, but they soon learn that on that side of the
business, a man is just a bitch. The woman is the object of desire, which
means she calls the shots and she makes the real cash. Jenna Jameson gets
up to $100,000 a movie; the average male actor would be lucky to get $500
and a blowjob. And since the women have almost total control over whom they
work with, they can easily run an actor out of the business if they choose.
Gay porn, on the other hand, starts at $1,000 per scene (that's one
cum-shot, to you); studio contracts can hit the high five figures. Plus
there are perks -- wining and dining by talent agents, hotel bills comp'ed
by the studio, and honors like Best Leather Scene at any of the industry's
several awards shows. Porn director Chi Chi LaRue explains, "It's really
hard to break into straight porno when you're a guy, because the girls
don't want to work with you unless you can get a boner fast so they can get
out of there, cash their check, and go buy new clothes. But in gay porn, if
you're beautiful and, like, fabulous, you can move right in. And we'll love
you."
The first thing anyone wants to know is whether gay-for-pays are actually
straight. For what it's worth, while reporting this story I've been
propositioned, leered at, and semi-stalked. After a gay-porn awards show, I
was invited on a threesome by two gay-for-pays who'd just won Best Sex
Scene (prompting one male fan standing nearby to look me over and snap,
"Put your jacket on, honey, and leave something for the rest of us!"). I've
met the girlfriends and seen the baby pictures. A number of men told me
stories just like Jake's, about agents who starved them into gay porn by
dangling a studio contract while claiming that the modeling offers were
drying up. But the truth is, only the guys themselves know if they're
really heterosexual.
Take Caesar.
Caesar's a beefy Mark Wahlberg type with several large tattoos who's long
been rumored to be gay-for-pay. I first met him two years ago on the set of
"Caesar's Hard Hat Gang Bang", in a cavernous, concrete soundstage in North
Hollywood. He introduced himself as "Just Caesar. Like Madonna." He was
co­starring with eight other models, as they are known in the business;
according to LaRue, the director, three were gay-for-pay and the other five
were just plain gay. All of them were dressed as construction workers, and
the set was littered with power tools, sawhorses, and two-by-fours. The
inventive logline was this: Caesar would make a delivery to a construction
site, where he'd be initiated into an anything-goes free-for-all. The video
would feature 25 minutes of oral, 40 minutes of anal, and about five
minutes of plot, characterization, and actual construction work, which
would explain why so few buildings are ever completed on time.
There was no script in sight. Instead LaRue, a pudgy and charismatic
Midwesterner known as Larry when he's not in drag, made the dialogue up as
they went along.
"If anybody has any dick going in their pants take it out!" he shouted. The
penis is a notoriously fickle cast member, and porn stars frantically play
with themselves between takes to stay in character. LaRue later told me
that to help his "straight boys get it up, he often supplies his sets with
issues of Hustler and straight-porn videos -- along with condoms, as per
industry standard. (Some directors provide Viagra and even syringes of the
drug Caverject -- the erection aid of last resort since it's injected
directly into the penis.) "I was once on a set -- with a gay-for-pay who
had to call his girlfriend on a cellphone and have her talk dirty to him so
he could come," LaRue recalled. "Right before it happened, he threw the
phone out of the shot, so you would never suspect a thing!"
The more you explore the subject, though, the murkier it looks. "A lot of
people say if you are a man who engages in sex with other men, you're
either gay or bisexual or in denial, and I think that's nonsense," says
Martin Weinberg, a sociologist at the University of Indiana and a former
senior researcher at the Kinsey Institute. Weinberg points to studies of
truck drivers who have sex with men on the road but don't consider
themselves gay.
To these lonely souls, a furtive liaison in the cab of an 18-wheeler is a
matter of convenience, not identity. Weinberg suggests that the same is
true of men who take lovers in prison.
For his part, Caesar's sick of the whole damn topic. "People are going to
believe what they want to believe, no matter what I say," he says. It's
like everyone's second job or something -- trying to pick out the gay boys."
