Gay-for-Pay: Polarization, Posers, and the Pleasure Principle
From Str8 No Chaser®: the following post is a frank exploration of straight-identified men, sex work, erotic performance, and adult media.
On June 7, 2022, Nick Fitt, a well-known gay porn star and then-head of production at Falcon Studios, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he would no longer hire models who are “gay for pay” to perform in gay or bisexual scenes. The backlash was swift. Falcon Studios publicly denounced the stance as discriminatory, and Fitt quietly exited the company.
The incident underscored a rarely acknowledged truth: it’s not just gay porn consumers who openly disdain gay-for-pay performers. It’s also industry insiders. Never mind that gay-for-pay performers have existed since the dawn of the gay porn industry and, as previously noted, that straight men have participated in male-on-male sex work for millennia. Before the terms “straight,” “bisexual,” and “gay” existed.
While the term gay-for-pay may have entered common usage in the 1990s, its first formal academic appearance likely came in Jeffrey Escoffier’s groundbreaking 2003 paper, “Gay-for-Pay: Straight Men and the Making of Gay Pornography.” As explored in parts I and II of “The History of Gay-for-Pay,” straight men have long appeared in gay porn and in other forms of sex work with male clients, be it for survival, performance, pleasure, fantasy, or some combination thereof.
So why does it still rattle people when straight men show up in gay porn? Especially when we’re radio silent when women perform “girl-girl” scenes in porn, not asking or caring about sexual orientation.
The backlash may reveal valid tensions around authenticity, community, and the politics of desire. But some of the pushback appears knee-jerk. Visceral. Hypocritical. In some cases, discriminatory, particularly when critiques are aimed not just at straight men, but at anyone who dares blur the lines in gay porn.
Many gay-for-pay content creators have been accused of queerbaiting: using the promise of more explicit male-on-male scenes or fan PPVs (pay-per-view videos), but failing to deliver what was promised or ghost fans who shelled out hundreds of dollars for PPVs. Needless to say, this is a shitty business model. But the bait-and-switch in sex work is not exclusive to gay-for-pay content creators.
Then, there are gay-for-pay performers who announce they are “100% straight,” thereby appearing too defensive or quickly dismissive of the possibility they are gay. Or bi, for that matter. Now…how often do we hear women who perform girl-girl sex scenes proclaim to be 100% straight? Not because they aren’t. Or even asked?
But male gay-for-pay models are constantly asked about their motives for doing male-on-male sex scenes. And as with many straight men, some gay-for-pay models appear concerned about losing their straight status, eerily reminiscent of the one-drop rule of yesteryear: the idea that any person with even one ancestor of African ancestry (“one drop” of Black blood) is considered Black. Not biracial. Black. Not bisexual. Gay.
Gay viewers have accused gay-for-pay models of being secretly gay. Or, if gay porn models state they are bisexual, gay viewers call bullshit. We all said that before coming out. Not all though. More than half of LGBTQ individuals self-identify as bisexual, which aligns with Alfred Kinsey’s landmark research from nearly 80 years ago. More on Kinsey’s studies and findings in a future Str8 No Chaser® post.
An inconvenient truth for my fellow gay and bi men: We don’t hold a monopoly on same-sex acts between men. Two men (of any identity or orientation) can have sex with each other. And they have, for thousands of years. Long before we had words like gay, straight, bi, or heteroflexible.
Modern definitions of sexual orientation typically include three components: sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and emotional connection, and increasingly, a fourth: identity. That last piece, how someone identifies, is often where the friction lies. Because we’ve grown so attached to sexual identity not just as a descriptor, but as a form of power, protection, or survival.
But self-identifying as gay has never been a prerequisite for a man to have sex with another man. Same goes for women who have sex with women. Case in point: many of us identified as straight when we had our first same-sex experiences. Coming out wasn’t a requirement.
And let’s be clear: Romance is not a prerequisite for consensual sex. So yes, we can feel some type of way about straight-identified men who have sex with men, whether for pay or not, but we can’t stop it. And honestly? We shouldn’t want to.
(For a deeper dive into this, see Sexual Behavior, Orientation & Identity.)
