Very Few People Say “No Wh”: Gay Men of Color and The Racial Polics of Dire - PMC

Contents:

• LARRY HAWORTH'S LIST: GAY PORN TUBE
• GAY DADDY PORN VIOS
• GAY YOUNG DICK PORN VIOS
• MIKE WHE AND ‘THE WHE LOT’ STARS BREAK DOWN THAT JAW-DROPPG TWIST: I WANT TO ‘MAKE GAY SEX TRANSGRSIVE AGA’
• WHE TWK WANTED THE BBC DADDY GAY PORN | GAYBOYSTUBE
• INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD
• VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
• WHE GAY MEN ARE HRG OUR PROGRS AS A QUEER COMMUNY

LARRY HAWORTH'S LIST: GAY PORN TUBE

I didn’t realize then that this is what they ll sexual time, whether the digni happened a schoolyard, gay bar or fetish club, they blend together a toxic stew, and wasn’t long before I shied away om datg altogether, like so many queer people of lor do to avoid racial fetishism or hatred. Read allRnn of six short films havg homosexualy as theme: "The Absolutn of Anthony", by Dean Slotar, pictg a 16-year-old boy livg wh a Catholic grandfather Bronx; "Smear", by Sam Zalutsky, tellg the story of a boy who is love wh a straight iend; "Front Room", by Pierre Yv Clou, an experimental short showg a gay physil relatnship; "Fairy... To do so, we brgg together the sexual fields perspective wh the growg lerature on sexual racism, an act of eher sexually excludg non-wh as potential partners or cludg racial mori as sexual partners based only on racial several scholars have noted, ntemporary gay life is marked by high levels of racism directed towards gay men of lor by gay whe men, wh much of the racism maniftg self as negative sexual attus towards, and sexual excln or fetishizatn of, non-whe men (Armstrong 2002; Bébé 2001; Epste 1996; McBri 2005; Tenunis, 2007).

Dpe gay whe men’s sistence that sexual excln was not racism but rather personal preference, and that the personal preferenc have nothg to do wh racism, Collanr and his lleagu (2015) found that attus toward sexual excln were related to almost every intified factor associated wh racist attus general. Th, sexual racism should be unrstood not as personal preference, but as “problematic ndns that stcture the very formatn of romantic relatnships” that is neher benign nor trivial (Bedi 2015: 998) the ia of sexual racism has been wily discsed the popular prs, and amic studi have also documented the racial hierarchy of sire the gay muny, there have been fewer attempts to systematilly exame how such racialized hierarchi of sire are unrstood by gay men of lor and, more importantly, the impact the racial hierarchi have on them. Wh any sexual field, some dividual e to be seen as more sirable than other dividuals pendg on the tras that they posss that are valued by the specific sexual field which they discsg gay sexual fields, Green (2008; 2011) intifi a number of potential tras that fluence the level of sirabily that any given dividual might posss.

In fact, sire for whens has been noted by a number of scholars examg race and racism the gay muny (Callanr, Holt and Newman 2016; Han 2007; Robson 2015; McBri 2005; Tnis 2007) other characteristics intified by Green, such as clothg or mculary, whens is a central anizg prciple the gay muny (Bébé 2001; Han 2007).

GAY DADDY PORN VIOS

In promotg equaly through the normalizatn of (homo)sexualy at the expense of “non-gay” issu, gay anizatns such as The Human Rights Campaign promote a monolhic image of the “gay muny, ” as beg rich, nservative, and whe (Bébé 2001; Phelan 2001; Seidman 2002; Walters 2014).

As Peter Jackson (2000: 184) not:When sirabily is lked wh race, and when certa rac are ascribed greater erotic tert than others, then to be a member of an “unsexy” ethnic group is to be equated wh an ferr form of importantly, unlike other markers of sirabily among gay men that Green discs, such as amount of body hair, mculary, cloth, etc., race is an entirely ascribed stat, not an achieved one. I ed to have a 10-foot area around me and people would avoid me, I uldn’t believe while mculary may be the sired tra a “mcle bar, ” the lived realy for gay men of lor is that their attempts to velop or acquire the currency of sire wh those specific gay spac, or sexual fields, is negated by their race. While still utilized by a number of ntemporary scholars to exame racialized sexual stereotyp of black men and women (Buggs 2017; Stevenson 1994; Yancey 2002), the ncept of sexual racism has been particularly eful examg sexual excln of gay men of lor as potential sexual partners, as well as for examg the sexual objectifitn of gay men of lor, by gay whe men.