Until a few years ago, heterosexuality was a major selling point in gay
porn, and certain stars such as Ryan Idol and Vince Rockland were packaged
as gay-for-pay. Rockland -- who, with his brothers Hal and Shane made up a
kind of gay-for-pay triple-threat -- often played straight characters, too,
delivering lines like: "I'm not going to suck your cock! I'm not a fag."
The fantasy, says porn reviewer Mickey Skee, was that the straight guy you
always wanted (or, in the Rocklands' case, the straight family) was
suddenly attainable.
But lately, things are different. Caesar's new lifestyle may be a purely
personal development, but it also reflects an industry-wide trend. Suddenly
it's not so cool to be hetero. Some of the biggest agents in gay porn
denied to me that any of their clients were straight.
"The public doesn't want to hear a guy is gay-for-pay anymore," Skee
explains. "The day of conquering the straight man is over, so agents tell
their clients to say that they're 'just sexual.' I liken it to mainstream
Hollywood publicists who tell their clients not to come out of the closet
because it might hurt an actor's career." The most popular themes in porn
nowadays aren't about hot straight guys, Skee says; they're about gay
relationships, drug addiction, or cheating on a lover. "I think it's
because, with the newer drug cocktails, people who are HIV-positive are
living longer," he adds. "There was a time when people felt you had to live
for the moment, so they were screwing everything and anything. Now the gay
community is interested in seeing what long-term relationships are about."
This cultural shift goes beyond the triple-X world. From the major
newspapers that now allot gay couples space on the wedding pages to
Showtime's co-dependency-fluent "Queer as Folk," homosexual couplehood is
out of the closet.
"Okay, Jeremy," LaRue called out. "Stand next to Caesar and say 'You like
what you see?' Then Caesar, you say 'Are you going to fuck that guy?' And
then Jeremy, you say 'I think we're going to fuck you."' The actors did as
instructed. Then -- Caesar cheerfully dove into the middle of the group and
got on his knees.
"Cut!" LaRue yelled. "Caesar, you have to resist a little bit."
"Well, you told me to ... "
"I know, honey, I know, but you have to resist. You're playing a straight
guy and you're just curious at this point. Right now, you're like
'Woo-hoo!'"
During a break in shooting, Caesar strolled over to talk to me, wearing
nothing but a tool belt, a nipple-ring and tennis shoes. I asked whether he
considered himself gay, straight, or bi. Stroking himself vigorously, he
said he enjoys sex with men but falls in love only with women. Thus he was
"physically bisexual, emotionally straight. He was married to a woman named
Kaia, a waitress and the two were living in Chicago. He'd gotten his start
in porn through stripping and longed to be a professional dancer. "Next
week, I'm up for a part in a legit music video," he said. "God, I hope I
get it." With that, Caesar returned to the set, where his eight
impressively large co-stars hoisted him onto a plank supported by two
sawhorses and entered him in quick succession, like some twisted Busby
Berkeley number.
A few months ago, I called Caesar to see what was new. A lot, it seemed.
Since our last meeting, he'd won three gay-porn awards -- Best Performer at
the Grabbys, Best Newcomer at the GayVNs, Hottest Rising Star at the
Probies. He was still married but was now living in L.A. Oh, and he was no
longer physically bisexual and emotionally straight. "Since I met you I had
a boyfriend who lived with me and Kaia for a while, so I guess I've
progressed on that, too," Caesar said. "It just kind of happened. I've done
a bunch of interviews since then, and I make it very clear now that I'm
bisexual, not gay-for-pay."
That hasn't stopped anyone from debating the point. When I tell Jake about
Caesar's news, he says, "I know Caesar. He's just saying that so he can get
more business. I've done that, too."
Public skepticism about one's sexuality is an occupational hazard in this
line of work. "Let's be for real," says Gino Colbert, a director and
producer whose blockbusters include "Men in Blue," "Three Brothers," and
"John Wayne Babbitt, Uncut." "I never believe that gay-for-pays are totally
straight. They may have been straight when they walked onto the set, but
after doing a couple of scenes with another man, they're at least bisexual."
