Don’t act gay when acting in gay porn?

July 3, 2010 10:42 AM

(NSFW) Don’t act gay when acting in gay porn? Escort/exotic dancer Devon Hunter describes his experience signing up to “act” in gay porn for Sean Cody, a label specializing in young, trim, hairless guys. But hey – don’t act gay while you’re having gay sex! “ ‘So you guys don’t like gay guys, then?’ ‘No! No, it’s not that. It’s just that straight guys sell better.’ [...N]ow I was suddenly suspicious that I was being paired with [performer Fuller] so that I could be ‘the lucky gay guy’ to bottom for such a hot, straight stud.” It’s only one side of the story, of course, and manifestly NSFW.
posted by joeclark (122 comments total)

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
posted by Trochanter at 10:43 AM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

[...N]ow I was suddenly suspicious that I was being paired with [performer Fuller] so that I could be ‘the lucky gay guy’ to bottom for such a hot, straight stud.

Oh you poor, poor thing.
posted by rokusan at 10:52 AM on July 3, 2010 [7 favorites]

He is a friend of mine. He is one of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I have ever known. From what I have heard him say about SC, he could have been much less diplomatic.
posted by munchingzombie at 10:54 AM on July 3, 2010 [8 favorites]

This is a great article that is unfortunately blue text on a black background. However, does anyone have a link to that bookmarklet that makes things readable? Readalizer? Readifier? Something like that?
posted by griphus at 10:58 AM on July 3, 2010

Griphus: Readability.
posted by everichon at 11:00 AM on July 3, 2010

I think the secret to acting straight during gay porn is to pretend you are wearing Dockers and black socks.
posted by helmutdog at 11:02 AM on July 3, 2010 [15 favorites]

Durr: READABILITY.
posted by everichon at 11:03 AM on July 3, 2010 [11 favorites]

I'm certainly no expert but I would suspect that the same rules carry over for most girl/girl features too.

But perhaps they just know their market well and it caters to a very mainstream gay fantasy construct.

Again, not an expert but that's what I take away from it.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:07 AM on July 3, 2010

Many years ago I purchased the least expensive newspaper out of a row of news boxes while waiting for an airline shuttle bus. Once I began reading I discovered that I'd bought some sort of swingers' paper. One thing that surprised me was the number of classified ads under "Men Seeking Men" that specified "No fems" (or some variation of the phrase). At that time the few gay men I knew were very flamboyant, and it surprised me that so many gay men apparently found that unappealing. Or were those particular classified ads some sort of underground advertisement for men to star in films of the sort described in the OP?
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:10 AM on July 3, 2010

Fascinating. It had honestly never occurred to me that there would be coaching not to "act gay" during gay porn filming sessions. I mean, I haven't seen many porn films with a lot of really fey actors, but I assumed that's because guys don't really act all that fey during the fucking. (At least, not in my experience). But the whole "gay for pay" thing is illuminating. That they'd work THAT hard to create the illusion of someone being involved in man-to-man sex when he's really not that into it, simply because of that guy's look or whatever... Surely there's a whole raft of gay men who could fit the type who could keep a hardon for the fucking, or whatever.

Anyway, this isn't the kind of porn that I tend to watch. But it's a fascinating window into that world. Thanks for posting.
posted by hippybear at 11:13 AM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you want to get a bit of context and history on gay porn idols, you should absolutely check out Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon. You can stream it on Netflix - and I highly recommend it. The film goes from the beginnings of screen pornos in the 60's, and explores the entangled history of straight and gay porn - did you know that Jack Wrangler at one point was the top gay and also the top straight porno actor? A very interesting guy whose life since he retried from the business has gotten even stranger. Anyhow, check it out streaming on Netflix, you won't regret it.
posted by VikingSword at 11:24 AM on July 3, 2010 [12 favorites]

Fascinating.
posted by flotson at 11:27 AM on July 3, 2010

I think there's gotta be a ton of gay actors appearing in straight porn too.
There seem to be a lot of chiseled, hairless adonises having mechanical, passionless, workmanlike sex without much foreplay in a lot of pornos. And they seem to have a predilection for anal sex as well.

This of course could very possibly just be how mainstream porno is (the lack of passion, etc) but it seems like if you're just looking for a paycheck and you're one of those lucky few that can maintain an erection in front of a camera and cum 23 times a day then it's not exactly outside of the realm of human possibility that you might end up saying "money is money and a hole is a hole."
posted by Senor Cardgage at 11:28 AM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hippybear, that misses the point of having a verifiable omgstraight dude in you video!

The only reason this whole story surprises me is that in our sex-positive queer culture we like to imagine that we're all looking out for each other. The reality is far darker and more complicated than that.
posted by hermitosis at 11:30 AM on July 3, 2010 [7 favorites]

This whole thing makes me so sad.

I'm sure it's related to one of the responses I get when I act on my quixotic desires to ask people in online games to stop calling things gay: "oh but I have a gay friend that calls stuff gay, even other gay guys he doesn't like."

Seriously, I've seen that response more than once. I'm pretty sure all those guys are the ones buying this stuff.

So much sad.
posted by kavasa at 11:31 AM on July 3, 2010

Now reading part 2 of this series. Also fascinating. Gay men who are into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex: what's the attraction? (I've noticed this on craigslist too--gay men soliciting straight guys. . .)
posted by flotson at 11:32 AM on July 3, 2010

This is similar to the Savage Love guy going berserk on "straight-appearing straight-acting" language in gay single advertisements. He did it very well.
posted by bukvich at 11:34 AM on July 3, 2010

that misses the point of having a verifiable omgstraight dude in you video

No... the point of porn is to watch people fuck. Actors can pretend to be whatever they need to be to build the fantasy for the viewer. If you want to see videos of verifiable omgstraight dudes having gay sex, then they need to show the inability to maintain an erection, they need to see the guy having his eyes closed as he fucks and hear him muttering "Jennifer, oh yeah, that's hot"* under his breath, they need to see all the actual things that having gay sex with a straight guy entails. It's FANTASY, after all. Otherwise, you just end up with situations like that Newsweek column about how Sean Hayes can't play straight because he's gay, only in reverse. Which is sickening and self-hating and wrong.

*an actual moment which happened during one session during my "seduce the straight guy" phase many years ago
posted by hippybear at 11:40 AM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

This whole thing makes me so sad ... so much sad.

Seriously? Of all the things things happening right now you heart is bleeding for a blogger who has to put up with shitty blow jobs from straight men with smoker's breath?

Interesting article, but FFS, dial down the white-gay-man-in-jeopardy freak out.
posted by dontjumplarry at 11:43 AM on July 3, 2010

This is only surprising, fascinating, sad, etc. if you believe that:
a) gay men are homogeneous;
b) the gay/straight binary choice on offer in N. American culture is the only option possible.
c) your choice of sexual partners determines your self identity.
Whatever happened to Kinsey's sliding scale of sexual preference?
posted by binturong at 11:44 AM on July 3, 2010 [13 favorites]

flotson: "Gay men who are into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex: what's the attraction?"

I am not a gay man into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex, but I presume it is a power thing. You establish that your need to stick your dick where you want to stick it is more important than the needs of the object you decide to stick it in. It is conveyed in a way that is safer and less intense (less likely to lead to self loathing) than a straight up rape fantasy. Many people find this sort of power / humiliation subtext arousing. Straight porn often uses the same sort of narrative, less visibly since women are assumed by the standard cultural narrative not to be sexually interested. Since men are presumed interested, the twist of "but he's straight" recreates that gendered tension / pseudo-rape scenario.
posted by idiopath at 11:46 AM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Gay men who are into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex: what's the attraction?

There's probably more than one reason. But for example, there's the old one that works for both the straight and gay world: seducing the seemingly uptight "why, I'd never" icon - a matter of subversion. That's what gets you the fetish for the hot nun sex, or uptight teacher in glasses, or any number of figures who are otherwise unapproachable. If you can seduce them, it takes them off their pedestal, and put a lie to their official line. Plus the frisson of the forbidden fruit etc.
posted by VikingSword at 11:51 AM on July 3, 2010 [8 favorites]

I've always thought it's because a lot of gay men grow up secretly hating their own gayness and desire to have hot gay sex but minus whatever it is about themselves they dislike.
posted by Avenger at 11:54 AM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Edmund White talks a bit about a shared culture of gay guys hunting down elusively straight guys (circa 1960) quite a bit in his autobiography "My Lives":

When we were alone among ourselves we formed a secret society of flamboyant maenads in hot pursuit of an Orpheus to devour. We wanted a real man, a heterosexual man, but if he ever reciprocated our blandishments then he'd lose his virility and become as compromised as we were. A real man had to be primitive, angry, not too intelligent and, in conversation, a bit ludicrous, whereas we queens were clever but as sterile as eunuchs.