Th rather than a way of simply listg their preference for whe men, onle s for seekg sexual partners have lved to venu for gay whe men to volize their racist sexual racism is more than simply excludg members of a racial group as potential sexual partners or objectifyg them as sexual others even when they are sired. While some are overt such as statements such as “no fats, no femm, no Asians, ” on onle datg apps, teractnal sexual racism also clus more subtle actns such as bars changg mic or enforcg drs s to lim the number of men of lor or gay whe men “warng” other whe men to avoid certa clubs based on the race of the clientele. As the thors’ note, the racialized preferenc seem to be the rult of larger stctur of power and racialized beliefs rather than personal addn, sexual racism is also implited the creatn and matenance of gay sexual fields as “whe spac, ” further margalizg gay men of lor.

GAY YOUNG DICK PORN VIOS

Given the fdgs, applyg a sexual racism lens to the sexual fields approach provis wh an opportuny to explore the ways that sexual fields are actively created and mataed by members of a domant group orr to create hierarchi of sexual AND METHODSData for this study me om 35 terviews nducted between December 2005 and Augt 2006 wh gay men of lor durg the ial velopment phase of the Ethnic Mory Men’s Study.

More importantly, “whens” the gay muny has bee more central wh the past rather than ls as the “gay rights” movement has e to creasgly rely on whens to normalize queer relatnships (Walters 2014) analyzed the data g a modified ground theory approach as outled by Corb and Strss (1990). In terms of sexual sir, we found four large them, (1) the unrstandg of whens as universally sirable, (2) ways that gay men of lor negotiated racialized sexual spac, (3) impacts on gay men of lor due to sexual racism, and (4) how they attempted to nont sexual prentg the rults, we were guid by two prcipals to ensure that quot reprented both the breadth and pth of our them.

MIKE WHE AND ‘THE WHE LOT’ STARS BREAK DOWN THAT JAW-DROPPG TWIST: I WANT TO ‘MAKE GAY SEX TRANSGRSIVE AGA’

For example, one gay Asian man who grew up Phoenix, where he was one of only five Asians his school, had this to say about his first experienc the gay muny:And at the time, the fashn was, “the fashn, ” meang not jt clothg but the whole, the public taste the gay world, and the kd of what was en vogue then, was this very whe, preppy, Ralph Lren image. After scribg the gay muny as beg unwelg to gay black man, one black man had this to say about the type of black man that might be better accepted by gay whe men:Now if you happen to be a big black mascule guy wh maybe a big black dick then yeah, maybe they maybe more acceptg, maybe might like you or whatever.

Unfortunately, even when gay men of lor managed to fulfil gay whe racial fantasi, they found themselv disrd when the fetish was of Sexual Racism on Gay Men of ColorAs discsed above, the sexual field is not a ntral playg field where dividual preferenc terme who is valued and who is not. For example, when asked to expand on why he felt unwele at gay bars, one gay black man stated:If you’re a black, if you’re a black gay man and you’re out, you’re out of the closet, you, you don’t feel accepted by the whe gay muny bee for the most part, whe men are to whe men. The tenncy to avoid Wt Hollywood was found across all racial groups and relatively wispread, leadg to further alienatn for gay men of the centraly of race to the way that they are treated wh the gay muny, gay men of lor spent a signifint amount of time thkg about sexual racism the gay muny.

Ironilly, many of the men discsed how they were different om other gay men of lor wh some argug that they have a difficult time fdg sexual partners bee they did not f the stereotype for their negative experienc of gay men of lor wh sexual racism placed gay men of lor a difficult posn terms of datg.

WHE TWK WANTED THE BBC DADDY GAY PORN | GAYBOYSTUBE

(017L)What’s tertg is that both men quoted above amed their movement away om what they perceived was the “gay muny” by first discsg the ways that the “gay muny” was not necsarily welg of gay men of, even when their own sexual sir were directed toward whe men, some men saw chang among younger men of lor. In terms of race, the very way that the sexual marketplace for gay men is anized offers gay men of lor wh few opportuni for fdg sexual partners the same way that larger beliefs about race lim opportuni for people of lor orr to exame the role that race plays gay sir, we examed the sexual fields perspective through the lens of sexual racism, particularly that offered by Orne (2017). 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.

INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD

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. 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). 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.

VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE

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. ’” (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. 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.

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

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.

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. ” (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.

WHE GAY MEN ARE HRG OUR PROGRS AS A QUEER COMMUNY

” ( 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).