The Entertament Indtry Is Gay for Pay. But Is That Bad?

Contents:

• THE STARS WHO WENT GAY FOR PAY
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
• WHY STRAIGHT MEN ARE GOG ‘GAY FOR PAY’ ON MERA
• GAY-FOR-PAY: STRAIGHT MEN AND THE MAKG OF GAY PORNOGRAPHY
• EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN
• GAY MEN USED TO EARN LS THAN STRAIGHT MEN; NOW THEY EARN MORE
• THE ENTERTAMENT INDTRY IS GAY FOR PAY. BUT IS THAT BAD?
• RUSSIA: GAY-PAY-OO

THE STARS WHO WENT GAY FOR PAY

Footnote 1 He was also named as the send most searched for gay porn star Pornhub’s 2017 “Year Review” annual analytics report (beaten to the top spot by relative new-er William Seed, also a Men exclive)Footnote 2 and was the 2017 recipient of Str8UpGayPorn’s Bt Gay-4-Pay Performer award. Through reflectn, I arrive at the ncln that the time was right for an agg twk performer to be hened-up by a transn to bareback; siar transns of which have bee wispread across the gay porn landspe the years that have ticked over sce the 2015 Johnny Rapid Go Bareback event and our prent day (see Brennan, 2020a)—due to the wispread mastreamg of bareback mercial gay porn, which has been buoyed no small part by advancements HIV preventn technologi.

Johnny Rapid’s bareback but served as the lnch event for Bromo; a se that shared a parent pany (MdGeek) wh Sean Cody and Men, the latter two s that 2018 held the distctn of beg the first and send most equented sourc of gay porn on the web, rpectively (Brennan, 2018). I observe that while Rapid’s first-time bareback performance is marketed as a up for viewers, the general nsens among Str8UpGayPorn’s rearship is more my readg of the disurse will show, the largt proportn of those mentg on the mpaign exprsed a cidly negative viewpot.

Especially as this trend relat to the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback Barebackg CoupAnalysis of viewer receptivens to the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback mpaign offers particular sights to the functn of ‘bareback event marketg, ’ and wh the impact that the movement towards a “state of ndomlsns” (Brennan, 2020a, 131) gay porn has had on dience expectatns around what nstut a newsworthy performance—together wh dience views on the ethics of ndomls promotn self. Jt as the 2010s hered the equent prentatns of acts that would have been nsired extreme pornography a earlier—such as anal creampi—on s that are generally nsired “vanilla” gay porn (Kiss Nielsen & Kiss, 2015, 132), Morris has himself been forced to gravate towards more extreme portrayals orr to mata his radil reputatn. This hook is employed pecially by gay-for-pay (see Mercer, 2011) s such as Broke Straight Boys and Ba B, together wh virgal twk properti such as Boys First Time (which is among Rapid’s first creds).

GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER

The novelty of the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback mpaign, therefore, through the prentatn of a sue of scen pictg a prolific, yet still young, gay-for-pay performer beg perated ‘raw, ’ and perhaps ‘seed’ for the first time on screen. ” (see Florênc, 2018) Also, as John Mercer (2017) not, the “first time” vice is “one of the key disurs of youth that is summoned up gay porn, ” (89) which is an unrstandg of the genre that helps expla the stg of Rapid for this particular re of passage.

WHY STRAIGHT MEN ARE GOG ‘GAY FOR PAY’ ON MERA

Consirg first the reactns to the news of Rapid’s bareback performance, the failure of Bromo to stir up tert—and for s tend msage to land wh Str8UpGayPorn rears—is surmised by two them; namely: bareback as self now mundane, and Rapid’s bareback but as dangero. ’” (C55) The more plited of the two them that emerged the wake of the announcement is the healthism 2: As DangeroOf urse, bareback sex was once the norm gay pornography—before the HIV/AIDS era—, and was mpaigns of another kd—namely for safer sex—that have created the opportuni for harsh judgement, even censure, here and more broadly. Weeks wr that sexual inti are “necsary fictns” (1995, 98) shaped by historil circumstanc: the spread of HIV wh Wtern gay and queer male muni of which is a se pot, and a circumstance om which we vised a “grammar for safer sex.

