This is the second part of an essay on working with gay for pay performers. The first half appeared in Headmaster Magazine and is excerpted in the previous blog entry. In the second half, I’ve changed a few names to protect a few people. The rest is all true. Thanks to Berke Banks and Girth Brooks (and Ashley Edmonds) for cooperating for both pieces and for being amazing guys.
Girth Brooks and Berke Banks’s apartment keeps its furnishings from Girth’s relative, who owns it. It’s a Florida nightmare of a place; everything in the common areas is pastel and frilled. There are prints on the walls of roses and the frames are brass.
“Ever since we put the stripper pole in, Berke has been wanting to have people over late at night. We’ve been getting complaints.”
The stripper pole stands shining and smooth, floor to ceiling in the living room. I can’t describe how perfectly it fits here. You wouldn’t notice it unless you walked into it or someone told you. It’s by sliding glass doors that lead to a balcony overlooking a rolling green hill.
Berke is in the bathroom, and the door is partially ajar. A sliver of him; a side of his body completely bare from head to toe. The side of his ass cheek, one of his cold blue eyes and perfect eyebrows, a long leg, his black hair on his head and on his arm.
“Hey,” he says.
I notice myself lowering my voice when I say hello. I can’t help it. Everywhere I go to meet something new, my voice drops a few octaves. I’ve tried to change this in two ways, by always staying in the loose, natural higher voice and by pushing my nerves down into the deeper manlier one. Neither stays. It’s up and down up and down, whichever man fits the situation. Which one is true?
It occurs to me – if you ever want to learn a real lesson about sexuality, listen to any gay man’s voicemail greeting.
Berke leaves for a few hours before I get a good look at him. He needs to buy Valentine’s Day gifts for his girlfriend. His friend, Ashley Edmonds, a fetish porn star and dominatrix, picks him up. She’s blonde, friendly, and has an intense but still pretty face. She laughs a lot and tells me within a few minutes how much she loves gay porn. “It’s my thing,” she says.
She’ll be the one filming my scene with Berke later and I get nervous because I’ve never had sex anywhere near a woman before.
Girth passes out on the couch with the low, frustrating hum of ESPN coming out of the TV. I look through Berke’s room. It’s straight: A pile of dirty laundry on the floor. A lit-up display case with watches inside and ballcaps on top. A DVD rack. Somehow this is erotic, like nothing has changed in here since the 1990s. I consider for a moment looking through the pile of laundry on the floor for a loose pair of underwear to smell, but I leave it.
I am charged with sex in this room. It smells lightly of sweat. It is still and sleeping and I don’t want to disturb anything except to live here in all of it.
Berke is the sort of guy that literary types and intellectuals and spiritual people think they have figured out instantly and entirely: He’s a businessman, maybe too crass, loves the gym and grooming, has drive and gets drunk a lot. These things are all true, but so what?
His website features him having sex with men in many improbable/too-good-to-be-true situations.
Berke Visits Ashley Lawrence While She’s Filming and Her Scene Partner Recognizes Berke and Berke Fucks Him. Berke Meets A Kid at the Mall Who Asks Him for Directions and He Ends up Fucking the Kid Later
Mine was:
Berke Picks Up Conner Habib after His Scene with Girth Brooks and Gets So Excited Hearing about the Scene That He Has to Get A Piece of the Action
Which is flattering. Mine isn’t one that’s just coincidental fucking – Berke asks me for it.
We’re in Ashley’s car and I suck Berke’s dick in the back seat while we’re driven around. While his dick is in my mouth, Berke talks to Girth in the front seat. This, for me, is the most erotic part.
When I was an undergrad, I swapped head with a guy in a bathroom stall at a bar. He was there with his girlfriend and his buddies and while we were in the stall, his friends walked into the bathroom and started talking to him. “Justin, what’s going on? We want to go.” I jumped up onto the toilet so that my feet wouldn’t show. Through the wall they talked about his girlfriend, who was waiting for him. He was one of the handsomest guys I’d ever had sex with, but the most erotic part was that brief conversation he had with his friends, while I kneeled with a hardon on top of the toilet. I can’t remember the words, but it was like living inside their bodies. This was their world, their life together.
I was invisibly one of them.
