Gog Bareback: Time and Agg a Gay-for-Pay Porn Career - PMC

Contents:

• GAY FOR PAY
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
• GAY-FOR-PAY: STRAIGHT MEN AND THE MAKG OF GAY PORNOGRAPHY
• DEFINITIONS FOR GAY FOR PAYGAY FOR PAY
• EX-GAY FOR PAY
• GAY
• TRANSLATNS FOR GAY+FOR+PAYGAY+·FOR+·PAY
• GAY FOR PAY ENGLISH DICTNARY
• EROTICIZG DPERATN: POVERTY GAY-FOR-PAY PORN

GAY FOR PAY

AbstractThis article explor a cril moment of gog bareback the reer of arguably the biggt gay porn performer of the 2010s, Johnny Rapid. Through this 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 terveng years between the 2015 Johnny Rapid Go Bareback event and the prent day, thanks no small part to advancements HIV preventn technologi.

Keywords: Agg, Bareback, Cultural studi, Gay-for-pay, Gay pornography, Johnny RapidIntroductnJohnny Rapid began his porn reer at the start of the 2010s as a h-faced 18-year-old, shootg scen wh Boys First Time and Bkake Boys before signg wh Men as an exclive and releasg his first scene November 2011. 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)2 and was the 2017 recipient of Str8UpGayPorn’s Bt Gay-4-Pay Performer award.

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

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 Rapid Go BarebackJohnny 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.

Coverage on Str8UpGayPornStr8UpGayPorn was selected partly for s pth verage of this particular mpaign, and partly for the notoriety of s creator, Zach Sire. Such fixated verage has fostered ndid ment cultur across Str8UpGayPorn that are ripe for analysis, reports of Rapid beg chief among the.

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.

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

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). The ‘hook’ the se of Bromo’s lnch (and Morris’ attempts at ntued relevance an era where ndomls gay porn is the norm once more) is to be able to make some claim that what viewers are seeg is new.

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. For example, one ment that lls for “real creampi” and “felchg” (the act of eatg a creampie), “bee regular barebackg has bee so mon gay porn now ’s almost borg.

” (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. 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.

DEFINITIONS FOR GAY FOR PAYGAY FOR PAY

As one mentator cril of the anti-bareback discsn surmis: “for 99% of ‘anti barebackg’ gay upl, ’s bee they don’t tst each other and themselv. A perhaps more nuanced view is that barebackg as a practice and (as of 2021) a now domant ndn of gay pornography, as nsumed and experienced the 21th century, is a se of creasg negotiatn and tst.

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.

EX-GAY FOR PAY

” (98) Whether we as dividuals and nstuted inti, and the gay porn dtry as producers of reprentatns of sexual practic, nform to or mise this grammar, seems, remas ntted terra. 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 lks the populary of barebackg gay pornography at the time—and mpaigns that promote (such as Johnny Rapid Go Bareback)—wh the glamoro advertisements of big tobac pani of yteryear.

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. (2007), for stance, fd ltle support for the rrelatn between the viewg of gay pornography and harmful sexual, such media effects arguments nnot be disunted outright.

The days of the gay porn dtry servg as a bastn of safer sex practic for a muny crisis (see Skee, 1997, 53) seem now to be long gone.

GAY

Two tweets stand out, where he stat: “I jt hate FAGS who like to n their mouth…no offence, ” and “I’m jt tired of all the bchy gay queens porn. ” (59) By mobilizg a “jolg” fantasy, the stud featur broke, “homophobic straight men” who are persuad by money to perform sexual acts wh each other. 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.

Scene 3 b an alleged misogynist (Rapid) wh a perceived homophobe (Black) a pairg that those mentg regnize as a meetg of ntroversi:One asshole gettg FUCKED by another how origal (C20)The only upg scene I’d be terted watchg featurg Vadim Black (don’t that make him sound like some chey vampire? (C29)32In 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: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. Readgs of Rapid as a misogynist and of Black as a homophobe have sights to offer wh regard to gay pornography and class, particularly wh rpect to gay-for-pay performers.

In analyzg the reer, for stance, of one of the biggt gay porn stars at the time (Jeff Stryker), Richard Dyer (1994) argu for the “wir social reference porn stars’ imag. ” (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.

TRANSLATNS FOR GAY+FOR+PAYGAY+·FOR+·PAY

Dpe the anal elasticy required for the act, which has been a fg feature of Rapid’s populary, on balance, Str8UpGayPorn mentators seem unimprsed. ” (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. Yet, I wish to suggt, such disappotment was symptomatic of the state of gay pornography at the time, and the expectatns of bareback specifilly.

GAY FOR PAY ENGLISH DICTNARY

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

The study Rosser was a part of, he explas, nclus that nsumers of gay porn seek out pornographi that “enhance or amplify what they enjoy dog. ” ( 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.