I condone myself with professionalism

WHAT
I watched

LAST NIGHT
EVERY GREAT FILM SHOULD SEEM NEW EVERY TIME YOU SEE IT

Saturday Night At The Baths

To understand the Conservative voting, heteronormative gay male of today, we must first understand the "predatory homosexual" of yesteryear. That grotesque stereotype of the feared and loathed homosexual is present in writer/director David Buckley's fascinating 1975 film Saturday Night At The Baths. But Buckley (who's straight) comes with good intentions, and his film is a brave one.

It's clear the director is straight, because of the prolonged straight sex scene at the beginning of the film. In fairness, there's also a (shorter) gay sex scene towards the end, featuring the beautiful Don Scotti, an actual employee of the Baths who has since disappeared off the face of the earth. If you're buying the film, take care to purchase the uncut director's cut, and not the earlier butchered release, which saw the gay sex scene cut.

This story from New York's infamous Continental Baths, shot forty years ago, ain't perfect. Its low budget shows, and the performances are straight out of the porn school of acting. But it's a fascinating, pre-AIDS time capsule of a New York long since disappeared, and worth seeing for the incredible Beyond The Fringe drag show alone.

RuPaul's Drag Race

S7 Ep14 - Reunited!

Is the mask slipping, Ru? There has been muttering about this year's season having been below par, but to me it seemed like business as usual. The big success was Untucked's much-needed facelift; this stripped back version was more intimate, more real, and a demonstration of that old adage "less is more".

Early on in the season, it really did feel like Aryan Airlines, with a gaggle of young, pretty white boys I could barely tell apart. And it seemed inevitable that one of these commercially acceptable young white couture queens would win, but I was holding out for Kennedy Davenport and Ginger Minj. If I want skinny bitches doing fashion I'll watch America's Next Top Model, thanks. Let's hope next year's run is more diverse.

But back to RuPaul himself. "If you hear somebody talking about good vibes and letting it all hang out, run a mile," Captain Cook once said. I learned that lesson myself last year, when someone I looked up to and admired turned on me like a Cobra when I didn't toe the line. He, like RuPaul, is fond of preaching positivity, love and acceptance. The emphasis being on preaching, you understand.

But, in coming out in support of right wing bigot Katie Hopkins, RuPaul made a serious error, and this interview (in which he talks about apparently leaving a drowning man to die) is pretty disturbing, too. I guess there's only so much concealer can do for a girl...

Randy Blue

Dominic Santos & Austin Wilde

When I put together the biannual KAOS Top 30 Porn Star list earlier this year, I wasn't really aware of Dominic Santos. Had I witnessed his stunning clash with Austin Wilde, Santos would easily have been top ten material.

The Sword is calling it "the hottest scene of the year", but that's underselling it. In twenty years of porn watchin' (my first movie was Kristen Bjorn's Gangsters At Large. On VHS), I can recall just a handful (fistful?) of scenes that match the intensity of Wilde and Santos' pairing. This is intimate love making at its finest, and by the end of the scene, you're convinced the boys are going to move into a cute loft together in San Francisco. "We just started dating, like, what, six hours ago," Austin jokes in the post-coital interview. "The wedding invites go out next week."

Coronation Street

20th September 1989

I was a kid when I started watching Coronation Street in late '80s Northern Ireland, and a depressed, isolated teen when one of Australia's commercial broadcasters finally starting airing episodes from 1989, several years late, in the mid-90s. Those episodes were a reminder of a time of when I was happy, before I was uprooted for a new life in "the arse end of the world". I recorded the episodes on VHS, and watched them back, over and over. Sad, yes, but it was better than real life.

Thanks to the miracle of the internet (and the work of other "Corrie" devotees), most of those old episodes are now available to view on YouTube. And so I gave up watching the desperately sensationalist pap my favourite soap has degenerated into in recent years (a slow decline that began in the late '90s with the axing of several older actors, an increase in the number of episodes, and the end of rehearsal time) and returned to the exquisite characters of old, performed by actors who could flip from comedy to drama in the blink of an eye.