Jake, a latecomer to these developments, learned the new rules the hard
way. "When I started," he says, "I went around telling everybody how much I
hated having sex with men, and people got pissed off. All the production
companies would be talking about giving me a contract. But after one movie,
with me shooting my mouth off, they'd decide not to because, in my agent's
words, I was a dead fuck."
After Jake learned to fake it, the money poured in. While giving me a tour
of his home -- the ultimate guy's-guy pad -- Jake shows off his favorite
purchases. "I'm big into movies and I'm big into TVs," he says, pointing to
a 70-inch screen so enormous it's just plain stupid. "I've got the 50-inch
over in my girlfriend's apartment. It's got surround sound. The subwoofer's
mounted in the couch right here" -- he slaps the black leather -- "with the
smaller speakers mounted on the back." Here's a PlayStation 2 and another
stereo; over there are two autographed footballs from the Broncos encased
in Lucite ("You gotta be a Broncos fan," Jake says) and a life-size cut-out
of Pamela Anderson. On the walls hang a black-velvet painting of a tiger
and a giant canvas of a charging elephant painted by LeRoy Neiman.
Next, Jake leads me to the garage to show me his Jeep, which is equipped
with a snorkel so he can motor through roof-deep water. On dry land, he
drives a black Chevy Blazer or borrows his dad's Corvette. He had a "crotch
rocket" motorcycle, but he just sold it. "I did a movie once just so I
could buy a set of golf clubs," Jake says. "Brand-new Callaways that set me
back $2,200. I got myself hard because I knew once I got done doing that
movie I could buy the only clubs I wanted."
The problem is that aside from the paychecks, Jake seems to despise
everything about his profession. He hates the people ("Other gay-porn stars
find out what I make and say things like 'You're cute, honey, but I
wouldn't pay that much'"). He hates his lines ("'You want this big cock.
You love that. Yeah. Yeah. That feels so good ...' It's not very
creative"). Most of all, Jake hates starring with other straight actors.
"It makes it really difficult, because both of you are really worried the
other person will think, 'Well, maybe he really is gay, because he seems to
like doing this,'" he explains.
Plus, Jake's almost 26 -- ancient by gay-porn standards -- so the work
isn't coming in the way it used to. More ominously, his clandestine career
is starting to nag at him. He goes on sets sober, but after he wraps a film
he smokes stultifying amounts of pot to obliterate the memory. He no longer
likes to kiss his girlfriend, because when he does, he pictures all the men
he's kissed. And he can't stop worrying that she'll learn his secret. "I
always have it in the back of my head that if she finds out, it's over, and
she'll take the baby," he says. "But maybe that's not what would happen."
He shrugs. "I couldn't tell ya." Of course, Jake's state of mind isn't
helped by the knowledge that there are pictures floating all over
cyberspace that he'd have a hard time explaining.
The porn business takes its toll on its gay-for-pay stars. Vince Rockland,
for instance, suffered a nervous breakdown, brought on, he thinks, by
guilt. "At one point, I honestly believed that God was going to strike me
down for leading so many people into sin," he once told me. "I was just
crazy, crazy, crazy." Another straight star, Mark Slade, says that after
his family discovered what he did for a living they freaked out about
leaving him alone with his niece and nephew. Slade calls this "the most
painful moment of my life"; he's since left the business. Ryan Idol's
downfall was more literal; he fell from a fourth-floor window in 1998 while
preparing to star in a play about the industry. (He survived and is
currently orchestrating a comeback.)
Jake says he vows to quit the business "after every movie." Twice, he
actually did. For eight months he worked with his dad, now a mortgage
broker, but found it "too stressful." The other time was worse: "I worked
at this carpet company," he says. "Selling carpet? They told me I was going
make, like, $50,000 a year. Little did I know that was only if I sold a
shitload of carpet. I felt like the biggest schmuck on earth. So I called
my agent again, said I needed work real bad."