Footnote 21 We turn now to viewer asssment of the scen of Rapid’s barebackg but, such asssments that were thored the ments sectns of Str8UpGayPorn’s of the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback CampaignFour scen were released as part of the Johnny Rapid Go Bareback mpaign—one per week begng on Augt 6, 2015. It is a view that regniz the potential of the ter promotg certa sexual practic (see Rosenberger et al., 2011); but also, pots to the “risky bs” of a regrsive trajectory followg a perceived cle the threat of HIV—whereby “agast all good medil advice, ” the porn dtry is puttg profs ahead of muny health by “showg healthy lookg people engagg unhealthy behavr, ” and “sendg a bad msage, pecially to young gay men, ” for many of whom porn, is assumed, plays an important role their inty formatn. Not only do nfirm abundant e of pornography by gay men (also see Duggan & McCreary, 2004), but also, of the 20 participants who took part the study, three quarters of those terviewed attributed gay pornography as their primary means of learng about gay sex durg adolcence (Elr et al., 2015, 951) foregog viewer ment is ak to what Alex Carballo-Diéguez and José Bermeister (2004) found their paratively early ntent analysis of ments for and agast barebackg.

GAY-FOR-PAY: STRAIGHT MEN AND THE MAKG OF GAY PORNOGRAPHY

Mercer mak the pot that while a theme of homophobia may be seen to unrsre certa scenars—such as sex prison (and perhaps hazg and gay-for-pay narrative settgs as well)—, to label such scenars as homophobic is “far too simplistic and rctive to acunt for the relatively plex range of disurs at play. In addn to offensive signifieds that adjo the performers’ off-screen liv, one mentator also labels the men as probable racists, prumably le wh the whe-washed nature of much of gay porn:Footnote 33 “As much as I dislike both of their personali, and that they both might be potentially racist as well, I’m watchg this maly for Vadim. ” (56; also see Mercer, 2003, for a discsn of gay porn prototyp) A tailed discsn of Rapid and class would be worthwhile as part of a star study, somethg that is outsi the spe of the prent argument.

However, what n be gleamed om the disurse regardg class is that Rapid’s gay-for-pay porn inty, bed wh his reputed treatment of women, merg wh his “power bottom” performanc to create a distctly workg-class nstctn that was central to his narrative at the time. ” (C5) Yet the nsens seems to be that Rapid’s bareback but as an ‘event’ is the scene self together wh the promotnal imag that acpany are cricized as overly staged—“There’s some[thg] cidly unsexy about a group of guys stoppg to pose for the mera mid-fuck” (C14)—, unr erotic—“he’s the most borg and passnls gay porn performer I’ve ever seen, no matter how many dicks he n take at the same time. For Mark Kiss ( Nielsen & Kiss, 2015) the performance of “double anal peratns, ” and even “graphic cream pi, ” while once an ditor of “‘extreme’ gay pornography” and “relegated to shady, dim backrooms studs” such as TIM, “are now somewhat mon place; perhaps even yawn worthy to pecially jad gay porn nnoissrs.

EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN

” ( Nielsen & Kiss, 2015, 126) In other words, for many there is a sire for specific and personally-practised gay sex acts to be exaggerated follows that if bareback is sirable, or perhaps practised as part of a nsumer’s sex life—as recent advanc HIV preventative technologi have ma possible whout beg necsarily acts of ristance—then there is an expectatn that pornography will take this portrayal further.

In fact, Mercer (2017) nomat Rapid as one of three performers who typify “the specific physily and athetic of the boy-next-door and the sexy kid” (85) his monograph on gay porn, which serv to illtrate how Rapid, aged c25 at time of Mercer’s monograph, ntu to enjoy “kid”-oriented appreciatns, spe his age. I acknowledge that the reason Rapid’s reer survived while Lyons’ flounred and soon ceased is likely attributable to a number of factors—cludg a ntued fatuatn wh “straight-actg” performers over more gay-intifiable/effemate on such as Lyons and Lyons’ movement to watersports—erotic ure play—around the same time (an area of gay porn need of greater rearch).

As another study of me—to the bareback transns of the most popular sourc of gay porn (see Brennan, 2020a, 131)—reveals, 2010 falls jt shy of a number of high profile bareback adoptns that would e between the Lyons and Rapid buts: late 2011 (Sean Cody and Corb Fisher) and late 2013 (Lus Entertament and Next Door Studs). Those who objected to the practice on ethil grounds viewed as ak to celebry endorsements of potentially harmful practic (such as smokg or alhol nsumptn), th nnectg wh a health disurse that is pecially potent given the historilly-charged nnectn between the gay muny and HIV/AIDS.

