The grim tth of beg gay prison | Sadhbh Walshe | The Guardian

Contents:

• A 16-YEAR-OLD WENT TO A GAY BAR WH A FAKE I.D. AND THGS COULD’VE END TERRIBLY IF NOT FOR THIS DRAG QUEEN
• THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
• IS TROYE SIVAN’S ‘RH’ SEXY FUN OR GAY DETR?

A 16-YEAR-OLD WENT TO A GAY BAR WH A FAKE I.D. AND THGS COULD’VE END TERRIBLY IF NOT FOR THIS DRAG QUEEN

In 1984, when Calv Burde was awag sentencg for allegedly stabbg his gay lover to ath, the prosecutg attorney enuraged the jury his closg remarks to award Burde the ath penalty, rather than life prison, on the grounds that sendg a gay man to prison was ak to sendg a kid to a ndy store. His ath sentence was later overturned (mostly bee Burde's public fenr had slept through much of his trial), but the homophobic thkg – that prison is some kd of paradise for gay men – lgers realy of life prison for homosexuals and transgenr dividuals do not appear to reflect this myth. His acunt suggts that far om beg a paradise, prison for gay men n be a livg days of his first enterg prison, the 23-year-old Rodney claimed he was the victim of three separate sexual asslts, volvg five different mat.

The prison he was first sent to did actually have a separate tier for gay mat, but acrdg to Rodney, bee he did not "appear overly effemate" durg his classifitn, he was placed wh the general populatn; and bee was supposedly rare to have a gay person slip through the cracks of the system, his fellow mat took full advantage. It's difficult to asss how typil Rodney's prison experience is, but numero studi nducted by the Bure of Jtice Statistics, based on anonymo mate surveys, have shown that gay and transgenr mat are among the most targeted groups for sexual victimizatn.

THE GRIM TTH OF BEG GAY PRISON

Jt Detentn Internatnal (JDI), an anizatn whose aim is to eradite prison rape (pdf), is tryg to change has been workg wh the California Department of Correctns and Rehabilatn (CDCR) to tablish "sensive needs yards" (pdf), where gay, transgenr and other vulnerable mat n serve out their time safety.

Worst of all, though, the shame attached to the memori of those first tim marred how I would approach sex for was listeng to Years & Years’ new song “Sanctify, ” and seeg the band’s out gay sger Olly Alexanr talk about how the song was spired his sexual trysts wh straight men, that I realized that the feelgs are way more mon than people let on. Sure, I know all about gay guys havg sex wh straight guys, but felt reassurg to see him scribe the “sat and sner role” he embodied durg those experienc, and to hear the uncertaty and melancholy weaved to the than anythg though, was the repeated lyril mantra of “I won’t be ashamed.

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.

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

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). 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.

IS TROYE SIVAN’S ‘RH’ SEXY FUN OR GAY DETR?

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). 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.