Now Jake's thinking about going back to work for his dad. He tells me this
while we're driving to Best Buy in his father's Corvette so he can pick up
the new Ludacris CD. Rap booms from the speaker as he speeds by Target, The
Great Indoors, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants. "Why not be a
senior broker, eventually?" he says, shifting into fifth even though we're
in a 35-mph zone. "In couple of years, if I make the kind of money I want,
I should be able to deal with the stress. My dad, this year, he cleared,
like, $200,000."
As we pull into the parking lot, Jake keeps talking about his plans. He's
had it with porn, he says. He has his baby girl to think of. And he's not
proud of his work: He hit a low point with his last film when he agreed,
for the first time, to be on the receiving end of the action. "I got a lot
more money because I've never bottomed, but it was really bad," he says.
"It was a bi movie, so there was a girl in the room and I really felt like
a fucking punk. And he was so huge."
At this moment, Jake spots a sports car parked at the end of the lot that's
so new, so fresh, so bright and shiny, it looks like its just been slapped.
"Oh my, what is that?" he asks, steering toward the silver ragtop. "I've
never seen one of those cars, not ever." He reads off the back, "Maserati.
Wow. That's pretty. Yes it is. I'm dying for something fast like that. All
you'd have to do is put the pedal down." He shakes his head. "Mmm."
Jake parks the Corvette and gets out. The Colorado weather, notorious for
changing its mind, is turning from balmy to black. "You know, I've had
friends say they wouldn't fuck another guy for a million bucks," Jake says.
"I'm like, 'You know what? For a million dollars you'd be up in that shit
for 24 hours straight. And you'd probably like it, too.'"
Nevertheless, he vows, he's leaving the business. He does want to work for
his dad, actually. It's time. But before he goes into the store, Jake looks
over his shoulder once more. "Dang," he says, whistling softly. "That's a
nice Maserati, though." -- Deanna Kizis
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joeblow69
news:rame.1038166802p23439@linux...
> The most interesting things about this article:
>
> 1) Vince Rockland had a nervous breakdown?? First I've heard of it.
>
> 2) Mark Slade has retired? First I've heard of it (and I talk to the
guy).
>
> 3) All right: $5 to the first person who can ferret out "Jake's"
identity.
> Shouldn't be hard, with all the clues. In fact, he's probably fucked his
> career again with the admission that his latest gay-friendly attitude is
> just a pack of lies.
Interesting article.... could Jake be Jake Armstrong?
>"It was a bi movie, so there was a girl in the room and I really felt like
>a fucking punk. And he was so huge."
He recently shot a bi flick and got fucked by Ken Ryker (who definately has
a HUGE dick).
Rogio
publications would cover the adult industry since their perspective is
less likely to be sugar coated marketing stuff which passes for
journalism at most adult oriented mags.
Jim Gunn
>PS: I don't know if "Details" has a Web site, so I just typed this in.
For the record, I'm only reading this [GAY] thread because Howard
Stern was talking about this article on his radio show recently, he
he. Somehow I doubt you are a rabid fan like I am Tim, but if you
care to hear his comments I can send you an MP3 :-)
It's kind of interesting- I've met at least one porn stud type who has
done a lot of gay porn and a bunch of straight porn with his wife, all
the while married with a wife and multiple kids. He insisted he was
and is 100% straight. It's kind of odd, but I guess that is the point
of the article.
More puzzling is that Tim would actually TYPE this long the article in
by hand if I take that sentence you wrote above at face value.
Assuming that the article isn't online, haven't you ever heard of a
scanner and OCR (optical character recognition)?! Crimony man, what a
drag!
It's funny- there is not really an analogous gay-for-pay phenomenon in
g/g porn, which is what I kind of specialize in. It certainly happens
but it's never mentioned much or marketed that way. Most of the girls
are actively bisexual or at least curious or open-minded and don't
have a big issue with doing some g/g scenes. Women's sexuality is
generally more fluid than men anyway, so I guess it's just not seen as
any big deal if a girl does some sex acts supposedly against her
nature. I personally find it kind of a thrill when I get some girls
who supposedly aren't bi to do g/g scenes, but I've never heard anyone
else express the same. Maybe I'm just a bit warped because I'm
constantly coaxing teen girls into eating pussy for the first time :-)
Jim Gunn
http://www.JimGunn.com
Jim...@REMOVEJimGunn.com
Peter North Fan
Frank Towers aka Ted Hunter)....!!
