NY- “Some directors think that it is better to have straight men in gay porn,” said Jeffrey Escoffier,[pictured] who writes about gay culture, politics and history. “They have less trouble getting erections.”
Last night at 19 University Place, Escoffier discussed gender and sexuality in porn while specifically focusing on his work studying the “gay for pay” phenomenon in which straight men perform in gay porn films. From his interviews with people in the industry, Escoffier has found that 25 to 40 percent of porn actors are “gay for pay.”
“To become a porn star and to be a top, you have to be able to get an erection, and you have to be able to fuck,” Escoffier said. “In gay porn, erections are very important, real penetration is very important and having a real orgasm is very important, and in ways it is not in straight porn. Every porn set is filled with stories of the hours spent waiting for an orgasm or for an erection.”
In addition to physically sexual problems that may arise, openly straight men performing in gay films also results in a different kind of film, filled with specific sexual symbolism and greater meaning, Escoffier said.
“The ass is commonly emphasized because it is symbolic of the newest figures and those most in need of sexual redefinition,” Escoffier said. Additionally, boundaries of sexuality and decency are continually pushed because “in porn, there is the demand to produce ever more perverse sexual fantasies to keep people engaged and watching.”
Escoffier then showed a clip from the first hard-core gay porn film that portrayed full nudity and gay sex.
But “gay for pay” is not merely a career option; it is also an economic strategy. Actors get paid more for filming a gay porn scene than they would for straight porn, Escoffier said. Ultimately though, actors in gay porn make less annually because gay porn makes up a much smaller portion of the sex industry.
Additionally, “gay for pay” introduces social discourse issues of the ambiguity and defiance of what might be deemed “traditional” sexual preferences and identity into society. Escoffier, the author of “Passport to Fantasy” and a visiting scholar for the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, cited one prominent porn star in illustrating this point: “[The porn star] claims he is ‘gay for pay,’ but in the course of his career, he discovered that his favorite way to be fucked is on his back by a trannie or a girl with a strap-on. Now, how would he be classified?”
Toward the end of the event, Escoffier considered the lack of mainstream media coverage that the porn industry receives.
“The porn industry is at least as big as the world of professional sports, but there are no pages in the newspapers for it,” he said. “There is no way to become known or recognizable, and there is especially no way to talk about it without it becoming taboo.”