I didn't believe all these things, not yet, maybe I never would, but I understood that such was their view of the world.

And just prior to that, discussing his dissatisfaction with this schema:

I manifested enthusiasm, though for me the scenario was suddenly all wrong. I wanted him to stare into my eyes and sip kisses from my lips and hold me tightly and tell me he loved me while down there our genitals would do something ecstatic and nonspecific. And I wanted him to admire me, admire my soul and my very existence, since even unattractive people (especially the unattractive) harbor dreams of finally being loved not for their attributes but for their essence. In love I was an essentialist.

"Want me to flex?" he asked.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:55 AM on July 3, 2010 [24 favorites]

Seriously? Of all the things things happening right now you heart is bleeding for a blogger who has to put up with shitty blow jobs from straight men with smoker's breath?

Interesting article, but FFS, dial down the white-gay-man-in-jeopardy freak out.

Seriously? We are still espousing the notion that if thing A makes one sad or is deserving of compasion, then completely unrelated thing B can't also make one sad or be deserving of similar levels of compasion? Or the even more tired notion of a minimum threshold of suffering is needed before an emotional response is engendered?

Seriously. These attitudes do NOTHING to gain a greater appreciation of or create a more powerful call-to-action for your "My Tragedy Example Is Bigger Than Your Tragedy Example" events.

It's perfectly possible to feel compassion for multiple situations. It's less of a "white-gay-man-in-jeopardy freak out" (nice way to throw down the race card, by the way), and more of a "I'm a human being with empathy who is capable of feeling strongly about many different things" statement.

Seriously.
posted by quakerjono at 11:55 AM on July 3, 2010 [38 favorites]

Gay men who are into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex: what's the attraction?

Two words: forbidden fruit.

I think idiopath may be beanplating there.

I dunno, I find the whole 'straight men having gay sex' genre of porn kind of headscratching. The idea is pretty hot, but the execution is often poor. I mean.. if I'm going to be watching porn, I want to see people who are actually, y'know, enjoying themselves. Or at least doing a convincing impression of it. So much gay porn these days seems to be about hate and anger and degradation, and not in the fun way.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:00 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

So much gay porn these days seems to be about hate and anger and degradation, and not in the fun way.

That seems to be true of most porn in general, not just gay.
posted by hippybear at 12:03 PM on July 3, 2010 [11 favorites]

Of the men I've known, none have been stereotypically gay. Really, they're just regular guys who happen to be into other guys. The few "flamers" I've known seem to have emerged from a culture that was desperate to assert their identity.
posted by SPrintF at 12:06 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

I remember reading a quote from (I believe) Quentin Crisp that said something to the effect that he was only attracted to very masculine men, and if they were attracted to him they became less desirable.
posted by deadmessenger at 12:12 PM on July 3, 2010

I find the whole 'straight men having gay sex' genre of porn kind of headscratching.

Could that be because gay and straight are rather artificial constructs given far more weight than they can support? It's like the post a few days ago about whether oral sex is really sex. I don't really understand why it is so important to people to box themselves in with labels. Both "gay" and "straight" men comprise a huge diversity of individuals and it is a bit silly to say "gays are like this and straights are like that." Human sexual behaviour is more plastic than social strictures allow.
posted by binturong at 12:16 PM on July 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

OK, I've watched quite a few different types of porn, gay, straight, and bi. But I totally must confess my ignorance about this "straight/gay porn" thing. I mean, if two guys are having sex, that's pretty gay, right? No? I really don't understand. I mean, I understand that under a variety of circumstances, two guys that are straight can end up having sex with each other, and that the people involved are straight and having sex for whatever reason; availability or experimentation or to be in a movie for pay or whatever. It's the porn part I don't get. How do two guys having sex "look" or "act" straight? I think a guy blowing another guy looks pretty gay, even if he has a deep voice and doesn't use flamboyant hand gestures.

Maybe I would have to watch this type porn to understand what's being discussed here, but the description of the whole thing by the actor was so depressing that I think it would probably be a turn-off and if I'm going to watch a video of guys having sex with each other, I'd prefer to not be depressed and turned off by it.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:19 PM on July 3, 2010

Seriously? Of all the things things happening right now you heart is bleeding for a blogger who has to put up with shitty blow jobs from straight men with smoker's breath?

Yes, yes it is. My heart is also out for the guy stuck staring at accounts receivable spreadsheets knowing he'll never have the balls to be a porn star, or an engineer, or an astronaut. And also for the homeless man on the city street knowing he'll probably never work again, much less have an office job. And for the kid in the third world country knowing he'll never be in a city.

I have a whole lot of heart and I'll feel for whoever I damn well please, and so long as I'd rather not get a shitty blow job, I'll feel for Mr. Hunter.

Now if you'll excuse me, this soapbox is making my feet hurt.
posted by griphus at 12:19 PM on July 3, 2010 [13 favorites]

It's less of a "white-gay-man-in-jeopardy freak out" (nice way to throw down the race card, by the way), and more of a "I'm a human being with empathy who is capable of feeling strongly about many different things" statement.

Of course we can and should feel empathy about many different issues.

However, in my experience, at least from where I'm sitting -- squarely within the white gay urban middle class community -- white gay urban middle class issues often get pushed to the top of the queue, ahead of much more important issues. It also tends to happen on MeFi; see the interminable discussions about 'gay'-meaning-'lame'. I'm just fucking tired of the way that rich white gay men's identity politics come first like that. My friend's Facebook walls are always an echo-chamber of outrage and hundred-thousand-person-petitions when a B&B owner refuses entry to a gay couple or a homophobic slur is printed by a right-wing tabloid. That's great. It needs our attention. But it shouldn't get the lion's share of our attention, when, uh, I don't know, there are 40 million people dying of hunger each year due to largely preventable causes. At the risk of Godwinning, here's my analogy. We're all living in the township of Oswiecim in 1944. There's an almost unthinkable crime going on just under our noses. And all the town council keeps debating is how teenagers keep using "gay" to mean "lame", and how the local Polish gay boys have to endure shitty blow jobs from straight men (or whatever the 1944 equivalent nothing issues are).

On the race card issue: I certainly am throwing down the race card. Rich white people care, first and foremost, about rich white people. Even where it's a pissweak nothing issue as in the posted article.
posted by dontjumplarry at 12:21 PM on July 3, 2010 [6 favorites]

Have I mentioned yet that they fucked my hair up? OMG, maybe I’m too gay afterall, but don’t fuck with a bitch’s weave! GOD!

Ha, genius.
posted by dammitjim at 12:23 PM on July 3, 2010

I'm sorry, but I can't even begin to try to imagine what it would be like to coach someone "Please try not to be so gay when you're screwing that dildo up your ass" and try to keep a straight (sorry!) face.

Oh, and since someone mentioned lesbian porn and acting straight in them upthread: I don't know if this is unusual, but I (heterosexual male) love Abby Winters' (NSFW) stuff and movies like The Crash Pad (NSFW) which feature women seriously going at it, with no men required or desired. It's a bigger turn-on for me to see people enjoying themselves than acting out someone else's fantasy.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 12:27 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Goddamit, clean your plate. There are children starving in India!"
posted by ericb at 12:30 PM on July 3, 2010

Three freaking cheers for binturong.
posted by Poppa Bear at 12:31 PM on July 3, 2010

Even where it's a pissweak nothing issue as in the posted article.

For all the "blinkered" and "self-centered" accusations, you seem to treat this in a kind of blinkered way too. I'm not gay, and yet I find the issues brought up by that article worth thinking about.

When you link to an article - as you did - about people starving in Africa, does your thought process start and stop at "what can I do right now to feed them"? Or are you allowed to explore the bigger issue of how such conditions arise and fester and what does that say about our civilization and the way it is organized? Maybe if we can address the root causes, then we can prevent future emergencies such as you link to - instead of only focusing on the immediate and running like a beheaded chicken from one crisis to another. Thinking about the big picture is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

So too here. We are discussing this not to bemoan the fate of the guy getting bad blow jobs from straight guys. We are discussing this to understand the broader issues that have to do with gender and sex roles and the society at large. Because if you are paying attention, gay people today are deprived of their civil rights in large part due to the kind of modeling and societal projection that's infecting the whole world. The world, where in some parts of it they murder anyone who happens to be gay.

I am sorry you cannot see the broader context, but then that's where metafilter is pretty democratic - we get to see things in as many perspectives as the participants bring to the discussion. Maybe you too can benefit?
posted by VikingSword at 12:34 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

dontjumplarry: It also tends to happen on MeFi; see the interminable discussions about 'gay'-meaning-'lame'. I'm just fucking tired of the way that rich white gay men's identity politics come first like that.

"Lame" is another word that, when used as an insult, degrades an entire group of people, don't jump larry.

It must be awful to have people discussing issues that are important to them when they're not *nearly* as important as the issues *you* find important.