As painful as Corrie's decline is, there's still forty years worth of episodes to look back on. That's summed up in this 1989 episode, which saw Mike Baldwin's factory demolished. Walking away from the ruins, Phyllis (who has a voice like Harvey Fierstein) tells Percy, "That's why we've got us memories. That's what's permanent. And they can't knock them down, try as they like."

This episode also features Gail and "Poison" Ivy's epic row. "You still blame me for what happened to Brian," Gail spits. "May God forgive you, Gail," Ivy gasps. "Yes, well he might, but you never will," Gail hits back. Oh, gurrrl...

The ka-os|theory top 20 porn stars

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Do I have to?

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I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing

A cut-out-and-keep guide

to porn you need to know

Delusions of grandeur

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I dream in black and white, I wanna make love in colour

D

id Cybersocket, I wonder, realise the controversy its "40 Amazing Porn Stars" list would cause?

Probably - there's nothing like a good controversy to drive traffic. But more interesting than the list itself, and who is and isn't on there, is the debate it's sparked.

Some have argued that Cybersocket's list is acceptable. And lists are essentially worthless, Zach Sire of The Sword says, not unreasonably. Elsewhere, Jeremy Feist points out personal preference is your prerogative: not finding black guys sexy doesn't make you a racist.

All of which is true. Despite personally digging Brad Patton as much as Shorty J as much as Peter Le, I don't think it's wrong (or requiring justification) for someone to say "I'm only into white guys". Being gay doesn't mean we're all misogynists, after all.

However, Cybersocket's list reads thus: "40 Amazing Porn Stars - Consider this a sampler of the guys who have been shining most brightly on our radar during the first half of 2010." It's not one individual's personal choice, thrown up on their own personal blog.

If I were to come up with my own Top 40, for my own obscure little blog, you can bet there'd be every flavour of boy candy in there. That's just me. I could easily fill such a piece exclusively with the models of PapiThugz and Taggaz, but then I'd have to call it my "Top 40 Amazing Black and Latino Porn Stars", wouldn't I?

And if ka-os|theory wasn't such an obscure little blog, such a list of exclusively black models could be deemed as deliberately provocative and controversial. Gee, I'd probably see a huge spike in page hits - right, Cybersocket (the self-proclaimed "leader in gay and lesbian online information")?

Race isn't a non-issue, least of all in gay porn.

The response from readers to this micro-controversy falls broadly into two categories: those protesting against the list, and those claim there's nothing wrong with Cybersocket's list, and that the problem is actually with its detractors. "It's not racist, it's personal choice!" they cry. "Race card, race card - I didn't vote for Obama, gee I must be racist," is another favourite. Oh, and the old intellectual heavyweight: "Grow up".

It's that remarkably common tactic in the GBLT community: deny everything. Prejudice doesn't exist. There is no homophobia, just hypersensitive queens playing the victim card. There is no racism, just hypersensitive queens playing the race card. And so it goes on - deny everything, and you keep your veneer of Teflon.

They might be okay, hardened and heartless queens that they are, but what about that 16-year-old black kid who's just realised he's gay, and stumbles upon Cybersocket's list, and wonders, "Why am I invisible?"

The Cybersocket list is a dog's dinner for many reasons: not because of what's in it, but because of what isn't. Not because, in isolation, it's pretty trivial, but because of what it says about the gay media in general. It perfectly captures a snapshot of a mainstream gay media intent on portraying an airbrushed, snowy white landscape where everyone looks like Sean Cody models. And it provides fuel for divisive racial separatists like James Earl Hardy and Jasmyne Cannick.

So it could be argued that Cybersocket's list of porn models isn't racist. But I dare anyone to deny that what it is, is symptomatic of casual racism in the GBLT community.

||| The Adams Report has a list of links to articles debating the subject.

||| Title quote: "I dream in black and white, I wanna make love in colour." Lyrics, BLACKstreet, "Black & White" (1999).