The walls at Ashely’s apartment, which is a stand-in for Berke’s apartment, are turquoise. She films live shows here for her fans. People might believe Berke is straight, but will they still believe it if they see that he has a turquoise room with a turquoise couch? Then again, his real apartment has beige couches with floral prints on them.
He unwraps Magnum condoms and puts them aside. His girlfriend shows up. A dog and a cat bound around the room. I ask before we start, shouldn’t we lock them up in a bedroom?
“Oh don’t worry,” Ashley says, “they won’t interrupt. They get the picture.”
Berke is taking a fat burner because he’s supposed to be on the cover of a magazine soon. He says it’s fucking with the Viagra, and we all take Viagra in case you were wondering. Or if not, the guys will inject their dicks with Caberjack or Trimex, which I can’t even think of without feeling a bit queasy, though I’m told it doesn’t hurt. It’s not that we’re unable to get hard, it’s just that we usually have to go for so long.
Instead of the of Viagra, since it’s not working so well, Berke’s girlfriend gives him a blowjob. He’s hard instantly and he jumps up and fucks me; my pants down around my ankles, my head against the bright soft turquoise. And my mind going in a lot of directions – how do I look? Is he enjoying this? I hope I won’t forget to keep my abs flexed, this feels amazing – but mostly, he’s so handsome. God, he’s so handsome.
“The diamonds are coming off my nails,” Ashely tells me, and looks at her diamondless pink fingernails with a frown. She puts the camera near my face, “I like to get right up in there!”
Ashley talks a lot during the filming. “I can’t help it, I’m like the peanut gallery,” she says.
“Does this turn you on?” I ask Berke’s girlfriend.
“I just love watching him,” she says, and I know exactly what she means.
I watch Berke as he drinks his orange juice between different positions.
He holds my legs and my ass up against his chest for my cumshot, so that I’ll hit my own face. He thrusts and moans and I listen and gaze into his face. I feel his thick and solid thigh with my left hand, and it pushes me over the edge.
The girls rewind it on the camera and laugh and say, “he is so cute,” about me while I lie there, drying.
I have dinner with Berke and his girlfriend afterward. They’re friendly and I need them to be because I’m so tired after yachts and fucking.
I may sound like I’m over-idealizing gay for pay guys. It’s just that I haven’t had any trouble with straight guys in movies. I’ve had enough trouble with them elsewhere; getting called “faggot” during some of my high school years, not because I was out but because I had long hair and wore punk rock t-shirts and didn’t play sports. Those words lasted forever until going to my ten-year reunion somehow alleviated all of it. Seeing everyone there with fatter or thinner faces than I remembered, with smiles and happiness – well there were no more nightmares about high school after that. I knew where they all were. We were all doing okay.
But I never stopped pursuing straight men, and from college onward, the straight guys were always offering it up. Kissing during spin-the-bottle games; drunken blowjobs at and after parties; making out on my bed in front of girls who thought it was hot; in locked bathrooms at parties.
Was anyone straight?
I used to tell myself that everyone was gay, though I don’t believe that anymore, mostly because there have been men comfortable enough to try it out and then stop, deciding quite casually that it wasn’t for them.
My college friend Jeff; tall, handsome, Jewish, and straight: We sat on my bed after going to a bar (the same bar I had sex in) and bared our souls to each other and he leaned forward suddenly and started kissing me. Never another gay peep out of him. When I asked him about it, he said he just wanted to try it with me if he were ever going to try it. It made sense.
I used to go up to the cutest, jockiest guys at the straightest bars and talk all night, seeing if we could get of kissing on the mouth, then I’d lean in and take my shot. That was what men and women did at bars after all. It was a dangerous game at straight bars, of course. I knew that guys could be up for it, fully into it, then in a moment of insecurity, lash out with violence and invite their friends to kick the shit out of me. But I idolized Bugs Bunny for his courage in kissing his enemies. And like Bugs Bunny, I figured that I could always talk my way out of it if I needed to.
But what about the straight guys that are offering it up for pay in the movies, the ones that aren’t even as kind as the drunken frat boys I got to?
A friend and scene partner of mine told me about the favored golden status of the straight guys he worked with. On the set of one of his shoots, a huge TV screen played straight porn for his straight scene partner. To my friend, they gave a portable DVD player.