And yes, you did fall off of the are-you-kidding-me-with-this-Godwin cliff, with almost no effort at all, it seems.
posted by tzikeh at 12:38 PM on July 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

I think a guy blowing another guy looks pretty gay, even if he has a deep voice and doesn't use flamboyant hand gestures.

That's how it looks to me, too, but that may be because I am so far removed from (for lack of a better term) gay culture. I am not parsing out the more fine-grained details that make one kind of male-male blowjob extra gay, and another one only kind of gay.

That said, at the same time I do understand. I can imagine a situation in which I might need to perform MSM sexual acts -- giving a guy a blowjob, say -- but I'd be doing it as a straight guy. For me, identity matters more, and actions are contextual; for a lot of people, it's the actions that matter, and identity follows from the actions.

It's like -- if a closeted gay guy got married, had sex with his wife, fathered children, etc, does that somehow magically make him not-gay? Of course not -- he's just a gay guy who is performing some heterosexual actions.
posted by Forktine at 12:40 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

dontjumplarry: I think you're kind of missing the point. People can care about the hate language while still thinking about starving children in Africa, or whatever. Most gay people I know, because of their own background being an oppressed minority, are hyperaware of the second-class status of many other groups, and work hard to make sure that they address the world in ways which doesn't add to the oppression of groups which aren't white, middle class, or urban. They understand what it means to be stereotyped and marginalized, and seek not to engage in the same behavior they have fought against.

It's the same kind of rhetoric I hear a lot about the Obama administration. "How can he possibly be working on cause X when there is policy Y to worry about"? But people are capable of doing many things at once, on parallel tracks of attention, and because one concern may be foremost at a given moment doesn't mean that other concerns are not on back burners soon to be given their own moment to be stirred, or whatever.

Frankly, I think that it somehow boils down to something akin to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where those issues which strike closest to home are the ones which attract the most attention of individuals, who can expand their circle of attention once the urgency immediately before them has been handled, or at least seems to be moving toward resolution.

If your attention is focussed elsewhere, that's great. But don't begrudge those who are fighting different fights. There's enough wrong with the world that we can afford to have people with differing foci, and ultimately we all win because many things are being addressed at once on many levels.
posted by hippybear at 12:42 PM on July 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

The world, where in some parts of it they murder anyone who happens to be gay.

Or, possibly sentencing them to death or life imprisonment for being gay.

Uganda Considers Death Sentence for Gay Sex in Bill Before Parliament --"Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda's parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a 'person of authority' over the other partner, or if the 'victim' is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty."


A U.S. Church and Its "Kill the Gays" Partner in Uganda‎ -- "A Nevada megachurch is supporting and standing by a leading advocate of Uganda's most infamous legislation."

posted by ericb at 12:45 PM on July 3, 2010

One of the more fascinating things I've seen in porn is the Corbin Fisher series of straight boy-on-girl videos targeted for the gay male audience. As a straight guy, I think they are actually pretty good videos, but you notice immediately that the director's focus is more on the guy than the girl. It's not blatant, but if you're used to porn intended for a straight male audience, you can tell something is different almost immediately. The male actors appear in the producer's gay videos too. Initially I guessed that the "straight" videos served to establish the actors as straight so as to lend authenticity to the fantasy in the gay videos. But maybe it's not that complicated.
posted by mullacc at 12:49 PM on July 3, 2010

Also dontjumplarry, no one is forcing you to read, comment on, or care about these issues.
posted by hermitosis at 12:53 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

You're damn right I'm playing the race card, Timmy. Now you'll clean your plate of all of those beans or I swear to God daddy will start reading from this Human Rights Watch precis on the School of the Americas. You think I won't? "As recently as 1999, Colombian government investigators gathered compelling evidence that..." THAT'S RIGHT! FUCK IRA GLASS! I DECIDE WHAT IS NEWSWORTHY IN THIS HOUSE. Stop crying, honey.
posted by kid ichorous at 12:56 PM on July 3, 2010 [7 favorites]

I'm just amazed that straight men doing gay porn/gay men doing straight porn don't bust out laughing more often. It really is a testament to their professionalism, or to that of the editors.

I mean maybe they do, and I haven't seen it. I know it happens a lot in girl on girl "lesbian" porn - perhaps giggling during sex is more acceptable in that case.

It definitely happens in real life, both to men and women, who find themselves in intimate situations with someone who doesn't have the preferred bits:

"Oh yeah, oh that feels so *snert* HAHAHAHAHA.... mmmmmm...yeah...HEH... God you're sexy pffffffffff HA ... I'm sorry, baby... it's just that HA ... No, I'm into it.. it's just I'm ....HAHAHA *snert* I'm GAY, honey HAHAHAHA, I'm sorry, it's just not gonna work PFFffffhahaha"
posted by louche mustachio at 12:57 PM on July 3, 2010

ericb: ""Goddamit, clean your plate. There are children starving in India!""

Goddamit, clean overthink your beanplate. There are children starving people watching Fox News in Indiana!
posted by idiopath at 12:58 PM on July 3, 2010

Forktine, we are in agreement about straight folk being able to have sex with straight folk of the same sex, and that that sort of thing happens all the time. It's the porn aspect of it that I don't get. How is it supposed to look straight?

Or to paraphrase you, what I'm curious about is what makes make one kind of male-male blowjob extra gay, and another one only kind of gay. At least, from a porn-watching perspective.

But not curious enough to watch the movie that the article's author was in, because it seemed kind of miserable.
posted by Cookiebastard at 1:00 PM on July 3, 2010

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:02 PM on July 3, 2010

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

Anecdotally, I've never met one. That is, I've never met a straight man that had a fantasy of having sex with a lesbian. One of my best friends is lesbian, and part of the reason we are such good friends is that there is precisely zero sexual interest either way between us.Sure, lots of guys want to add another women to the mix, or with two bisexual women at the same time, but sleeping with just one women is sleeping with just one woman, regardless of her orientation.

I've never met a straight guy that got turned on by the idea of 'turning' a lesbian, though I've definitely met lots of gay guys that got turned on by the idea of 'turning' a straight dude. Not sure why that is.
posted by modernnomad at 1:21 PM on July 3, 2010

I'll echo dnab's comment, above. It doesn't really require much more than "forbidden fruit" to explain why gay men might be attracted to straight men.

I mean, we're attracted to what we're attracted to. You can pathologize anyone's sexual fantasies pretty easily. It doesn't take much effort to cast it as some sort of weirdness, but I tend to avoid that.

Personally, I dig watching handsome guys who are really into each other - kissing, screwing, cuddling, etc. It's a real turn-on. I'm not all that attracted to the hyper-flamboyant mannerisms stereotypical of flaming gays, though. But neither am I attracted to the hypermasculine mannerisms of extremely butch straight guys, either. I don't find guys in drag to be all that enticing, but neither do I find guys in leather to be a turn-on.

But then, my own mannerisms are neither flamer nor butch. People call that "straight acting", which is a term steeped in prejudice. I'm just kind of an average dude walking down the street in jeans and a t-shirt. I'm gay and I act like me, so of course I'm acting gay, by definition. Just because I don't adhere to stereotypes by gesticulating flamboyantly with my arms, talking in a high-pitched voice, gushing over Barbra Streisand and calling my male friends "girl" and referring to myself as a "bitch" doesn't mean I'm not gay.

I mean, I haven't gone through thirty years since puberty as a gay man only to be told now by some element of the "gay community" that I'm flawed as a queer. If I'm somehow not supposed to be attracted to masculine guys because that somehow means that I'm a self-loathing gay man, then someone owes me an ice cream, dammit.
posted by darkstar at 1:22 PM on July 3, 2010 [18 favorites]

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

Really? To borrow a line from Kevin Brandt: "...I don't want to change you, I just want to watch."
posted by MikeMc at 1:24 PM on July 3, 2010

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

Anecdotally, I've never met one.

Ya'll are trippin'.
posted by johnnybeggs at 1:30 PM on July 3, 2010

To clarify my position: I'm not saying the article isn't interesting. It's a nice FPP. It has something interesting to say about sex and gender roles. It should have been posted. I just don't think it's very important in the grand scheme of things we need to care about. I'd say the same about an article on, say, UK missing toddler Madeleine McCann. It's interesting. It's worth talking about. It says something about our society. But ultimately it's not very important as a moral issue (simply because of the enormous scale of suffering that outweighs it). Wasn't trying to shut down discussion or thread shit at all. Was just responding to the air of self importance in the article and the overwrought melodrama from some of the posters here.

TL;DR Worth talking about; but there are much better things to get your moral outrage on about.
posted by dontjumplarry at 1:32 PM on July 3, 2010

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

No, we like the idea of having sex with a bisexual woman, so we can watch and then join in. Theoretically.