DACRYPHILIA - WHEN THUGS CRY

IF IT WASN'T for the eviction notice taped to his door, he would've never took him up on his offer. He was desperate. None of his other plans were falling through. Either call that director back or be homeless. Finding the crumbled business card in his baggy jeans, his eyes has trouble focusing on the phone number because his hand wouldn't stop shaking. Coolly, his Brooklyn accent smothered all traces of fear, "Yo, let me talk to Enrique...You still need a bottom?"

It's been awhile, but a man gotta do what a man gotta do.

As a teenager, I remember getting my hands on an early volume of Doin' Da Butt from Enrique Cruz. I don't remember the performers' names, but I do remember the low-quality film, the motel room and the little portable DVD player for the tops to watch straight porn. I've seen amateur porn before, but this struck me as "real".

The scene opened with a little, cocky, chocolate bastard posing; I was initially annoyed. He had the nerve to wear white Air Force Ones to bed. Apparently, his over-sized platinum chain and fitted baseball cap was surgically attached to his body. He managed to keep it on, in spite of what happened to him next.

Enrique Cruz was always the enigmatic, camera man behind the scene. You could hear his voice as he snaps several pictures of the guy flexing his erection and spreading his perfectly round ass-cheeks. He was definitely handsome. He was nicely muscular with random ink scribbled across his flesh.

Then He walked in.

I remember feeling a little scared as the black behemoth entered into the room. He was extremely tall, muscle bound and dangerously hung. I estimate that he was of East Indian descent, mainly due to his dreadlocks and near black skin. I was hypnotized by the way his dick dangled slightly above his knees. He gave a devious, gap-toothed smile to the camera before getting to work.

Waiting on all fours, the bottom adjusted his cap. As Goliath put on a condom and applied lubrication, his dick was getting stiffer by the minute. The initial penetration was painfully slow; he kept cringing and bracing himself. Every inch entering into him made him yelp and mumble. Grunting and backing off, it was clear he was having a hard time. With one hand he was stroking his flaccid cock and the other hand firmly planted on Goliath's thigh. I guess, he wanted to control the amount of dick he was cramming in.

After a rough edit, the giant began to fuck him without mercy. Grappling him by the hips, he was slamming into to him at an alarming speed! The erection in my hand started to soften as my porn turned into a horror flick. I signed up for hot, black men going at it... this was sheer brutality. Banging in and out of him relentlessly, the bottom even tried to get away at some point. Then it happened.

His moans got higher and higher in pitch. His face tightened. He stopped masturbating and grabbed the edge of the mattress. His groaning turned in to sobs. Bawling, he screamed, "Oh God!" I was amazed to see him having a breakdown! I wasn't sure if it was from the pain or if he was having some kind of emotional release, but I've never seen this before in my life. Burying his face into the mattress, even his cries didn't slow the top's speed.

Watching this grown man cry stimulated me in an unexpected way.

I've been to funerals where thugs' eyes stayed dry. I've attended neighborhood murder scenes where thugs remained unaffected; laughed even. The only expression of sadness was a drink offering of malt liquor sent to the pavement. I remember thinking: We do feel.

African-American men have perfected the cavalier art of emotional sterility. Nonchalant. Unmoved. Untouchable. Watching that video forever changed my view of black men. Witnessing his pain and pleasure intertwine, I couldn't help but wonder if that was all he was crying about. Did he take that as an opportunity to mourn? An opportunity to release? Was he expressing the totality of his frustration in that moment? That as "real" as porn gets.

Forbidden Light wrote exclusively for ka-os|theory.

Pervert. Heretic. Avant-Gardian. New blogger, Forbidden Light, makes it his mission to mix all things with sex and fetish. With the belief that "sex is a microcosm of the universe"; he tests his theories by making strange sexual juxtapositions. In his blog, Journals of an Intelsexual, he severely over-analyzes the basic and attempts to summarize the grandiose. Kink. Spirit. Headaches. Is there any more to life?

Visit Forbidden Light at Journals of an Intelsexual

AGALMATOPHILIA: IDOL WORSHIP‏

Forbidden Light is the latest author to write exclusively for ka-os|theory...