“I’m not kissing you,” the straight guy said. They were expected to get erections in separate rooms.
“He had a wife,” my friend told me. “and he had a girlfriend. Neither of them knew he was doing gay porn. And he was kind of a douchebag besides that. Having someone tell you that he doesn’t want to kiss you right before you’re supposed to have sex doesn’t make things easy. Also? The porn that was on the TV was really violent. The men were screaming at the women.”
Usually we all at least get along. I imagine my poor mild-mannered friend, bewildered by the forcefulness of the shoot. “It felt like I was sacrificing myself to a monster,” he said.
And then there’s Toby, who did a threesome with two straight guys, Chris and Jack. He told me that he later found out directors shy away from putting more than one straight man in a gay scene. Something weird happens when they’re together. A bad reaction.
Both Chris and Jack had perfect bodies. They stood on one side of the room, Jack constantly talking about the girls he’d had sex with. “I was in my own universe,” Toby said.
They rarely engaged with Toby at all, and then there came a further twisting in them as they competed to enjoy the scene less. Toby stood on the bed and Chris and Jack were asked to suck his dick. But they were making disgusted faces at each other, Jack barely letting Toby’s dick in.
When the oral sex was over, Toby was angry. “You guys give horrible blowjobs,” he told them. They looked at him with hurt and innocent expressions. How could they be bad at anything?
I’m not sure why guys do this if they can’t handle it. There must be all sorts of interpretations open to us. For example, we can see the scene I did with Berke as a whole. For us to have sex, we needed a camera, two girls, and camaraderie. All the elements were essential. Taken as a whole, that’s a very complex sex act.
Or maybe it’s just acting – but when someone cries in a movie, is he just acting or is he inside that part of him that cries?
Or perhaps, as Gore Vidal has suggested, sex is just about money now. The money is so eroticized that it carries the straight men through the act.
Berke tries to confirm as much at dinner. “I was called in for a jerk-off scene and then they called me back for an oral scene with a guy a few days later. I said no, but then they doubled the amount they offered me.” So he did it and did it and eventually he was fucking and even (once) getting fucked.
But again, this is more complex than it seems, for how long until it all becomes Pavlovian?
The money and the sex and the men become so intertwined at some point; they must. The thought of having money is a tiny bell inside the gay-for-pay performer’s head. And anyway, is it hetero- or homosexual to fantasize about money? Isn’t it just monetary-sexual?
Maybe we don’t even have sexualities anymore.
Our sexual energy is dispersed amongst our things. It could be a dollar bill or a whip or a locker room or a conversation between two straight men. Where is our arousal coming from? We fool ourselves if we think it’s merely a response to bodies. We fool ourselves even more if we think it’s the drive to reproduce, as evolutionary psychologists are fond of pointing out.
I’d like them to explain the evolutionary advantage and history of Berke Banks fucking me in a turquoise room with girls and cameras present. They’d try with their withered speculations and they’d lose the nuance and excitement of it. Indeed with such flat, boring answers, they lose the entire picture.
There’s no clean answer. If you think there is, you’re missing everything.
“I lost some friends over this,” Berke says. “I didn’t realize everyone would find out. And it’s so fucked up because I thought, what if I were gay? They would have hated me for that too. But you just get on with your life.” The restaurant is loud and bawdy. There are men everywhere and a few women hanging on their words.
“I got a DUI and had to go to jail for three months, I can deal with stuff. I just waited it out. You wait your whole week for one video monitor call and that call, that face in the little box, is your whole world. If it doesn’t come, you’re crushed. But I dealt with it.”
We ordered food awhile ago and I’m getting anxious for it to arrive, I’m so hungry. When it comes, it’s mediocre, but Berke loves it.
He seems to love everything.
We go back to the apartment and Berke shows me how to use the stripper pole. He spins upside-down on it. It’s not that hard, he shows me. It’s more about momentum than muscles. Just swing yourself around enough and anyone can do it at least a little. I spend my last evening there at a dive bar in a strip mall with Girth, Berke, and Berke’s girlfriend. A girl hits on me and then realizes I’m gay. “Of course,” she says. There’s a bad cover band with six members playing. People are dancing to alternative songs from the 1990s.
