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

Contents:

• INSI NIGERIA'S SECRET GAY CLUB
• GOG BAREBACK: TIME AND AGG A GAY-FOR-PAY PORN CAREER
• ‘PUMPG’ IS DANGERO NEW FAD AMONG GAY MEN
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• BORN TO BOTTOM? REARCHERS REPORT BLOGIL CORRELATNS ANAL SEX ROLE GAY MEN

INSI NIGERIA'S SECRET GAY CLUB

"I love this place bee mak me feel at home" gatherg of members of the gay and lbian muny Lagos is held regularly, albe discreetly, but uld soon be vast majory of gay Nigerians may not be terted this kd of event but they still have to hi their sexualy this nservative already illegal, homosexualy is wily owned upon across Nigeria and has been the subject of several bills the Natnal Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibn) Bill specifilly outlaws same-sex also bans gathergs of homosexuals or any other support for gay clubs, anisatns, unns or amoro exprsns, whether secret or public. 'Repulsive'The bill has been passed by Nigeria's Senate - the hight chamber - and is now beg reviewed by the lower chamber, the Hoe of ptn, Rashidi Williams is one of Nigeria's few openly gay human rights activistsIf approved, will be sent to the print to sign to law, after which same-sex upl uld face up to 14 years Nigerian homosexuals pla that the stigma they face is already enough punishment for their way of (not his real name), a gay man livg Lagos, is outraged by the proposed law: "How do a ernment thk that sendg someone to prison would change his or her sexual orientatn?

However, some of the doctors say they hardly ever know the sexual orientatn of those they attend to bee is not a requirement for treatment and unsellg, and even if the patients were to reveal that they were homosexuals, would not affect the qualy of healthre lawmakers have nmned vlence agast homosexuals but this has done ltle to prevent the growg anxiety among those the bill would target as s likely adoptn, whatever form, ptn, If the bill is passed, same-sex upl uld face 14 years prisonMr Williams says some gay Nigerians may seek asylum untri where homosexual people are accepted, while others will have to go the gay club, spe the jovial atmosphere, there is heightened utn, and no-one is allowed to take any thought of beg intified as beg gay, lbian, bisexual or transgenr a untry where the public still turns to mob jtice hnts some that is a huge ncern for Richard (not his real name): "If you don't bee discreet and try to hi yourself, even the man on the street will want to also act on the bill bee has been passed. 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. 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).

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

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.

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.

‘PUMPG’ IS DANGERO NEW FAD AMONG GAY MEN

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. 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.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

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.

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.

BORN TO BOTTOM? REARCHERS REPORT BLOGIL CORRELATNS ANAL SEX ROLE GAY MEN

” (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. ” ( 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. 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.