Pervert. Heretic. Avant-Gardian. New blogger, Forbidden Light, makes it his mission to mix all things with sex and fetish. With the belief that "sex is a microcosm of the universe"; he tests his theories by making strange sexual juxtapositions. In his blog, Journals of an Intelsexual, he severely over-analyzes the basic and attempts to summarize the grandiose. Kink. Spirit. Headaches. Is there any more to life?

EVERYDAY, WE INDULGE in the flesh of the beautiful people. In advertisements, entertainment and especially blogging, we stare deeply into the images of gorgeous men and women. We salivate as models expose themselves while shedding light on their best features. We peer into the depth of their muscle definition. We bask in the shine of their radiant skin. We study the symmetry of their flawless features. We will never find our fill. We will never be content. Our hunger is constrantly rekindled by the sight of yet another unique, signature masterpiece.

A great deal of our fixation on photographed beauty is voyeuristic. In our day to day lives, we’re blessed to live amongst the striking and attractive. However, it is a rarity to receive access to what lies beneath their modesty. To catch a glimpse of their exposed bodies, their pretty privacies; we’re aroused by the chance to survey the shame and pride of gods. We examine the secrets of their anatomy. We trace the delicate stitching of their undersides. We discover details of what dangles in the dark. There aren’t enough angles, positions or scenarios to satisfy our need to see beauty unfold.

Ultimately, we are all students of human potential. We’re excited to see strength shining, grace offered and superiority executed. We’re salivating at the sight of our best features on another. We’re, in fact, peering into the depth of our latent power. Hence, we receive joy from viewing these polished pinnacles of humanity, because we get a chance to see what we could be.

How beautiful is that?

Visit Forbidden Light at Journals of an Intelsexual

WAR OF THE BOOTY!

SO WHO'S GOT the phattest azz?

ka-os|theory favourite Shorty J, pictured with bootylicious Rafael Alencar. It doesn't get much better than that.

The boys were at California's Erotic Expo. There's an even bigger wad of photos from the event at Rafael's sexy blog.

ELSEWHERE - Rafael Alencar.com

Who Let The Thugs Out?

DID MICHAEL LUCAS have any idea about the can of worms he was opening when he made his now infamous comments about black models in porn?

Over at Paper Clips N' Potato Chips, the debate is about how white men perceive black male sexuality. The "Black Brute", the "submissive black bottom", and the thug are three stereotypes depicted in American porn, and Clarence wonders what forces have engineered this scenario.

My main concern with Clarence's articles (the general thrust of which I agreed with) is the notion that white men are to blame for the perpetuation, and dominance, of the thug stereotype in porn. On this I completely disagree.

The portrayal of the thug character in porn is almost exclusively limited to black-on-black/blatino/latino films. There just isn't enough porn of the type that would indicate the thug being fetishized by whites to suggest that the thug fantasy is white-driven. If it was, we might expect to see a white boy thrown into the CocoDorm, for example - if Flavaworks could sell more DVDs and memberships by selling a black-on-white gangbang fantasy, they would. But their audience is primarily black, and simply not interested in those sorts of interracial depictions.

Secondly, it seems to me that the majority of white men who are sexually attracted to black men simply aren't attracted to the thug image. The popular "type" is the conventional gay muscle man: men like Diesel Washington, Brian Bodine, Jason Tiya and Eddie Diaz et cetera. Whilst Washington and Diaz could be described as dominant tops, both Bodine and Tiya frequently appear in both passive and active roles. If we look at studios like Randy Blue, racial stereotyping is largely absent; the emphasis is on hyper masculinity, a fantasy where all parties are "one of the guys".

In short, most white men don't like the thug image. It's a black thing (or in other words, Caucasians not welcome).

For further evidence of this, look at the extraordinary racial diatribes provoked by the shutdown of thug paradise Nubian101 by "evil whitey" Titan. It's a situation portrayed both by the site's owners and its fans as black against white.

Clarence says, "Now as for the point that popularity of the thug image is principally attributed to the urban culture. That alone does not explain all of it. While surely there are African-Americans that fantasize about the ideal 'thug', that would account for it being a niche, like bears, twinks, etc."