“Do you want to get laid tonight?” Girth asks me. I’m exhausted, and tell him no. He shows me a picture of a friend of his from his bartending job. “I’m so fucking horny,” he tells me. And then, “I can call my friend here for you.”
His friend shows up a little while later, with another man who is even cuter. I want to pay attention to the friend, but the other man, Jason, gets all my attention.
Berke tells me how to pop my abs and pecs for an upcoming event. I wander down a long hallway to the men’s bathroom and don’t lock the door. I don’t understand how I could have another second of sex, but this is Florida, I remember. This is Florida.
Two days ago, I stood in front of a shut-down store in South Beach and stared at the three mannequins, all facing away from me in the window. This is where the homeless are so wrinkled from the sun that they’re not recognizable; more like bunched up blankets than people. Somewhere close to this bar, there’s an alligator pushing itself into muddy water, and a panther stooped in grass.
When we leave, I ask Girth about Jason. “He’s definitely straight though,” Girth says.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “He was massaging your gay friend’s shoulders.”
“Actually you might be right. I have this girl I work with and she’s good at spotting that stuff – she called him out the other day because he does this gesture. He does this, like, gay gesture.”
So you never know.
Conner Habib 
Excellent piece, I find sexuality endlessly fascinating. Congratulations Conner!
A fascinating continuation from Part 1! These two pieces have really made me re-examine my feelings on gay for pay, and the models who stick rigidly by their 100% heterosexual label. I can still dislike most of their performances (heat is the most important element of a scene for me, and many of them don’t bring it; Girth Brooks is an exception). But clearly a blanket dismissal of every performer who doesn’t identify as gay is short-sighted. There are layers of sexuality on display here, and while I won’t necessarily be aroused by them, I think they speak volumes about performance in daily life, human desire, and capitalistic drive. What a fascinating stew!
Nice read Connar, look forward to more. Interesting insight to a world so far removed from my own
So I’m beguiled by the brilliant writing and the arousal of any sexual encounter involving Conner…but then I keep coming back to the question: why is someone as intelligent, as erudite, as beautiful, and as personable as Conner mired in this impersonable dead-end world of B-grade porn–in Florida– with beefy straight guys who have no connection to gay men. There is so much to admire about Conner; I don’t understand how these soul-less Viagra-filled scenes have any purpose in his life.
you need to start writing a script for a cable tv series based on your life….lol..
another fascinating read – i really appreciate how you dive right into the contradictions and complexity of sexuality without seeming to pass judgement. thanks for posting this!
As a viewer of porn, it doesn’t seem like porn is about how you identify yourself, it’s a vehicle to make money. Conner, why don’t you have sex with women in porn movies and write about that experience?
Very, very nice, Conner! Thanks! You’re a genius, that’s for sure!
Hey Connor,
Very interesting subject.
I think there are a number of traits that entice an individual to get into porn.
I would say every porn performer would display one or more of these: exhibitionistic, high sex drive and appetite, good looks/appealing characteristics and a desire/need for money.
Now, it plays on everyone’s fantasy that in the right moment a straight male would turn, but sexuality is such a strange thing.
There’s the “straight” guy who takes head in the cubicle, but also the guy meet you who is married with children, but just gets your gaydar going off the hook.
Now, back to gay for pay. I’d say the desire for money is the overarching charactisitic in most gay for pay performers.
These are guys who are models and straight porn performers. They could go months without getting booked. It is very difficult for a male in straight porn to make a living.
One day they might get an offer to do a jerk off or a gay scene. They’ve got to eat don’t they?
The best analogy I can think of is that if you are working in a grocery store at the cash register. One day they offer you a job working stacking shelves. Now, you wouldn’t really enjoy the work, but it is similar/better pay and you have the opportunity to work more shifts so it means you would have more money at the end of the month..would you take it?
Maybe an over simplistic way of looking at it. Maybe ask the guy at the cash register if he’ll suck your cock for $200 and see what he says.
Money does, after all, make the world go round
I do not believe in gay-for-pay. Real straight men don’t have a price. Doing gay porn openly means no reason to be on the DL. That’s all.