(Also, I did sleep with a self-proclaimed lesbian once. It just sort of happened, we were very similar people in a lot of ways and there was a certain level of animal attraction involved...and after some fun, it kind of fell apart. We're still good friends. One time she saw a picture of my mother in my wallet and said "Wow. Your mom's cute." I winced visibly at the multileveled weirdness. Now whenever I see her and she wants to squick me she says "So...how's your mom."

She also lives in my old apartment, which she used to share with the girlfriend of a mefite. It's a wacky world.)
posted by jonmc at 1:34 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

If I'm somehow not supposed to be attracted to masculine guys because that somehow means that I'm a self-loathing gay man, then someone owes me an ice cream, dammit.

Within the bear community, at least, there's a recognition that being gay means you're attracted to men, with whatever that may imply. I've never fully understood the feminization of the Gay Man, except from the standpoint of pre-Stonewall oppression and the insistence that men who want to have sex with men somehow want to be women, which is a bigoted belief rooted in the diminishment of gays (within the context of the patriarchal society). Myself, I find kind of fundamentally "masculine" men to be most attractive. The unconsciously awkward body language, the kind of clumsy emotional expression, the secondary sexual characteristics (facial and body hair)... They add up in my mind for some reason to "hot man". Unlike Crisp, I don't see them as less attractive for being interested in gay sex. I am not chasing the unattainable "straight" man these days. It's heartening to me that there's a broader acceptance within gay community for the non-fey man as being included under the umbrella. And happily, I've never had to confront the mindset that liking the men that I like is somehow evidence of self-loathing. That's bullshit, and totally circumvents what my experience of being gay is about -- wanting to have sex with and build relationships with men.
posted by hippybear at 1:34 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

If your attention is focussed elsewhere, that's great. But don't begrudge those who are fighting different fights. There's enough wrong with the world that we can afford to have people with differing foci, and ultimately we all win because many things are being addressed at once on many levels.

And, if your attention is focused elsewhere, perhaps wondering why people are not discussing, say, hunger in Africa in a thread about gay porn and its implications is kind of self-defeating. Surely making an FPP about the issues you are excited about would be a more effective strategy....
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:38 PM on July 3, 2010 [4 favorites]

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

I am a straight man and I believe this idea is absurdly dumb. Every time I have heard something like this in real life I thought the person who expressed it was dumb, at least since I became an adult.
posted by bukvich at 1:39 PM on July 3, 2010

I'm just kind of an average dude walking down the street in jeans and a t-shirt. I'm gay and I act like me, so of course I'm acting gay, by definition.

I totally agree with your comments, but I question that you choose "gay" as a defining category rather than "average dude." I don't think an average straight dude walking down the street in jeans and t-shirt thinks "I'm straight and I'm acting straight." In other words, I think having a "gay identity" is more often imposed by others than actually chosen by gay men themselves. The importance of the gay part is forced by reacting to being an unpopular minority in a hostile world. Sex is only one part of life and I think individual gay men and straight men usually have more in common than their differences.
posted by binturong at 1:47 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Consider how many straight men love the idea of having sex with a lesbian.

Well, lesbian, and lesbian. Sexuality is on a continuum. There are all kinds. How many men - I don't know, but does Chasing Amy's popularity give us any insight?
posted by VikingSword at 1:48 PM on July 3, 2010

Also, in my experience, the whole stereotype of the 'man hating dyke' is totally false. Most lesbians I've known (the 'butch' ones especially) have been very friendly once they realize that there's no hostilty. YMMV.
posted by jonmc at 1:54 PM on July 3, 2010

TL;DR Worth talking about; but there are much better things to get your my moral outrage on about.

Thanks for the clarification, but I don't see why your decision on this matter should mean anything to me or anyone else.

This is a pretty nuanced subject, actually, and it doesn't surprise me at all that there would be such varied reactions to it, including utter incomprehension.

The gender performances we see out in the open in the gay community are fairly different than what occurs backstage. These typically un-seen aspects of the porn industry are like the sub-basement of that spectrum.

I totally understand the interest in seeing a "straight" person give or get a gay blowjob, it's subversive. It's at the very heart of people's fears about the "gay agenda." Watching a "straight" man have gay sex allows us to fantasize about the secret power we (might) have over other men, regardless of how awkwardly or painfully these things often work out in real life. As said above, that's the fantasy element of it.

Part of sex is exploring what gets you off, and part of it is exploring what gets the other person(s) off. Sometimes these two things mix perfectly and effortlessly, but more often it requires more patience and communication, and results in lots of mixed signals along the way. How many times has someone attempted something in bed that I found totally ridiculous, or worse, disgusting? These porn people are like that, shuffling through their own memories and fantasies (mingled with market research) and trying to imagine what gets you off. If they're right enough for a large enough audience, then they start mass-producing it, and in this case they are mass-producing not just sex but an entire socio-sexual ideology, whether they mean to or not. All the big studios are advancing their own cause, and each of them excludes a wide majority of other people, other ideas, other sensations.

Some people (like our author) are a little smarter and have been around a little longer and have a highly-tuned idea of what they find personally unacceptable. I'm glad Devon is sharing the story of how he reached his personal limitations. I hope much younger people who are just starting out in the field read this, and that it adjusts their notions of what they think is okay and what isn't.
posted by hermitosis at 1:59 PM on July 3, 2010 [5 favorites]

The Quentin Crisp thing -- "and if they were attracted to him they became less desirable" -- reminds me of the "I wouldn't want to be part of a club that would have me as a member" and is such a recipe for loneliness it makes me kind of sad for those who feel that way. I have to say, I never thought of the phrase "straight-acting" as problematic and insulting, but through this post I can see how it can be used in a way that is very nearly bigoted.

What's interesting in the article is that they seem to not want the guy to "be himself" but they don't offer him much in the way of an alternate persona or character to adopt. I have a difficult time seeing how you can even "be" a different sort of person while having sex. Sexual reactions are primal, immediate. I think you'd have to be a very good actor to play a persona while also getting off physiologically.
posted by artlung at 2:14 PM on July 3, 2010

Devon Hunter's description of filming the scene for Sean Cody reminded me of that movie Sex Is Comedy about the director struggling to film a sex scene between two actors who hate each another.

I don't get the "gay for pay" and "broke straight boys" fetish. Xtube is overrun with the stuff. I find the whole spirit of it really unsavory and this article reinforces my intuitions. It's kind of obvious when people in porn are enjoying themselves; there's usually smooth editing and long takes, with eye contact, smiling, and kissing on the mouth. In these "amateur straight guy" scenes, there's none of that. It's mechanical, stilted, and not "gay" in any sense of the word. Not knowing any better, I watched a Sean Cody scene once a long time ago and they definitely have that desperate-frat-boy "no homo" vibe pinned down, if that's what you're into.

hippybear: I haven't seen many porn films with a lot of really fey actors, but I assumed that's because guys don't really act all that fey during the fucking.

Heh, yeah, some guys do, my friend. Maybe not in the bear community, but I assure you, some do.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 2:26 PM on July 3, 2010

I'm gay and I act like me, so of course I'm acting gay, by definition.

Actually, this is exactly false. "Acting gay" doesn't mean "acting in some way that some gay person has ever acted" (which is what your putative definition reduces to). It means acting stereotypically gay.

I have curly hair, so I'm acting like someone with curly hair. False! There is no such way (afaik), so I couldn't be acting that way.
posted by kenko at 3:01 PM on July 3, 2010

"It's heartening to me that there's a broader acceptance within gay community for the non-fey man as being included under the umbrella."

I get told about once per day when I'm canvassing that it's great that people can meet someone like me and see that not all gay guys are shaved gym bunnies. I laugh, tell 'em that I'm straight, and send 'em off to my coworker Ryan, who looks almost exactly like me except without a beard.
posted by klangklangston at 3:49 PM on July 3, 2010

I'm a straight woman who loves the idea of two straight men being turned on by kissing one another, and possibly progressing to having sex (in any of its various permutations). I am far from alone (see: the slash fiction community, which is primarily comprised of thousands upon thousands of straight women, with a large contingent of bisexual women *and* lesbians, which is one of the ultimate "go fig!" truths in my experience of human sexuality. And there are plenty of feral slash fans out there who simply don't realize that the community exists (my *mom*, of all people, which, uh, I didn't need to know, but after we saw the first Toy Story, dinner conversation turned to... *scrubs brain*. It was a sudden realization for her that I really, really didn't need to be present for.)

Okay, stepping away from the ICK.

In summary: individual turn-ons are inexplicable. Let 'em be what they are.
posted by tzikeh at 3:59 PM on July 3, 2010 [6 favorites]

From his blog writings, Devon Hunter sounds to me like an unprofessional self-justifying whiner. When you are getting a few thousand dollars to appear in a film, it ain't a home movie and you aren't appearing in it just to be yourself. He criticizes guys who are doing this work "just for the money" while admitting that the same is true for himself. And while they are apparently able to summon up the skills to appear to be what they are not, he seems to think his unvarnished gay self should be sufficient. The company he criticizes produces a known product to meet an audience demand and whether he dislikes that or disagrees with it is irrelevant once he has signed a contract and taken his pay.
posted by binturong at 4:01 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

"Gay men who are into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex: what's the attraction?"