Some recent details on this hunk please!!!
And from what I've read, he has given up gayporn and now occasionally
appears in just straight stuff under the Ted Hunter moniker....seems
mostly to be for Mitch Spinnelli in those "White Cotton Panty"
videos..
"teva...@earthlink.net" <teva...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<rame.1038166802p23439@linux>...
> The most interesting things about this article:
>
> 1) Vince Rockland had a nervous breakdown?? First I've heard of it.
>
> 2) Mark Slade has retired? First I've heard of it (and I talk to the guy).
>
>
>
>
>
teva...@earthlink.net
>> On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 18:34:41 EDT, "teva...@earthlink.net"
>> <teva...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> PS: I don't know if "Details" has a Web site, so I just typed this in.
>
> done a lot of gay porn and a bunch of straight porn with his wife, all
> the while married with a wife and multiple kids. He insisted he was
> and is 100% straight. It's kind of odd, but I guess that is the point
> of the article.
Most scholars of sexuality argue that there are about 45 or 50 different
aspects to sexual orientation. Only one is genital sexual attraction
(e.g., what most people think of as "sex"). With this matrix of aspects --
each one of which has an infinte number of points along the scale of 0 (no
attraction) to 10 (complete attraction) -- it's easy to see that there
aren't just three sexualities (gay, straight, bi), but an infinite variety.
Of course, holding that model of sexuality in one's head is impossible.
Human beings just can't do that. Human beings simplify, and one of the
most common models used is the gay-bi-straight continuum. That doesn't
allow for what's commonly known as straight-trade (guys who consider
themselves heterosexual but have sex with men).
There is, however, another thing to consider here. Society's general
homophobic attitude easily transforms otherwise libertine, sex-positive
people into self-loathing homophobes. (Michel Foucault, call your office.)
One of the great judgment calls people make in their lives is whether the
straight-trade guy who wants to fuck your mouth is really straight-trade or
if he's just a fucked-up bisexual or gay boy who can't bring himself to
admit the "horrible" truth about himself.
Much of the argument in gay porn, I think, goes that these guys in gay porn
are just fucked-up gay or bi boys.
> More puzzling is that Tim would actually TYPE this long the article in
> by hand if I take that sentence you wrote above at face value.
> Assuming that the article isn't online, haven't you ever heard of a
> scanner and OCR (optical character recognition)?! Crimony man, what a
> drag!
100 wpm, Jim. 100 wpm. And according to the male strippers here in DC,
the best hands on the East Coast. :)
> It's funny- there is not really an analogous gay-for-pay phenomenon in
> g/g porn, which is what I kind of specialize in. It certainly happens
> but it's never mentioned much or marketed that way. Most of the girls
> are actively bisexual or at least curious or open-minded and don't
> have a big issue with doing some g/g scenes. Women's sexuality is
> generally more fluid than men anyway, so I guess it's just not seen as
> any big deal if a girl does some sex acts supposedly against her
> nature. I personally find it kind of a thrill when I get some girls
> who supposedly aren't bi to do g/g scenes, but I've never heard anyone
> else express the same. Maybe I'm just a bit warped because I'm
> constantly coaxing teen girls into eating pussy for the first time :-)
Well, let me toss out a hypothesis (and play a little devil's advocate
here):
Part of the "reason" for women to "exist" is that they are "there to be
fucked." (No, I'm not going to pull a Patrick Riley "women are there to
procreate" rant! :) ) Men fuck; women are fucked. As the S&M fetishists
know, sex is often about power. It's about who's fucking who. Men
re-establish their "power" and "role" in society (sic) by fucking women.