Hi Res. I mean, obviously I don’t agree – that’s the reason why I was writing these; I think it’s much more complicated. I hear what you’re saying, but that answer seems to easy for me. Do you have any experiences you’d like to share about why you hold the opinion you do?
I admire your writing skills, but I prefer to keep a bit of mystery about the porn stars I may fantasize about and watch. For me, too much information is a turnoff, and that goes for the straight as well as the gay performers.
Thanks for the compliment Peter. I can understand wanting to preserve the fantasy – Although I’m wondering why you’d read a porn blog if you’re not interested in information. I have a site – connerhabib.com – which is just photos, etc. I hope that keeps you turned on. 🙂
Awesome followup story…I loved the scene (if it was his only bottoming scene) where Berke gets fucked on Sean Cody. You know him better than I but on the video it didn’t seem to be that difficult for him so I was wondering if that really was his first time.
Berke Banks bottomed for Bo Dean in a condomless 3-way, which seemed unwise (the 3rd was a woman). I also saw him in an oral-only scene with Girth (it was one-sided, of course), which might as well have borrowed its title from Tracy Jordan’s movie on 30 Rock: “Hard to Watch, Based on the Book Stone-Cold Bummer by Manipulate.”
Interesting piece, but I don’t believe for a minute that any of these guys are straight. Doing gay porn is not a long term lucrative career, so the doing it for money angle just doesn’t hold up. None of these guys are getting rich from this, and the real money is in escorting anyway. Hmm..
Some of these guys may not be gay, but they are at least bisexual.
I wrote this out of a frustration with needing to pin down what someone is defined as – It strikes me as simplistic that we only have three versions of sexuality: Hetero, homo, and bi. But what if that’s the wrong model all together? I’m interested in hearing what experiences in your life have led you to hold such a strong opinion. Let me know!
In an upcoming issue of GQ magazine evangelist Ted Haggard finally admits he’s bisexual. I find this significant not because of his admission, but because of his reasons for his denial of his desires as it relates to his religeous beliefs, family obligations and social acceptance.
Those squashed desires manifested themselves in an extremely impulsive behavior. Sad to say, that this is all to common amongst (married/have a girlfriend) guys! Rest stops, parks, truck stops, gloryholes, adult book stores, bath houses…are the impulse of choice in the south and midwest. No they aren’t in a hotel with a hooker smoking meth, but it was extremely rare to find a guy who insisted on a condom.
What does have to do with gay for pay?
In this excerpt Berke Banks talks about losing friends, because he didn’t think they would find out. That point is central to what I’ve been saying, that it’s the lack of foresight that drives the “straight” guys in the g4p genre:overwhelming sexual impulse(closet cases), money (porn-escorts)or lonliness (prison- truckers) are the usual motivations behind such actions, but all still require a lack of inhibition and foresight of the consequences!
BTW, I posted on the first exceprt and you left a response about the pay part of gay for pay; which you totally contradict with Burke Banks own words the he was offered double to to a sex scence!
I say they’re learning about themselves in front of a camara instead of the anonymity that most of us do. Which leads to social posturing until they’re comfortable with themselves.
So I call B.S. to this fluid sexuality.
Proof
1. Think of all the guys you know in longterm relationships exclusively with another guy!
2. Think of all the bi guys you know!
3. What percentage of bi guys qualify for question number #1?
Answer: minute amount, if any; right?
I question if a guy is really a part of our community if his day to day life is spent taking his daughter to school, getting a mortgage with his wife, renting an apartment with his girlfriend; most of these things that gay couples have had to deal with being discriminated against. Do they write bisexual on their applications, no because whether they’re a closet case or openly bi-usually with a girlfriend- they’re only queer when the mood strikes! Which means gay guys are second class citizens in their own industry and now we’re SUBSIDIZING PUSSY!@
I’ll take the “average” guys on XTUBE; you know the ones that enjoy gay sex!
Thanks for the response!
I hear you, but I still don’t agree. I also address the issue of contradiction a bunch of times int he first and second part of the piece. It may feel more comfortable to believe there are no contradictions from day to day in our sexualities, but it simply isn’t true. Our sexualities are much more complex than that. I understand being wed to the old model – it’s a strong and seemingly consistent model; so long as you don’t let anything else in. Once you start to consider money, cameras, ego pride, power, etc in the sexual act and part of sexuality, it loses its footing.