Still, gay porn consumers have called out gay men for watching and supporting gay adult content headlined by straight-identified models and content creators. Speculating that these viewers are ashamed of being gay or setting back the LGBTQ+ community. But there’s a glaring blind spot to this mindset, already paper-thin on data and logic. “Ashamed of being gay” and “setting back the community” are almost copy-and-paste hitjobs that men of color endure for dating someone “outside their race.”
It’s also not a good look to shame or interrogate someone for their fetish, kink, or sexual proclivities. Isn’t this what society-at-large has historically done to us? Still, gay blogs, online forums, and podcasters perform scavenger hunts to expose why gay men are attracted to straight men, often with a pathological lens. As if there’s something wrong, to figure out or resolve. For “the community.”
So much for sex-positivity…
Since the advent of erotic images, fantasy and taboo have been prime selling points of pornography. Adult cinema features several archetypes to represent unattainable desirability: the Girl-Next-Door, the Virgin, the Mom/MILF/Stepmom, Dad/DILF/Stepdad, the Delivery Guy, the Firefighter, the Military Guy, My Best Friend’s Mom, the Lesbian Who’s Never Been With a Guy. And…the Straight Guy.
Also of note: Gay men spend more time around straight men than gay and bi men, due to the straight-to-gay ratio and socioenvironmental, sociopolitical and professional settings. But the most likely reason gay men are attracted to straight men is…they are men. Duh! Ultimately though, there’s nothing to see here. Or figure out. Or fix.
Still, the pushback persists and goes beyond gay-for-pay models. Scenes featuring FTM models are often met with hostility from gay viewers, despite no shortage of viewers watching scenes with transgender performers. This aggression has spilled over into bisexual porn. even as it surges in global popularity. In 2018, popular gay porn site Men.com released its first bisexual scene which starred popular gay porn star Arad Winwin, who self -identifies as gay.
The backlash was swift. And brutal. This Men.com video was harshly downvoted by fans, making it the most disliked scene in Men.com's history. And Winwin was accused of being “secretly straight” or of having "converted" to heterosexual or bisexual. Still, Winwin was unyielding: "I'm a gay man. This was only a job, and it was nothing more. Nothing personal. I was working, and it was like any other scene I've done."
Even gay-identified performers aren’t exempt from scrutiny. Derek Kage, a wildly popular gay male porn star, made his studio debut in 2022. In addition to gay scenes, Kage recently began performing in bi, trans, and straight-pairing scenes. For that, he’s faced sustained pushback from parts of the gay fanbase.
But instead of apologizing or explaining himself, Kage delivered a bold, unfiltered message on the Sorry for Asking podcast: “Stop being so close-minded and stop pushing your thoughts and whatever you think a gay man is on someone else. What I identify as is what I identify as, and that’s my fucking business.” Business, indeed: Kage remains a consistent top seller, a multiple winner of awards by the gay porn industry, and a fan-favorite despite (or maybe because of) his refusal to play respectability politics.
Despite the backlash, gay-for-pay porn shows no sign of waning in popularity. In recent years, Malik Delgaty has dominated the landscape as the most viewed gay porn star globally, despite self-identifying as straight. In its most recent Pride Month data, Pornhub Insights reported that Delgaty was the most-viewed gay performer on the site, followed by Joey Mills and Foxy Alex. But here’s the twist: several of the most-viewed performers weren’t even in gay porn. Straight-identified male performers – including Johnny Sins, Gattouz0, Maximo Garcia, and Danny D (who actually began in gay porn under the name Matt Hughes) – made the list.
Translation: people watch what they want to watch. Gay viewers watch gay-for-pay models because they can. The same applies to women who make up almost half of gay porn consumers. They can. The same reason straight men enjoy girl-girl and trans porn. They can. Why 55% of gay men watch straight porn and 21% of straight men watch gay porn (you read that correctly)! They can.
Labels be damned!
Coming Up on Str8 No Chaser® (SNC)
Gay. Straight. Identity. Where do these labels come from, and what are their limits? Does identity have a sell-by date?
Alfred Kinsey’s landmark research on sexual behavior. Why was it shocking, why was it controversial, and how does the research stand up today?
The Invention of Heterosexuality. How a 19th-century label reshaped desire, gender, and social control!
Military-themed gay pornography. The stars: active and former military men. Ruh roh.
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