The "normal order of things" is re-established, re-affirmed, re-negotiated
-- especially in this post-feminist, Susan Faludi-esque landscape. Hence,
straight porn flourishes as women are shown to be "just objects" for men to
fuck. Straight porn flourishes as women are "forced" to do things that
they don't want to do (such as swallow cum, take cum on their face, get
fucked in the ass, get gang-banged, be slutty...oh, and yes, eat pussy.)
Indeed, straight porn thrives as much on the breaking of taboos (sex for
pleasure, "dirty" sex, anal sex, etc.) as it does the reinforcement of them
(men rule, women don't*). Break the taboos too much, and there's no thrill
any more. (So you need to search for new taboos to break -- rape, S&M,
etc. Which is why porn slides ever-downward into the abyss of
near-misogyny.) Reinforce the taboo -- men rule, women don't -- and you
keep the thrill. It may be unstated, but the reason (IMHO) why there is so
much g/g action in straight porn is that it breaks the taboo of
homosexuality but reinforces the taboo of "men rule" (e.g., the man running
the porn film "forces" the girls to break the taboo). Marketing a
"lez-for-pay" idea would miss the whole point.
In gay porn, there aren't any social norms to break. Gay relationships and
gay sex are outside the norm, by definition. There aren't
socially-supported and reinforced gay social institutions or gay social
norms for gay men to break. The thrill of gay sex IS gay sex -- not that
one gay man tops or another bottoms. (Indeed, the gay sexual revolution
was built primarily on the rule that everyone should do everything; to
paraphrase St. Paul, "In gay sex, there is no top, no bottom, no straight
or trade." :) ) The invisible is visible; the "love that dare not speak
its name" comes out shouting as it exits the closet. But there are
lingering side-effects from the closet just the same. The gay porn
purchasing audience (as compared to the renting audience) is much older,
much wealthier, more obese -- and prone to suffer lingering feelings of
self-loathing -- than the gay community at large. This older generation
drives how gay porn is made. (Ask any gay porn retailer the average age of
their customers purchasing videos. "60" is a pretty common response.) So
not only does the typical gay porn star look like a pre-pubescent little
boy (with a more-than-man-sized cock between his legs), but he's straight.
He's the high man on the status pole (e.g., NOT gay). He's the guy who
used to beat you up in the 7th grade. He's the guy who sneered, "You throw
like a GIRL!" during dodge-ball. He's the guy who played football, was
voted prom king, and whom your parents said you should be more like. He's
the straight man. The man society approves of. The man society lauds.
The man society lavishes praise on. And if you can only just get him to
show you a LITTLE BIT of approval -- just a TINY bit of patronizing,
condescending, loathsome approval -- then all will be right with the world.
You won't be the hated faggot any more. You'll be part of the "in" crowd.
The golden boy not only will have approved of you, accepted you (in a tiny,
teeny, miniscule way). BUT -- the golden (straight) boy will have done so
in the most powerful way possible: Sexually. He would have come down from
his sexual Olympus (for sex is what divides "us" from "them") and touched
the sniveling, wimpy, weak queer with his golden penis. The chasm of
sexuality between straight and gay would have been bridged. Even as the
straight-trade man spits venom ("you like that big cock, huh faggot?") and
degrades you ("want this big fuck-pole to split you in two, queer? you
wanna choke on this huge horse-cock of mine?"), he accepts you. (Negative
attention is better than no attention at all.) And in accepting the gay
man, the straight-trade man is placed even higher on the pedestal than he
was before. So it is no small wonder that gay porn goes to great lengths
to market performers as straight. (In fact, many gay models lie to the
public in interviews, claiming to be straight when they are not. The goal
is to promote a public image of heterosexuality in order to play off that
self-loathing but revering attitude among gay porn's purchasing public.)
I realize this is a pitiful overstatement. To say the least! But there's
the grain of truth in this.
Tim
* -- I fully recognize that in the REAL world of porn, behind the scenes,
women rule. Women turn men down. Women are paid more, much more. Women
only do what they want; men rarely get to say "no" to a sex act. But on
screen, men rule. Women never turn men down. Men get off. Men get
serviced. Men don't get degraded, women do.