The first gay couple I ever met had one partner who would periodically cheat on his male partner, with girls. My current boyfriend had a boyfriend that was cheating on him with a girl… it happens more than you think. I believe in the Kinsey scale, I have never had sex with women, but I have had wet dreams involving sex with women so even though I identify myself as gay to everyone I know, there is a slight inclination towards hetero-sexuality.
Hi conner. This piece is absolutely fantastic. It’s heartfelt, direct, and most of all, very insightful.
I come all the way from the Philippines and we may belong to different cultures and lifestyles, yet your piece on this subject transcends all of that.
I have had my share of straight guys. However, whenever I share those stories with straight girl friends, I always perceive doubt from their eyes regarding the authenticity of my claims. You’ve just validated my beliefs and ideas.
Thank you for that.
Conner, Thank You for this amazing account. It seemed like this took place awhile ago. However a fascinating read nevertheless. Honestly it’s just what I thought went on but these two guys performances have gotten stronger over the course of time. Girth Brooks especially.
I am for g4p or whatever people want to label it as. I just want good performances and Girth and Berke are delivering.
This is amazing! This is incredibly great writing! It’s outstanding! Terrific work, Mr. Habib! Keep this good stuff coming! And thank you for it.
your story made me kind of sad. I thought about the Pashtun Afghans and their tacit acceptance of gay sex and how they, as Taliban in power, would execute gays by pushing over walls on them. Or Jeff Gannon, for example, that sort of thing.
and here you are this obviously well-educated gay man who is acting in porn for money, blogging here about it and sort of bemused by the gay for pay actors with their homophobe relatives and then I think ‘oh that poor guy Habib, he is so caught up in the phony baloney world of phony sex and fake gays that he holds in contempt the liberals and intellectuals that want, you know, fair treatment for gays and maybe are not so crazy about the mendacity of the values in the places where they screw boys in private but execute them if they want to go prom together.’
That guy Girth does get me off, however, but would not want to be trapped on a boat with him and his family, just saying.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I don’t find the two situations comparable – I was exploring the complexity of sexuality and personality. I was trying to understand confusion within myself and how I may (or may not) project this onto others. I believe we’re all figuring it out. That’s not a pass for the Taliban or “that sort of thing,” it’s just an investigation into questions I had. You’re certainly right that I hold in contempt “liberals and intellectuals” in the sense that such labels denote a reductive worldview. But I don’t hold anyone in contempt for trying to genuinely work toward compassion and understanding. Indeed, that’s the thrust of the article.
Also, Girth’s relatives weren’t on the boat. It was a friend and her relatives.
Thanks for the reply. Compassion and understanding is very desirable. Reporting from inside the odd bubble of the porn biz is great reading for the majority of civilians who have never been in there. I would predict that you are in for a reckoning, however. There are men who are bisexual, lots of them in fact, who will not be in your corner when when the compelling forces of commercial sex, incarcaration, drug addiction, or pornography are not persuading them to tip the scales of their preferences away from the fairer sex.
If anyone brings that to me – and no bisexual person has – they misunderstand. In fact, I’m confused as to how anyone could read this and come away with such an impression. If they did, I’d ask them to read it again, more slowly and more carefully.
First, the gay for pay guys don’t claim to be bisexual, they claim to be straight. That needs to be looked at instead of just scoffed at with an idea that “they’re gay” or “they’re bisexual.” Determining their identity from the outside and forcing it on them is no better than someone telling their gay child he’s straight because he had a girlfriend in high school.
Second, and more to the point, I’m exploring ALL sexuality, not just bisexuality, and particularly the sexuality of the porn performer. Sexuality deserves to be explored – not merely dismissed naively by evolutionary biology and empty explanations of “genetics” nor by reductive arguments of “nurture” nor by the often hostile idea of “choice”. It exists in a matrix of all three, with additional elements that have yet to be fully understood. It is still a deep mystery and anyone who claims to have a total rather than partial answer is simply jumping into another mystery and posturing with unearned certainty.
