NY – A “mere model and dancer” can sue a magazine for calling him a porn star, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

Go-go dancer and art student Manuel Alex Saez says he endured “emotional and mental suffering and distress, and sleeplessness and aggravation” after HX magazine published a racy, unauthorized picture of him to promote his appearance at a Chelsea nightclub and identified him as “Big City Video porn star Alex.”

“He’ll definitely get your sprinklers working,” read the 2006 listing, which was headlined “Five-Alarm Fierce.”

The magazine had asked for the $1.25 million libel suit to be tossed out, arguing it had gotten the pic and listing information from the “historically reliable” nightclub Splash, and it was a “newsworthy” notice of a public event.

In her ruling allowing the suit to go forward, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Goodman noted that the photo the club provided of Saez shows him barechested and in open jeans but that the magazine “does admit that no investigation was done” to determine if he was a porn star.

Her ruling leaves the door open for HX to try again to get the claims tossed at a later date.

HX Media lawyer Alan Effron called Goodman’s ruling “unfortunate,” but predicted she would eventually find that “the magazine acted responsibly.”