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mj_lewis
"teva...@earthlink.net" <teva...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> 1) Vince Rockland had a nervous breakdown?? First I've heard of it.
I thought that was Hal Rockland.
>
> 2) Mark Slade has retired? First I've heard of it (and I talk to the guy).
>
Not my type at all.
> 3) All right: $5 to the first person who can ferret out "Jake's" identity.
> Shouldn't be hard, with all the clues. In fact, he's probably fucked his
> career again with the admission that his latest gay-friendly attitude is
> just a pack of lies.
Jake Armstrong? I don't know that I've every actually seen him in
anything, but all the clues seem to fit. Who did he bottom for? Can't
have been Ken Ryker, can it? I haven't seen Mass Appeal, but that would
seem to fit the description -- if so, I hope the boy got enough for his
Maserati. What a first time that must have been.
>
> 4) Why does this article read like Susan Faludi's piece in "The New Yorker"
> way back in 1996?
I have no idea.
MJ
Thom Burr
You know, you interview two/five/ten people, then you create one
synthetic "interview" that incorporates all the elements of the real
people that you personally think are relevant and interesting (or at
least, in support of your agenda). Think, like, Bob Woodward and Deep
Throat (the classic case). Not the best way to do journalism, but
Details is only marginally journalistic. And, when there is no other
way to write a story, this tech will work--without being overly
dishonest. You're telling the story true, but you don't have to waste
your time with, er, details.
Somehow I've always kinda figured that a massive chunk (heh, I just
wrote "massive chunk" in a gay thread) of the gay porn guys were het.
I don't go for the whole "THEY'RE REALLY BI!!!" thing. No, they want
money. (How many girls in lez vids are actually homosexually
oriented?..._None_. The question is ridiculous on its face. "Close
your eyes, and it all feels them same." I can't help but draw a
comparison. Obviously, gay vids are far more genuine, but still..) The
Powertool (from what I've read) was not even vaguely interested in
men, and was arrogant enough that he'd never bottom (so I read,
because I've never seen one of these videos, because I am completely
heterosexual, and am not one iota gay, and while it's not like there's
anything wrong with it, it's just that I'm not at all gay--hey, Tim,
I'm just having fun with you here, because I know how much you love
the standard I'm-not-gay speech)...
Oddly enough, Julian (yeah, him) might have said it best in one his
recent interviews, when he was commenting on--and now, this is my
interpretation of what he was saying--how hypersexualized men can come
to become aroused by ANYTHING. Did you hear of the guy they arrested
recently fucking a watermelon in his front yard? Is he a vegosexual?
Uh, no. Anybody who knows anything about the dynamics of prison sex
knows that sexual orientation is not exactly stable for everyone. Any
guy pumped on testosterone can fuck anything. Personally, I could fuck
a snake, if someone could hold it straight for me. Which is not to say
I'd ever do so, because I still need at least a little of my sanity to
get through the day. But no, really. Emotionally het, even if they do
some gay-for-pay. Old story.
Some people will do quite literally anything for money. Some people
won't. I'm not so surprised to find many of the former group in gay
porn.
P.S. Chichi's real name is "Larry"? I think I'm going to vomit.
Jim Gunn
wrote:
> (How many girls in lez vids are actually homosexually
>oriented?..._None_. The question is ridiculous on its face.
If by this you meant that no female porn stars are actually lesbians,
I would almost be inclined to agree. But there are a LOT of truly
bisexual girls in porn, of that there is no question.
Jim Gunn
http://www.JimGunn.com
Jim...@REMOVEJimGunn.com
teva...@earthlink.net
>
> The article has the feel of a composite.
The inside scoop is that it was supposed to be about Caesar. But then once
the writer got to know him, he announced he was bisexual and not straight
and there was no article. So she cast about for a new person to write
about, and came up with Jake Armstrong (yes, it's about him).