Thanks for the clarification that it was not Girth’s family boat. I was confused on several levels when i too misunderstood as Girth’s family yacht. Makes a lot more sense now.
1. You dont bring a guy your banging in porn shoots to family events if your closeted or str8.
2. You wouldn’t be doing porn if your family had that much money
Just stopping by to say how much I enjoy your blog & all the comments of your readers! Thanks!
@ John your point about Girth Brooks “…You wouldn’t be doing porn if your family had that much money…” I simply don’t feel may always be the case. Some guys are just exhibitionist and really do it for the thrill of the camera and the thought of the positive exposure. The whole experience itself is quite a unique opportunity for the performer to actually perform. Yet the performer will often claim it’s only for the money/quick money. I think this is a phenomena that even crosses sexual orientation with certain performers. Yet no matter how they view it, It’s a wonderful thing. The world is in love with it… and to me a well made “pornograph” be it still or motion is close to the most beautiful art known to mankind.
Just discovered your blog and enjoying the writing tremendously, especially the questions raised about arousal and sexualities in this post.
I used to be heavily involved in the rent boy scene in Prague and whenever straight friends of mine ask they are surprised to find that most of the guys who sold themselves identified as straight. Yet, I could count on one hand the number of times a rent boy had trouble getting it up.
As you said, I think the money turns them on, among other, more complex sources of arousal. If someone asked me what I thought their sexual orientation was, I simply said, rent boy.
Thanks for the kind words and yes, I think “rentboy” is just as useful a designation for someone’s sexuality as “gay” or “straight” – At least it points toward the actual object of desire, money, instead of blending all of it together (like the “homo” in homosexual) and pretending to be a real indicator of just what it is that is sexual int he whole equation.
Technically all performers in gay porn are gay for pay. Semantics aside obviously everyone is free to label themselves as they see fit but imo this is a form of self-loathing. People are spectacularly apt at deluding themselves about their sexuality, I’ve seen it so many times in personal life from various people including myself. Got married at 18 and led the ‘straight’ life for the most part but would let older men pay me for oral/fuck them and tell myself I’m just doing it for the extra money. Then found this circle of younger married men and our justification was that we’re only doing this because our wives are being bitches and won’t help us out when we need it. I know sexuality is complex but straight just men don’t hook up with other men much less leave video evidence.
First, let me say you are an amazing writer, and obviously a deep thinking person. I just discovered your blog searching the internet about gay for pay actors. I didn’t really think there were many. With the proliferation of sites promoting straights guys having gay sex, it made me wonder if my assumption was incorrect. So I began the search, making a list as I went(for my own benefit). The list is growing much faster than I thought.
Sexuality is an intangible thing. You can’t see it, touch it, or hear it. It’s just part of who we are. We are always in a state of evolution, so it makes sense that ones sexuality could evolve into different directions over time.
I believe that I’m totally 100% gay, yet on a few occasions I’ve fucked women in 3 ways, because I wanted to fuck the husband/bf/fb(I’m a total top). It did nothing for me, although I am quite capable of getting and maintaining an erection, even when the guy wasn’t in view. So I can understand how a straight guy could easily be gay for pay. But the action is quite mechanical and lacks passion or chemistry usually. Or so it seems to me.
I’m really split in my feelings about it. On one hand, I find some of the guys very hot and want to watch them. Yet on the other hand I feel a bit exploited by them. Sometimes I think it’s quite cool, and then other times I actually get angry.
I can’t watch the gay guy “servicing” the str8 guy vids. To me that’s demeaning. But why should it be? However sometimes I really love watching str8 men get fucked. Especially if the top in aggressive and a bit rough. I also like F/m strapon porn almost as much for the same reason. Maybe because it’s a form of revenge from the bigotry and homophobia I’ve experienced. I really don’t know.
Why are my feelings about it so mixed up? I don’t know, but I do know that what arouses us sometimes is quite contradictory of what our sensibilities say it should be.
I’m not really sure what my point is in this ramblng post. Except maybe that your argument that it’s much more complicated than just labels is right on target.
Keep writing, and I’m gonna scroll back through your older posts and catch up on all your work!!
BTW I think your mind is fucking hawt!!!