GAY MEN USED TO EARN LS THAN STRAIGHT MEN; NOW THEY EARN MORE

Rather than rcg this to an example of reckls abandon—a posn wh s own pleasur —, I believe that unrstandg n be reached through ntextualizatn and acunt for the cultural formatns and practic that have bee embedd gay culture, and which were shaped by so-lled unsafe sexual practic of the past. Mowlaboc, for example, argued 2007—a time when risk bareback was perceived by gay men as much more real than is today—for the importance of a “fully ntextualized” (218) unrstandg of disurs on bareback—both the hedonistic eedoms felt by proponents and practners of , as well as the rhetoric of s tractors. ” (218)The succs—and srs—rema today  my native Atralia of other ‘event marketg’—the public service mpaigns particularly, such as the 1987 Natnal Advisory Commtee on AIDS’ Grim ReaperFootnote 39—that, my readg, bled gay men-as-origal-disease-rriers wh reapers strikg at the heart of everyday cizens—children clud.

THE ENTERTAMENT INDTRY IS GAY FOR PAY. BUT IS THAT BAD?

Ltle wonr, therefore, that the apparent vanquishg of HIV via pre- and post-exposure technologi has served as a rapture event; one that, but sign, keeps lser risks the shadow of public enemy number one—for gay men’s health and their standg the muny at large.

Rapid’s ntued populary at time of wrg (and ls so, but still popular, at time of publitn) is signifint bee bucks received wisdom on the reer trajectory of bottom twks—who tend to retire or fa to obscury by their mid-twenti, pecially when they reprent a certa workg classns (as opposed to performers like Brent Corrigan, whose dtry savvy and nnectedns wh gay culture has assured his ntued relevance). The perspectiv of this paper pot to how cultural shifts and prsur fluence and impact the directn of pornography, particularly gay pornography—as a reprentatn of what may be happeng sexual practic. As HIV and AIDS has bee more of a ‘chronic’ health ndn, and as meditns that seemgly prevent HIV have bee more available and popular, gay men may have re-claimed bareback sex as a sexual practice—certaly, gay pornography has [see, for example, my (Brennan, 2020a) discsn of the change-of-heart, return-to-beg-a-bareback-stud progrsn of dtry heavyweights like Michael Lus, of Lus Entertament (143–145)].

RUSSIA: GAY-PAY-OO

The prent article offers rears some sight to how the reer of a popular performer gay pornography ed ‘gog bareback’ as a means of (re)lnchg a new phase of his reer, particularly as he was begng to ‘age out’ of his ial porn inty as a ‘twk’ performer. Audience disurse and cril receptn of Rapid’s performance self proffer opn that is weighted toward the latter, as do a nsiratn of his reer trajectory the six years sce his bareback but—and his gay-for-pay stat.

Lookg beyond 2015, exampl of a revalized reer n be found Rapid’s leadg role ‘mastream’ gay porn parody films released the wake of his bareback turn—cludg parodi of PokémonFootnote 42 and Jt BieberFootnote 43 2016, and Pirat of the CaribbeanFootnote 44 and Jtice LeagueFootnote 45 2017, for example (for a readg of Rapid’s portrayal of the Flash the last of the parodi, see Brennan, 2020b, 279–281). In nyg the creampie  2015, was Rapid effectively ristg the “ejaculative evince of the vlence enacted by the phall” (Semerene, 2021, 202); and wh a val—pecially gay—mment to kship and a return-to-bareback practice among gay men; somethg shown the disappotment of those viewg the seri when their hope of beg privy to an pecially timate event by, arguably, the bt-known performer at that time fell short? Each time, however, Rapid has transned a mercially-viable manner that, if anythg, falls behd the momentum of bareback wh mercial gay porn; a momentum that accelerat all of viewg this ntent towards timaci— the receptivens to ejaculat pecially, and personal practic, possibly—more extreme.

’”David beme aware of the trend for heterosexuals to “go gay” for parts after he appeared LGBT-orientated supernatural soap Dante’s Cove 2004 and disvered he was the only “out” gay actor on set. ”Pl, most heterosexual porn foc on women’s bodi, wh the plethora of lbian scen performed by straight female actors seen as far ls some heterosexual gay porn stars, there’s also an element of cursy, David’s documentary n explore their sexualy while jtifyg as simply a way to earn money. ”He believ the genre’s populary suggts an “ternalised homophobia” the gay muny, where men who talk and act a feme manner are a also thks ’s surprisg bee the gay muny is always tryg to fight the stereotype that homosexual men are chasg straight men or tryg to “nvert” star Eddie Stone, a genue gay actor, says he was trigued at the opportuny to have sex wh straight men, but found was much the same as dog a scene wh another gay many of the heterosexual gay porn stars the documentary, he don’t believe any 100 per cent straight man would have sex wh another man on also thks the market is here to stay.