There's always been a certain criticism of journalism that says that
journalists aren't really interested in the truth. They just pick
"outliers" -- the wacky, the weird, the non-typic -- in order to make their
case. It's like when there's an article about kicking dogs. No one
condones kicking dogs, but in order to maintain the appearance of fairness
the reporter will go find some wacked-out nut-case from the National
Society for Promoting Dog-Kicking and let them present their views as if
those views were legitimate and mainstream.
You see this all the time in journalism. Run an article about hate-crime
legislation, and the journalist dredges the Rev. Fred Phelps out of the
muck to present the "opposing view." Run an article about how the Catholic
Church must begin admitting married people, and the views of the
pro-fascist American Society of the Defense of Tradition, Family and
Property (which promotes a return to Catholic patriarchy as a form of civil
and social government) will be touted as a "legitimate" alternative
viewpoint. Run an article on how workers are suing asbestos producers for
medical problems, and the article will feature a spokesperson from Consumer
Alert telling the public how asbestos isn't so bad (what a great-sounding
name!...only, Consumer Alert is funded by the asbestos industry and claims
that asbestos is completely harmless!).
Run an article about porn in hotel rooms -- a billion-dollar business
heartily fought over by various hotel chains -- and the article will trot
out a right-wing goofball like the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the American Family
Association (who makes wild claims about Americans hating porn, when they
consume more porn than Hollywood movies).
> The Powertool (from what I've read) was not even vaguely interested in
> men, and was arrogant enough that he'd never bottom [...]
Arrogant? ABSOLUTELY.
But not interested in men? One has to remember that Jeff Stryker was
discovered stripping in a gay bar. Before he got his head full of fame
(post-"Powertool"), the word was that he was gay. But he's not terribly
stupid. He realized he could make more money playing off the self-loathing
aspect of gay culture and playing straight (or "sexually amorphous") than
by playing gay. So he did it -- and it's worked. The guy hasn't made a
decent movie since the early 1990s, but he's still considered one of gay
porn's biggest stars. How, I don't know.
> Anybody who knows anything about the dynamics of prison sex
> knows that sexual orientation is not exactly stable for everyone.
Yeah, but none of the guys in gay porn are in prison.
Tim
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Johnny1290
shoot one day for a gay porn stud that had just gotten a big contract. The
photog was gay. The stud was like, what, you think I'm gay?? I have 2 kids
and a girlfriend at home, I'm not gay! Anyway the guy backed her against a
wall and started grabbing on her and stuff( I believe her, she was pretty upset
when she told me just after it happened). Then the guy ended up jacking off
for the photos, and asking her for her number after it was all over. She
didn't go on many photo shoots after that.
Thanks for typing in the article, it was a great read. 100 wpm or not, it was
nice of you to bother doing it.
Johnny
<< "teva...@earthlink.net"
>> <teva...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> PS: I don't know if "Details" has a Web site, so I just typed this in.
>
> It's kind of interesting- I've met at least one porn stud type who has
> done a lot of gay porn and a bunch of straight porn with his wife, all
> the while married with a wife and multiple kids. He insisted he was
> and is 100% straight. It's kind of odd, but I guess that is the point
> of the article. >><BR><BR>
Seeker
a str8 guy bottmin for the first time on camera (or maybe ever) & not
show his face most of the time? Why don't so many porn directors
learn that the only reason to see cute guys bottom is to see what they
look like doing it? There were a few good seconds of footage, but
overall Jim Steel's direction sucks.
Jake Armstrong does look like the guy in the Details photo shoot whose
face was obscured, so it seems pretty certain it's him. Thanks to
the posters for the info.
Torris Bin Drinken
>On Wed, 27 Nov 2002 21:57:01 EDT, thom...@yahoo.com (Thom Burr)
>wrote:
>
>> (How many girls in lez vids are actually homosexually
>>oriented?..._None_. The question is ridiculous on its face.
>
>If by this you meant that no female porn stars are actually lesbians,
>I would almost be inclined to agree. But there are a LOT of truly
>bisexual girls in porn, of that there is no question.
You mean there isn't a modern equivalent of Barbara Dare? Who was
obvioiusly much more into fucking girls than men in porn
Torris