I am not a gay man into the fantasy of straight men having gay sex, but I presume it is a power thing. You establish that your need to stick your dick where you want to stick it is more important than the needs of the object you decide to stick it in.


I think its the "I'm so hot, I turn straight people gay thing."

Of course it is different for different people. There is no universal rule of "fantasy of straightmen having gay sex.'
posted by Ironmouth at 4:06 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

i don't see the whole "turn a straight guy gay" fetish as "forbidden fruit"; neither the idea of the naughty nun or librarian (which is basically a secular nun). has nothing to do with tasting what's out of reach but of dominating and conquering what's supposed to be off-limits.

i mean, think about it: straight guys are technically VIRGIN GAYS. nuns are "professional" virgins and the naughty librarian is basically a step up the secular myth-chain from that.

and to even go further than that, FUCKING A STRAIGHT GUY GAY POR IS A RAPE FANTASY. not that all porn is rape but in this case, that's the fantasy they're managing to sell.
posted by liza at 4:26 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Gay for Pay. Are there really any straight men in gay porn?
posted by ericb at 4:33 PM on July 3, 2010

Wikipedia: Gay-for-pay.
posted by ericb at 4:34 PM on July 3, 2010

and to even go further than that, FUCKING A STRAIGHT GUY GAY POR IS A RAPE FANTASY. not that all porn is rape but in this case, that's the fantasy they're managing to sell.

I don't understand the outrage here. I don't think there's anything harmful in fantasizing about rape, whether as the perpetrator or the victim. It's one of the more common fantasies out there, in fact. Show me where it says that people who fantasize about rape are significantly more likely to rape or be raped, and then maybe we can talk about the ethics of selling (or purchasing) this fantasy.
posted by hermitosis at 4:38 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've known or heard of more than one straight man who kind of bragged about "turning" a lesbian, in the sense that, supposedly, they wouldn't sleep with any other man but them. I strongly suspect that it was someone who was a Kinsey 5 who may have rethought their choice if they knew that the dude would use it for bragging rights.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:45 PM on July 3, 2010

FUCKING A STRAIGHT GUY GAY POR IS A RAPE FANTASY.

what
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:46 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

I see where you're coming from, liza, but I feel like "rape" is an unfairly strong word to use in describing discomforting-but-still-consensual sex. That said, I pretty much agree with hermitosis; I don't really think there's anything that wrong with engaging in fantasies that revolve around domination, from either end of the dom/sub spectrum.
posted by Greg Nog at 5:06 PM on July 3, 2010

liza: and to even go further than that, FUCKING A STRAIGHT GUY GAY POR IS A RAPE FANTASY. not that all porn is rape but in this case, that's the fantasy they're managing to sell.

Actually, I think it's about the rather common experience of being infatuated with a straight guy in high school who doesn't even notice you, but knowing that if he did, he would see that you're perfect for him, and he'd leave his snotty anorexic girlfriend and forget about her daddy's Porsche collection to run away with you to you and your mother's duplex where you'd make sweet, gentle love after stopping by the self-checkout at Walmart for condoms, lube, and maybe a jug of Mr. Bubble if your mother is working a double shift again.

librarian (which is basically a secular nun).

lol, Jessamyn's a secular nun.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 5:10 PM on July 3, 2010 [13 favorites]

"Seriously? Of all the things things happening right now you heart is bleeding for a blogger who has to put up with shitty blow jobs from straight men with smoker's breath?

Interesting article, but FFS, dial down the white-gay-man-in-jeopardy freak out."

How about you dial down the asshole? And maybe dial up the reading comprehension?

No, my heart is not bleeding for a blogger at all.

I am sad, doctor douchebag, because it seems to me that hatred of self is endemic in the queer population. Like the quote in my post, the quote from Quentin Crisp, and the whole porn culture that the blog post is about: many gay men have internalized that gay is wrong, and I think that's part of why "sex with a straight guy" porn makes money for Sean Cody.

Obviously it's not the whole story, but just as obviously it's an important chapter in the book.

And as others have responded, although you may have been alloted two causes worth of empathy, not all of us are so beggared.
posted by kavasa at 5:17 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

sorry, allcaped for emphasis not outrage (twitter habit)
posted by liza at 5:42 PM on July 3, 2010

A (female) friend of mine who's both been in and shot porn said something that I'll never forget: in most cases, you can tell when the actors are having fun; if they're not having fun (which is the case in most porn) then, in order to find the scene erotic, you have to make some sort of stretch in your imagination to convince yourself that the actors actually are enjoying it. In other words, what's really hot isn't so much watching people fuck -- it's witnessing the enjoyment and passion of people who are genuinely, passionately and happily fucking.
posted by treepour at 6:18 PM on July 3, 2010 [10 favorites]

As a woman who watches porn, I find this revelation to be a non-surprise. It's a rare gem of a video where the woman isn't completely faking it and shows it. What treepour said, it's the obvious enjoyment that is truly hot. I would rather watch two flamingly gay men, with no interest at all in the vagina, who are having a great time than watch a hetero guy jackhammering some hairless hot chick. For me, this manufacturing of fantasy is an exercise in futility. It never rings true and I have a new perspective on why, thanks to this article.
posted by Foam Pants at 6:42 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

There was an episode of Pornucopia all about gay and lesbian porn. It was really interesting. One of the segments was about a straight guy who did gay porn - they showed him filming a scene while his girlfriend looked on.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:39 PM on July 3, 2010

I love to see all of the MetaFilter gays come together in a thread like this.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 9:53 PM on July 3, 2010

Well This Is Horrifying: Gay-For-Pay Actor Shoots Up For Photo Essay [Warning: Penis]
posted by andoatnp at 10:04 PM on July 3, 2010

Rich white people care, first and foremost, about rich white people.

People care, first and foremost, about themselves and people like themselves. This isn't a surprise.
posted by davejay at 10:45 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

The idea that a gay porn actor should not "act too gay" has mostly to do with "not acting like you call yourself a bitch with a weave" in your real life, and do the snappy thing with your fingers. Because actually, for some people, that is not what we know as "Masculine". And masculinity, for gays (as far as I know), can be one of the big turn-ons -- one of the motivators, in fact -- for one's attraction to (wait for it) MEN. If you do Masculine badly, you're likely not playing your role very well. There's porn out there of every permutation of gender roles, but if as an actor, you EXPECT a pornographer to accept your flamboyancy in all its raw glory, you are kind of, well, crazy. And you are refusing to ACT -- i.e., to do your job.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 11:28 PM on July 3, 2010

Wow, I was hoping to find a porn thread today so I could share this deep thought: money shots are, technically speaking, an act of disseminating information. That is all.
posted by aydeejones at 11:59 PM on July 3, 2010

and to even go further than that, FUCKING A STRAIGHT GUY GAY POR IS A RAPE FANTASY. not that all porn is rape but in this case, that's the fantasy they're managing to sell.

No it's really not. There's nothing wrong with rape fantasy (as long as everyone involved is actually consensual), but that's not what it is. Ironmouth came closer; it's more like "try it and you'll love it, that's how potent my ass/cock is."

For (many) gay men the 'doing a straight boy' fantasy isn't 'taking him whether he likes it or not,' it's 'hey try this wow aren't you enjoying this it's so much better yeah baby chicka chicka bow wow.'
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:28 AM on July 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

kavasa: hatred of self is endemic in the queer population

Citation needed.
posted by dontjumplarry at 3:11 AM on July 4, 2010

Then let's be more accurate: behaviours which would seem to indicate hatred of self are endemic in the queer population, specifically the male queer population.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:27 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

As the original poster, I can confirm that whatever the fuck that guy’s username is actually was threadshitting.
posted by joeclark at 7:22 AM on July 4, 2010

"For (many) gay men the 'doing a straight boy' fantasy isn't 'taking him whether he likes it or not,' it's 'hey try this wow aren't you enjoying this it's so much better yeah baby chicka chicka bow wow.'"

But this is sort of disturbing as well, because it doesn't take too big of a logical jump to extend this to looking for validation outside of self. My concern is that in many cases, the conclusion of the "Hey, isn't gay sex fun?" thought of straight-seduction may be "And since it's so fun, see how normal we are?" So it becomes little more than a thin mask for a weak-tea plea for acceptance instead of an assumption of normalcy divorced from sexual practice. While it sounds good and possible, I'm not sure true equality can be achieved just because "friction is friction".

