Jack Shamama, from locally run Gay Porn Blog (), tells me: "All gay for pay is, is a resurgence of 'bisexual.' Bisexuality has gone in and out of fashion throughout history - the last time it was fashionable was in the 1970s.
Some gay-porn industry insiders think it's nothing more than a marketing construct, where the straight-boy fetish is enacted through a personality who is gay in real life but packaged and sold accordingly to the "unattainable" straight-boy fantasy. Because sexual-orientation labels and how they're defined lend themselves so easily to becoming volatile minefields of identity and ideology, there are a lot of strong opinions about what being a gay-for-pay performer means. Male gay-for-pay performers often perform in very specific roles within gay porn - some never "bottom" (receiving anal sex or performing oral sex), for instance, as if being sexually receptive somehow equates with gayness, or that one could "choose" to be gay or not.Ĭonfused yet? You're not alone. So-called bisexual porn is almost always two gay-male porn performers with a woman thrown in, almost like sexual-orientation window dressing. It's clear that these women are working and are lesbian for pay. Most of the women who do girl-girl scenes are not considered actual lesbians by the industry or themselves, and certainly not by "real" lesbians. Every standard heterosexual-porn video contains an obligatory girl-girl scene, a scene in which two women have sex. In straight porn, women who perform scenes together are packaged and sold as "lesbians," but the title "girl-girl" is a much more accurate (and lately more accepted) term for their scenes. Not that so-called gay-for-pay performers would even be comfortable with the label "bisexual" - a look at the openly homophobic, sometimes hostile and even (recently) murderous history of gay-for-pay performers tells us a lot about the taboos of true bisexuality in porn. In both gay and straight porn, the definition and categories of bisexuality are handled confusingly at best, insultingly at worst. Of course, what it actually means is "bisexual." Conventional wisdom on what makes a male performer gay for pay is that he's straight-identified in his day-to-day life but "works" in gay porn. "Gay for pay" means different things to people on all sides of the porn industry, gay and straight. I somehow thought reminding him of being gay for pay in front of everyone would make him leave me alone and so I asked, "Don't you have a girlfriend?!" He said, "Yes, and - hey, baby - she's on the East Coast." I asked, "Doesn't she care?" Smugly - and sleazily - he replied, "Nope." His next volley was "making sure" I was going to the after-party, at which point I turned to the man nearest me - imagine my luck, he was gorgeous - and said, "Help." In half a heartbeat, the cute boy stepped up as my date, saying, "She's with me." We shared a giggle as he turned to Gay for Pay and stated, "We've been together for 13 years." Then, as my new boyfriend and I walked away, we tried to remember Mr. How crass, how inappropriate - how interesting for my first encounter with a gay-for-pay performer. I found myself shocked at a gay-porn event - no minor thing, that - by being on the receiving end of classic, aggressive, straight-male predatory behavior. I introduced myself, and after a quick exchange of names, he said, "Hey, let's go over there and make out." I said, "Uh, no." He pushed to kiss me, then went away, before coming back and trying to get me to go off into a corner with him, this time with more urgency.
Gay for Pay made a beeline for me, instantly getting photographers to take pictures of us together.
The minute I stepped outside for some "fresh air" (with the smokers), Mr. The Castro was at capacity despite the rain, and the establishment maintained crowd control by herding people who needed air into the side alleys. Little did I think that when I took a breather from the hours-long awards ceremony, one of the gay-porn stars - or, actually, a " gay-for-pay" porn star - would nearly take Kathy seriously and cross the lines of play-flirting to wake me from my Big Gay Al's reverie. I was in total agreement - We were the few! The proud! The girls! All those glamorous hot men smiling at me and getting me drinks and complimenting me - and none of them poised to do more than flirt shamelessly and whisper sexily in my ear that I had matched the right purse with my outfit.