I'd argue that the thug, or urban culture, is the popular currency of the black gay community, and not a niche at all. It's something that's been adopted as "theirs" and one which excludes whites. If you don't believe me, just log on to BGCLive, where the only niches you'll find are those black men who don't represent themselves as thugs.

You might not like it, but the dominance of the thug in porn isn't down to "evil whitey". In fact, quite the opposite: I'd argue that it's a defence against white men, something that clearly signposts the separatist mentality of us and them.

RELATED STORIES...

PREVIOUSLY - Black Models Won't Appear In Gay Films

PREVIOUSLY - Battle Of The Sex Sites With A Racial Twist

PREVIOUSLY - Labels: Hate It Or Love It, You've Got One

PREVIOUSLY - I Dream In Black And White, I Wanna Make Love In Colour

PREVIOUSLY - Can Discrimination Ever Be Acceptable? I Think So

PREVIOUSLY - Heard the One About The Porn Star And The Zebra Crossing?

PREVIOUSLY - Sometimes Porn Stars Say Bad Things

Black Models Won't Appear In Gay Films

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Battle of the Sex Sites With A Racial Twist

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Heard the one about the porn star and the zebra crossing?

WHEN IT COMES to race, progressive thinking isn't something porn is known for.

In the sex industry, ethnicity generally translates as flavour, a bit like different flavours of icecream. This isn't very different from The Life in general, where every characteristic is a potential selling point - or minus. Muscles, twink, blonde, bear, hung, pierced - and black, Latino or Asian: they're all sales pitches on a box cover (or an irritating banner on DList... or, come to that, on the average Joe or Jamal's profile).

The Sword.com has looked at the 10 most racially offensive porn titles, and some of them really are stunningly bad: Ace Of Spades, anyone? How about Dealers? Truth be told, most of their top 10 isn't that bad, and I thought I could come up with some better examples, with a little research (and I do mean a little; it doesn't take too long with porn). But it was all too exhausting, not to mention depressing, a quick browse of the interracial section of Movie Mountain throwing up dozens of Big Black Dicks Tight White Asses (no, it can't be the other way around in porn land), Big Black Bananas (of course they are - they all are, you know that!), some Black Lust White Passion (apparently indicating some primitive difference in black desire) and the revelation that Big Black Men Like Dick Too (hang on, I thought they were all big? And do little black men like dick too?). And don't forget this important warning from your mama: Black Meat Taboo & Forbidden! And that's before I got to Asian and Latino men. No doubt the words "rice" and "spice" feature heavily in those categories.

What must this be doing to our youth? Is it any wonder the whiter than white scene queens on Gaydar look down on those who are not. Or that the precocious divas of BGC think their race makes them a prized commodity? No, you're not special 'cos you're mixed race, and saying "I don't do black" on your Adam4Adam profile isn't cool. Race ain't a commodity to be traded on, kids.

It isn't all bad news in porn land. Jean Daniel Cadinot was generally indiscriminate in his use of models, and his scope was wide (ahem...), with boys from Africa, Asia, Europe and the middle east. More importantly, as a European director, his features were bereft of the depressing slave paradigms and racially charged power relationships prevalent in American porn. Men were, simply, men, not black men and white men coming together and breaking taboos. Similarly, Kristen Bjorn has used a wide variety of nationalities and races in his films, to the extent that it's clear most of the models don't understand a word anyone else is saying. Everyone is an exotic confection, black, white or otherwise. And that's how it should be.

Get Shorty J

I REALLY SHOULD get paid for this, but I don't.

Yes, I'm going to talk about CocoDorm again. Because I happened to "accidentally" stumble into the Cocostore site (ahem) and notice that the next Flava Works release is called Get Shorty J.

As you can imagine, this had me rolling around the floor in fits of laughter for hours at this porntastic adaptation of a cinema classic (apparently, since I've never seen Get Carter).

One thing I certainly have seen a lot of is Shorty J (although not as much as I'd like to). Me, I'm 6'3. But you know, there's truth in the old adage good things come in small packages.

Oh, for the love of Shorty...

This latest release also features another of my CocoDorm favourites, Pimp, the centre of much controversy in the gay media in recent times. One would hope that the release of this footage proves that the model in question is safe and well...

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