Further, it weakens the intrinsic genetic argument for homosexuality. I'm all for people exploring their sexuality and embracing bisexuality if it's appropriate for them, but "conversion" (narrowly defined as engaging in sexual practice that is contrary to one's nature) then becomes a two way street. This makes fantasizing about seducing a straight man is similar to the rhetoric from the right-wing ex-gay movement, just more overt in its application of sexuality. Sexuality becomes a sadistic game of tug of war where the penis is the rope.
posted by quakerjono at 9:13 AM on July 4, 2010

Sexuality becomes a sadistic game of tug of war where the penis is the rope.

Now I know what kind of porn quakerjono likes to watch.
posted by hippybear at 9:20 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is only surprising, fascinating, sad, etc. if you believe that:
a) gay men are homogeneous;
b) the gay/straight binary choice on offer in N. American culture is the only option possible.
c) your choice of sexual partners determines your self identity.
Whatever happened to Kinsey's sliding scale of sexual preference?

Exactly. All gay men aren't necessarily flamboyant or feminine, neither are all gay men attracted to the flamboyant or feminine. "Don't act gay" is a fairly useless stage direction, but I think the point is a good one. If your film is about two manly dudes meeting, realizing they are gay for each other and having sex in the locker room, there are certain behaviors that will wreck the mood of the scene. If the gay-porn-viewer isn't intrested in that, they probably won't download buy that film.

It is no different than any other film, where the actor needs to convincingly act the part he is playing.
posted by gjc at 9:21 AM on July 4, 2010

But this is sort of disturbing as well, because it doesn't take too big of a logical jump to extend this to looking for validation outside of self.

Ummm.. I really think you're beanplating here. Guys are hot! Some of those guys are straight guys! It would be fun to have sex with them!

This whole fucking-straight-men-to-become-accepted-thing is, sorry, pure wankery.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:28 AM on July 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Now I know what kind of porn quakerjono likes to watch.

Absolutely! If we can also do it with a sort of "Battle of the Network Stars" spectacle, even better!

This whole fucking-straight-men-to-become-accepted-thing is, sorry, pure wankery.

Well, that's certainly an opinion. I'm not saying I'm completely convinced of this, just that it seems to be a logical progression that doesn't require any torturous bending to achieve and explains some corollary attitudes and issues that seem to pop-up within the gay community.

Maybe it is just reduced down to sex. Fair enough. Perhaps we all live in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel where people just do things for no seemingly underlying reason, basing it all on surface attraction. That's possible too. I just think that interpretation skirts key questions by saying they're unimportant.
posted by quakerjono at 9:42 AM on July 4, 2010

Key questions can't be unimportant. I don't, however, believe you're asking key questions.

People fantasize about what they can't have, sexually and otherwise. Straight men are pretty much the definition of what gay men can't have. Small wonder we obsess over it.

Yes, sure, some of the time it's about avoiding flamboyant/stereotypically gay behaviours. Sometimes it's about self-loathing ("fuck me with your dick, your real man dick") and submissiveness. But control? No.

And conversion is pure fantasy. I don't think any gay man truly believes you can 'convert' a straight man (by which I mean turn them into, not get 'em naked for an hour). And yet it's funny how many straight men believe the exact opposite ("You shag ONE sheep...")
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:47 AM on July 4, 2010

People fantasize about what they can't have, sexually and otherwise.

And here's where we disagree. It's not necessarily just fantasizing about what you can't have, it's potentially fetish-izing what is fundamentally unobtainable to a the level of personal worth disintegration and undermining of broader community messaging.

Again, I'm not saying this is always the case or, potentially, even ever the case. It just seems to be an interpretation that explains some other behaviors which happen to be self-destructive.

I'm also not convinced your "guys are hawt, some of them are straight, let's have sex" argument. It's not that these men are being billed as "hot...oh, by the way, they're straight but not narrow" they're being aggressively marketed as "STRAIGHT MEN HAVING GAY SEX!" That is an entirely different message. There have been straight-identifying performers in gay porn since the industry's inception (and vice versa, one would assume, for heterosexual porn). The sexuality of the performer wasn't the issue. Here, it's receiving top billing. THAT is unsettling for the reasons I've postulated and it is not just a case of wanting to see hot guys fucking.

There's a whole level of marketing subtext here which your argument ignores and this subtext is exactly what makes sites like Sean Cody profitable. That's where my concern lies, not in "Hawt guys are HAWT!" Course they are and if everyone is having fun, no big deal.

However, Mr Hunter's article damn well indicates not everyone is having fun and general community trends argue this is not an isolated buzzkill.

Sometimes it's about self-loathing ("fuck me with your dick, your real man dick") and submissiveness. But control? No.

Um...I'm not exactly sure how these two notions can coexist in the same paragraph without collapsing into a singularity of self-contradiction...

Control, though, was not my argument. Surrender of control was.

And conversion is pure fantasy. I don't think any gay man truly believes you can 'convert' a straight man (by which I mean turn them into, not get 'em naked for an hour). And yet it's funny how many straight men believe the exact opposite ("You shag ONE sheep...")

Okay, but now you seem to be trying to have it both ways. You say gay men are able to divorce sexual subtext from sexual action yet straight men aren't. True, you don't say it's a complete thing, but the implication is there that straight men are less able to dissociate sexual act from sexual meaning. However, you've given no real reason as to why being gay somehow automatically elevates you from being "a man" and able to realize that conversion isn't possible. You're giving gay men far too much latitude when even community opinion indicates otherwise (given, this is anectodal, but the fact that there's a meme for the number of beers before guys go gay argues its not completely unfounded) while indulging in a stereotype of heterosexual men.
posted by quakerjono at 10:17 AM on July 4, 2010

good girl on girl porn that features girls who actually like girls (some not exclusively)

anything by pink&white productions (includes crash pad) - hot, sexy, mostly women (there are some genderqueers and some trans, but mostly women) having hot, sexy sex. there are no candles and soft music here. (also: all work including jiz lee, syd blakovich, madison young)

georgia jones and faye reagan - real life girlfriends, they're bisexual

other girls on the bisexual list that i feel engage in real, honest lesbian action - justine jolie (only shoots girl/girl and solo), lexi belle, belladonna, mandy morbid

abby winters, mostly

i feel myself, the scenes with 2 or more girls

some of the littlemutt content



now, if some kind soul would make this same list for gay guy porn. i <3 gay guy porn, but i really get turned off when it looks like he has never sucked a dick before. i mean, if i'm a better blowjob artist than the "gay" guy something is wrong.

although, maybe it's telling that two of my favorite gay performers blur the lines a little - buck angel (famously a FtM guy who kept his pussy) and wolf hudson (started as a gay performer, but has shown up in all manner of material, including a lot of kink).
posted by nadawi at 12:04 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

So there's porn with guys in it now?
posted by Sparx at 12:06 PM on July 4, 2010

However, you've given no real reason as to why being gay somehow automatically elevates you from being "a man" and able to realize that conversion isn't possible.

I think that gay men have spent a lot more time having to address issues of sexuality during their own coming out process, and may have a more realistic view how sex is not sexuality is not gender, etc. A lot of straight men that I've talked to have never really given much thought to what sexual attraction is, or what it might mean to have an orientation outside the mainstream. Gay men have had to go through a long process of self-education about how societal messages about sex and attraction don't necessarily mesh with their own internal wiring. Plus, a lot of gay men (at least in older generations) have spent time dating women, marrying them, etc, and realize that sex is something which can be performed outside one's orientation.

Not that there's any "elevation" or anything in that process. But it is something which 90% of the world doesn't even think about, because they don't have to. But for LGBT people, the journey of self-discovery insists on deeper thinking about these issues, and may account for what you are talking about.
posted by hippybear at 1:09 PM on July 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Plus, a lot of gay men (at least in older generations) have spent time dating women, marrying them, etc, and realize that sex is something which can be performed outside one's orientation.

Well, but there are just as many gay men (we're throwing around anecdotal evidence here) who are vajajay-phobic and are sent into squeals of disgust at the mere mention of the word. I'll admit I'm a bit biased as I find that to be one of the least attractive behaviors in my fellow gay men.

It's a vagina, Mary, not your childhood fears and disappointments coming back to haunt you. Stop clutching your pearls and have another sip of your appletini.

The point is that while many may have made that connection, many others (potentially the majority) don't. So again, using this as an across the board judgement is simply giving far too much credit to the home team.

But for LGBT people, the journey of self-discovery insists on deeper thinking about these issues, and may account for what you are talking about.

I would agree that it should require engagement in this level of introspection but would contend that it rarely actually does. I would also disagree that this is necessitated by homosexual orientation any more than it should be necessitated for heterosexual orientation.

Again, not to say that it never does and many gay men (and women, can't forget them) do make this journey, but it is unfair to say that heterosexuals don't, particularly when all you're offering is anecdotal experience. It is probably more accurate to say that certain percentages of both sexual orientations do engage in this sort of self inspection and it makes them more self-aware and, perhaps, more empathic individuals whereas a far greater percentage do not or become arrested at some point in the journey and never complete it.