I like this writing and i still trying finding those answers, about how someone do this g4p thingy, i came up with some of ideas that people are afraid of the labels that people address on their head, that’s how many gay men are still is in the closet. Regardless of our sexuality is “gay/str8/bi” human are sexual being, you can just easily surprise on how you found someone aroused on thing’s that you would never thought it’s arousing. So many things that can make people aroused to and yet not fit to the label’s.
In real life i found some of the “str8” claim guy’s would get a blowjob from “gay” men and its natural need’s of self gratification. And these guys gay for pay have a lot of motive to do gay4par porn, like some of us mention, it’s Needs = sex/money all together.
So my conclusion is Human are Sexual being who keeps exploring, one day he was str8 the next day he is gay or in between, is all bout the needs.
What a great read. It took me back to my time in the Army. Lots of guys around. Horny and always wanting something. Meeting some guy online. Married and wanting something his wife would not or could not give him. Either a simple like a kissing or blow job or real man on man sex. They did not identify with being gay. They were “straight” in their eyes. They just needed and or wanted to explore their sexuality or just have some hot sex.. That is kind of what “gay for pay” is like to me. Not gay, but, willing to have sex with another guy if the price is right. Oh! god that is so Cliche, but true. Most would die if they knew their friend had any clue as to the secret desires. So some guy you had so super hot sex with on Saturday night did not even know you existed on Monday morning. Thanks for posting.
The author of this blog comments on the complexity of sexuality and when our sensibilities contradict our arousal.
For example, say you have two heterosexual men on a camping trip. It’s only the two of them. Neither of them had sex recently, so they’re both horny. They’re alone in a secluded area. They’re friends, so they already have a social bond. They sit next to each other and talk. The temptation is there and nobody is watching them. They wouldn’t dream of making love to each other, but the circumstances present a perfect opportunity. Can you see where I’m going with this?
Let me take the discussion further and talk about sexual objectification. A sexual object can be anything used for sexual pleasure. I strongly believe that when people practice sexual objectification, labels like gay, straight and bi become less meaningful. It may be a whole person. It may be part of a person, like a butt. A girl has a sexy butt, and a guy has a sexy butt. Their genders don’t matter because their butts are the only parts being sexually objectified. Can you see where I’m going with this?
Sexuality is truly a blanket term that includes everything beyond gay, straight, or bi. Some pornstars have indicated that it’s not always the person, it’s the act itself. For example, sex toys are not human and certainly aren’t alive, but they are used to induce sexual excitement in humans to the point of orgasm. Sex is not limited to living things.
Conner, I was going to ask you during the filming of Dad goes to college last year since they were literally posting pictures from the daily shoots about “Girth Brooks” he seemed to stop working and then months later he did this project. I was hoping he would start working again but in the back of mind last year even seeing the photos a day or so later from the shoot couldn’t help but think that Girth Brooks either promised to do this production or was under contract to do it. Your the only person I know that might have an answer. Sorry about my grammar and spelling. Your the only one I know that has done multiple scenes with him and seemed to friend with him. He must return.
Hey there – he’s not under contract. He just likes to shoot a movie every once in awhile when he needs money haha
Thanks Conner, you are really the only person I knew to ask. When I said contract I just meant for that particular movie and not a studio exclusive contract. I can only hope “Girth Brooks” starts back at doing more scenes soon. Yet I don’t wish he needs the money (but will gladly except it). I really thought that he had a great personality and had a great on screen presence for the all male adult video. Here’s hoping you do a new scene with him in the future!
Hey l loved part one and part two. I would love to be in porn just dont got the body or hookup. Sounds like an interesting fun experiance. I see a difference now with straight men for pay now after reading yor blog about yor experiances. Reminds me of high school alil lol
Oh Conner! You gave a fun read, a little too fun! Not to insult you in anyway, it’s not a particularly unbelievable story, but it still seemed a bit unbelievable and rosy! I loved this, even though I don’t really feel intellectually stimulated, or as much as I thought I’d be, but I’m very entertained! You deserve every ounce, every drop of compliments anyone ever gave you or will give you about anything and everything, and more!
You always seem to live up to the hype!
Habib,after reading this,I came to conclusion that sex is everywhere around you,it’s like a part of you,a significant part of you.