But again, to suggest that this is across the board one way or the other, rather ignores youth obsession, physical beauty obsession and general immature habits that both aisles of sexuality practice and are indicative of halting of the sexual maturation process.

It seems far too dismissive to imply that, unless your journey of sexual identity ends in the conclusion that you are same sex attracted, your journey was easier or more clear cut.
posted by quakerjono at 1:40 PM on July 4, 2010

I'm not sure I can contribute much more to this convo, but this seems relevant: I had a thing for gay porn star Pavel Novotny (aka Jan Dvorak, Max Orloff, etc.).

Massive crush. Good grief, but he's gorgeous. My fantasies about him ran the gamut, really. Sometimes they included Lukas Ridgeston, too, another unearthly beautiful guy. Ra-ha-ha-HAWR, I say!

Then I happened to google Novotny, one day, and found out that he's straight, a gay-for-pay. From that day on, it all changed. I don't really enjoy seeing him in porn and he doesn't figure prominently at all in my fantasies, anymore. Total downer and disappointment. Bye-bye Pavel.

I just really like guys who are into liking other guys. Straight guys may be hot, but eventually they're a big disappointment. Maybe this comes with age, after you've poured so much lust into straight dudes and had so little return for the investment. Or worse, fallen in love with a straight friend and had it lead to heartache and a lost friend. But the whole "straight guy being financially induced to suck cock" motif really doesn't appeal to me at all.

If Lukas Ridgeston is straight, please, please don't tell me.
posted by darkstar at 2:52 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

You say gay men are able to divorce sexual subtext from sexual action yet straight men aren't.

I have said nothing of the sort. Please come back when you can argue like a grownup, which means not putting words in other peoples' mouths.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:55 PM on July 4, 2010

"I would agree that it should require engagement in this level of introspection but would contend that it rarely actually does. I would also disagree that this is necessitated by homosexual orientation any more than it should be necessitated for heterosexual orientation. "

I don't know about that—I think that a lot of it is the normative privilege. I didn't have to really think about my sexual identity all that much, as there are plenty of roles available for me already, presented in myriad media depictions. Because of a lack of that privilege, the gay guys I know tend to have thought a bit more about what it means to have a sexual identity. Now, granted, I tend to hang out with nerds, gay or straight, online and off, so my sample's skewed. But I'd also say that this is something that, by its apparent de-emphasis in younger gay guys I know, shows itself to be something that most folks only think about because they have to, and as more and more out role models are in media, it's easier for the younger gays I know to simply adopt a readymade identity.
posted by klangklangston at 3:28 PM on July 4, 2010

dirtynumbangelboy: People fantasize about what they can't have, sexually and otherwise.

Appropriate initials go here.
posted by tzikeh at 3:51 PM on July 4, 2010

Uh, yeah, about that? If I had said or implied 'exclusively', you might be sort of almost kind of amusing. Given that we are discussing a fairly narrow subject, I didn't really feel any need to hedge what I said with a bunch of disclaimers.

Or, to crib your format:

Appropriate initials go here uck


The FTFY thing is only good when it's funny.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:00 PM on July 4, 2010

I'm with dnab here.

This back-and-forth reads like an academic anthropologist (quakerjono) and a "Native" (dnab) where the anthropologist wants to construct elaborate, publishable worlds he can describe with lots of jargon and big words and the native is just like "dude, it's a potato. seriously, we really don't think of them as magical or talismanic. it's not a crucial marker of anything. it has no sub or meta- text. it's all pretty simple really."
posted by cucumber at 4:39 PM on July 4, 2010

(which is not to say anthropology isn't awesome-- it is. i'm specifically describing the case where the particular anthropologist is, in this case, simply waaaaay over-intellectualizing something)
posted by cucumber at 4:41 PM on July 4, 2010

For some reason I have the impression that quakerjono is queer, so while I see your analogy (and agree in large part; sometimes a cigar etc), it falls down a bit.

Also you made me think of Your Finger You Fool from one of Pratchett's novels, so yay
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:41 PM on July 4, 2010

I have said nothing of the sort. Please come back when you can argue like a grownup, which means not putting words in other peoples' mouths.

Perhaps you should have read what I wrote right after that where I said you didn't say it was a complete thing. But hey, since we're getting into the name calling, this isn't fun or interesting anymore, so I'm out.
posted by quakerjono at 6:59 PM on July 4, 2010

The simple fact is, you said that I said something which I did not in any way whatsoever say.

That's a dick move, and you deserved to be called out on making it.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:03 PM on July 4, 2010

Actually, one last thing:

This back-and-forth reads like an academic anthropologist (quakerjono) and a "Native" (dnab) where the anthropologist wants to construct elaborate, publishable worlds he can describe with lots of jargon and big words and the native is just like "dude, it's a potato. seriously, we really don't think of them as magical or talismanic. it's not a crucial marker of anything. it has no sub or meta- text. it's all pretty simple really."

Fair enough. I've admitted that I may not be right and it's certainly possible I'm overthinking in contexts outside my own. However, people don't act without a reason. Maybe it is nothing more than physical attraction, I don't know, but if it is, then again it doesn't explain why the chief selling point of "Hot Straight Guy Bangs Gay Guy" isn't "Hot" but "Straight".
posted by quakerjono at 7:04 PM on July 4, 2010

The simple fact is, you said that I said something which I did not in any way whatsoever say.

That's a dick move, and you deserved to be called out on making it.

Whatever. The record speaks for itself. Have a great rest of your weekend.
posted by quakerjono at 7:06 PM on July 4, 2010

The record does indeed speak for itself. And what it is saying is "quakerjono said dirtynumbangelboy said things that dirtynumbangel did not say."

I realise this may be problematic for you, in fact you may even be embarrassed about pulling a dick move and getting called on it, but that is not my problem.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:11 PM on July 4, 2010

it doesn't explain why the chief selling point of "Hot Straight Guy Bangs Gay Guy" isn't "Hot" but "Straight".

Isn't this a central trope of all sorts of flavors of pornography? Not "straight" specifically, but rather the eroticism of someone who is ordinarily unobtainable turning out to be both available and eager. Think of the "slutty housewife" theme, say -- it's all about an unapproachable type of person turning out to be a raging horndog.
posted by Forktine at 7:26 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

It is indeed. Slutty housewife, hot mechanic, pizza boy, cheerleader next door--whatever. Porn is about depicting fantasies, and 'people want what they can't have' is a pretty popular one.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:38 PM on July 4, 2010

dirtynumbangelboy: The FTFY thing is only good when it's funny.

FTFY!
posted by tzikeh at 9:07 PM on July 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

There's porn out there of every permutation of gender roles, but if as an actor, you EXPECT a pornographer to accept your flamboyancy in all its raw glory, you are kind of, well, crazy. And you are refusing to ACT -- i.e., to do your job.

Keep in mind that they have ostensibly hired him to play HIMSELF. And that he is already a known entity in the adult entertainment world, projecting a particular sexual identity. It's not that he refused to act (it sounds to me like he tried really hard!), it's that they shouldn't have cast or contracted him in the first place. During the casting process they deliberately turned a blind eye to details that turned out to be pretty important later on, but Devon's the one that was blamed on-set when things didn't work out. Didn't you read the article?
posted by hermitosis at 7:34 AM on July 5, 2010

I'm sorry that I'm late enough to the game in this conversation that it's all fizzling away into details and arguments, but I had to spend the day interviewing costumed animals yesterday and couldn't get settled down to really write something.

I have a fascination with the whole "straight guy" genre primarily because, over my life, I've had a number of ongoing and a few significant one-off experiences with straight guys, which I've found them to be tremendously satisfying, not because of power or dominance or anything remotely like that. Fooling around with a straight guy, and I most definitively believe that you can fool around with another guy and still be right down in the lowest numbers on the Kinsey Scale, is something that can be just…just joyous, and playful, and a real source of wisdom for both parties.

It's possible, I guess, that there's some kind of ulterior motive buried there, but I just don't feel it, and the guys I've been with don't seem to, either, and when we talk about those experiences, years and years down the line, I'm often surprised to find that it bolstered their own sexual awareness and understanding as much as it did mine. I can really only address how it is between dudes, being a dude, myself, but with few exceptions, us guys are into dick. It's the one piece of porno that's built-in, all the way back to when we're toddlers and our mothers are exasperatedly hollering, "Oh, for God's sake, Joe-B, can you please get your hands out of your pants for five minutes!?"

You'd look up, all caught in shame, thinking, don't you know what this thing is?

This is magic.

And then, after years of fruitless manipulation, when it first starts to actually do something so shockingly wonderful that you almost can't believe it, the first few times, you're hooked—narcissism be damned. Your mileage may vary, of course, but mine certainly didn't.

I'm always more curious with how heterosexual men discover and develop their interests, as, for me, I can remember standing in front of the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, and it was all right there. Hold it up, take in the way the flange of the glans tucks in to a point there underneath, or pull it sideways, enjoying the line of the profile of the thing, or the way your balls hang, one lower than the other, and how you can flex your cremaster muscles and bring 'em up like a garage door opening. There's obviously more to sex than dick, in millions of ways, but for dudes, it's a pretty real focal point, and when you're playing, and exploring the capabilities of your body, it's right there, so you can really experiment.

I, naturally, became a mad scientist of experimentation, thanks to the farmer across the street who subscribed to pornographic magazines that increasingly failed to be "delivered," or rather, they somehow ended up in a stack secreted away behind the gigantic 1930s furnace grumbling away in the basement of our old log farmhouse, where I'd pore over them for useful information, introducing new concepts to the ever-mounting playtime I spent with my best friends down there.

"Lemme look at that Oui again."

"Here. You wanna?"

Of course we'd "wanna." Did I mention dicks are magic?

Of course, this is all also kiddie porn, in a roundabout way, too. We've invented this insane world where our sexual interest isn't "innocent," and where we fumble our way into it at 17 and a half or so, but that's just not the way things were. Still, you can't even joke about these things, and so I don't point out that "well, yeah, I've had sex with lots of twelve year-old boys...when I WAS a twelve year-old boy, ha ha ha," because we're just such a fucking prim generation, too sensitive to abuse to acknowledge when there isn't abuse.

"Why do you think a 'blowjob' is called that?"

"I think you're supposed to blow, like this—"

"Nothing's happening."

"Yeah, I don't get it. Maybe air needs to go up your urethra."

Of course, I'm smart enough to know "urethra," but just dumb enough to...well, I had this little coffee stirrer straw, and you just kinda thread it in there, take a deep breath and…

"What are you boys doing down there?" my Mom hollered from the kitchen. "What's with all the screaming?"

"Nothing! Umm, Mark hit his hand with a hammer, I think."

"Well, be careful next time!"

The play just sort of carries on, over the years, and it gets more sophisticated and more subtle, and sometimes, you just end up in a kind of weird, charged conversation with a friend who's bored, or in a playful mood, or feeling a little curious, and you start talking about sex and life and everything and all the sudden is it kind of hot in here, or is it just me, and it's not just me.

Some of my most treasured moments of physical pleasure have been found in this kind of play, but the porn gets it all wrong, and strips it of all of what makes it so ecstatic and wonderful. In porn, and especially in this porn, it's all by rote, just formula and boilerplate. No one ever laughs, or falls off the bed, or get whacked unexpectedly in the temple by an ankle.

"I'm only gay for you, Joe," he says, and he's irritated that I can't stop laughing after that.

"For fuck's sake, don't say that. You really don't need to read a script."

"What do you mean?"

"What you see in those videos—that's really not all that fun. For instance, I am not going to grunt like an angry bear, holler 'Urrrgh, gonnnna CUM,' lurch back, whip off the rubber, and come across your back."

"How will I know when you…well, how will I know?"

"With luck, you'll be busy doing the same damn thing."

"Oh…oh."

And the thing is, I will actually fake mine, because it's just more fun, and more glorious to just be observing, right then, what he's feeling, and what it's like for him, and how mind-blowingly sweet it can be to be center-stage in that kind of moment with a friend. I will completely fail to take my own rush to orgasm into account, and wrap my arms around his chest, and just listen to the way he breathes, and feel the way he moves, and the tension in his calves and the way I can feel his toes splay out against mine, like a cat stretching after a nap, and it will be good for me in a different way than it has ever been.

Therein is the joy, the ecstatic surrender to the other, though I am neither the victor nor the supplicant. It's just play, and that amazing, impossible state of freedom that we try so hard to forget as we age.

The irony is that I'd just as soon go in the other direction, and I joke with my friends that I'm "straight-curious," but it's just never come down to it yet. I spent too many years brainwashed by white-bread middle-of-the-road politicized queerdom, which insinuates itself as a pure state, unassailable and immutable, originally by necessity and now by habit and enforced language, thinking that you're either gay or you're not, that bisexual attraction is self-hating delusion, even if I disproved it myself countless times over the years. These days, I'm a little intrigued by the mechanism of female sexuality, and of the notion of that orgasmic plateau, where women can just hang there, rapt, when conditions are just right, but oddly, it's harder to get myself into that late-night titillated state of talk across the mandated battle lines of gender.

I think there's even a genre in porn of gay guys having straight sex (other than for reasons of fiscal interest), but again, it's just the bleached bones of the real experience, just huffing and cussing and a series of commands, inquiries, and the ever-present red high heels women apparently customarily wear while having sex with a gay guy. We're all suffering from bad writing, with dirty dreams scripted by a gestalt being made of cliché, and I like to think there'd be a market for honest porn, without editing, soundtracks, facials, and the same squirt dropped in from angle after angle, setting a standard for the impossible orgasm, but I guess we're not going to see that anytime soon.

"I used my thumb like you said."

"How was it?"

"Holy shit."

"Yeah, that's kind of his detonator switch, you know. By the way, if he knocks you up while you're taking my advice, you better name the kid after me."

"Wouldn't that be a laugh—'How'd you come up with a girl named Joe?' Oh, she's named after the guy who used occasionally fucked my husband for seven years! Hell, if I ever need to kill my mother-in-law with a heart attack, I'll keep that one handy."

"I think she'd actually just drive the Buick up from Boca and bust me over the head with a jar of borscht, but still."

"There's a picture."

"You know, his dad caught us once, out in the shed."

"He never told me that."

"Yeah, he just laughed and put his rake away while we were flopping around in the dark trying to hide behind the bikes. What a sweet, gentle man. I wish you'd had a chance to meet him."

"Mark says that all the time."

"He's right. Lucky for us his mom wasn't putting a rake away."

"Joe, I gotta run for now—a certain little nag is reminding me that it's time for PBJ. Call me next week—I want to hear about your gig at the Hex."

It's strange, really, getting to be close with the wife of a past playmate, and it's illustrative of how wrong the old mythologies are—how fucking around with the straight guy is tantalizing and powerful because he's a conquest, or someone unsullied by the awful contaminant of gayness, femininity, or self-awareness. I've never had this experience, unless you count the subtle back-and-forth of a nuanced, exploratory "do you wanna?" conversation as a battle of wills. It's always just been someone else with an open mind, horny as all get-out, trying something out for a time or two. Why that becomes so codified and rigid escapes me, other than the sad expedient of our cultural laziness. I get it, on such a visceral level, and from my own experiences, and yet, I don't get it at all, even as something we pretend is true because it's fun to pretend.

This too, shall pass. There's a generation coming up from behind, so to speak, who are less uptight and less committed to the old dualistic ways of thinking, and I suspect the next decades will be very, very interesting for students of human sexuality.
posted by sonascope at 2:20 PM on July 5, 2010 [13 favorites]

sonascope: excellent story, thank you.

Regarding the ritualization and homogeneity of porn (regardless of sexuality), the key I think is that people want to put themselves and the people they desire into the picture. If I try to project my beloved Brenda in the real and clumsy and sexy kind of scenario you describe, too many details will ring false. The actress will have the wrong kind of laugh or a different sense of humor or whathaveyou.

With a super stylized porn where everyone moans the same way, every girl has to giggle the same way before the penetration starts and nobody laughs after the penis comes out - you know the routine, you know the constraints of the performance. If you or someone you lusted after were in front of the camera you would have to do the same thing because that is how it is done.

Of course there are very important considerations to what is normalized, what is chosen to be represented as generic and neutral, but the genericness is an abstraction, a way of smoothing over differences between objects of desire so it is as easy as possible to project your own into the picture.
posted by idiopath at 2:39 PM on July 5, 2010 [1 favorite]

Man. How did I miss this thread?!

Years ago, when Sean Cody first arrived on the gay porn scene, I noted the ridiculous lengths that they went to to shoehorn in a statement about how straight the performers were in the little blurb describing the video. I rolled my eyes then and continued to as their execution became less and less elegant and more and more transparent.

The final straw for me was when I saw a scene that was shot where the guys were clearly high. I said to myself, "Self, this is kind of not sexy anymore. These guys don't want to be doing this. Do you want them to be doing this if they don't want to be doing this?" And the answer was no.

Every time someone makes a point of noting how straight acting they are - in a porn or in real life - it just reminds me that I'm not. Sometimes I squeal in delight. Occasionally, I prance. And its totally cool if that's not your thing, but that's who I am.

I don't want them to be something they aren't. And I just want someone who wants me to be me. Occasional sparkles and all.
posted by greekphilosophy at 8:01 PM on July 10, 2010 [2 favorites]