Str8 No Chaser®: The Substack Series
Welcome to Str8 No Chaser®, a series about masculinity, erotic labor, and the often contradictory ways we construct sexuality, gender, race, and identity. This post includes adult themes and language.
Str8 No Chaser® began as a question that wouldn’t let me go: why do we cling to labels that both shape and shatter us?
The thing is…men have always had sex with each other. And I mean…it’s just sex. Still, we remain in our feelings about male-on-male attraction, sex, and intimacy. We are reactive. Defensive. At times, violent about this topic.
We’ve spent centuries constructing categories to define people. But what if those same labels are boxing us in—and blocking us from seeing ourselves, and each other, clearly?
Growing up Black, gay, and deeply observant, I knew early on that I didn’t fit. Not just in school hallways or barbershop banter, but in the rigid narratives about what a man is—and isn’t. I couldn’t name it back then, but I could feel the rules I was breaking just by existing.
I now know I wasn’t alone. Still, too many young people—including boys like me—don’t survive the silence. In the last few years alone, several Black boys, some as young as 11, have died by suicide. In some of these cases, they were found hanging in their closets—both literal and metaphorical. All of them casualties of a culture that punishes curiosity, criminalizes softness, and conditions boys to become anything but whole.
Str8 No Chaser® is my refusal to keep quiet. It’s for the misfits, the questioners, the ones who dared to touch pleasure, feel intimacy, and wonder what it meant—before the world taught them to be ashamed.
That’s how Str8 No Chaser® was born: a multimedia project that doesn’t just ask uncomfortable questions—but traces them back to the systems that shaped them – and reveals inconvenient truths about who we are behind closed doors! And between the sheets!
What is Str8 No Chaser®?
Str8 No Chaser® is a growing multimedia project that spans this Substack series, a podcast (A Crack in Everything, launching this month), a docuseries currently in development, public conversations and events—and possibly, a book.
Its goal: to unearth how identity, masculinity, and sexuality have been historically constructed and policed—especially for men. And to ask:
What if everything we’ve been taught about masculinity and sexuality is wrong?
How has misogyny shaped—and limited—how we see male-on-male intimacy?
And if the rules were written by fear and power, where do we go from here?
Str8 No Chaser® (SNC) uncovers the intersectional and cross-cultural effects of patriarchy, organized religion, hypermasculinity and de-masculinization, colonization, racism, classism, xenophobia, and how these forces converge to shape identity, desire, shame, and survival.
What Str8 No Chaser® Will Explore
The social construction of sexual orientation—and how labels like 'homosexual,' 'heterosexual,' ‘bisexual,” ‘straight,’ 'masculine,' and 'feminine' only entered our vocabulary in recent history.
The invention of heterosexuality: how sociopolitical forces helped create the concept to enforce norms around marriage, procreation, and control.
How admiration of the male body—spanning ancient civilizations through the beefcake era, photography, cinema, bodybuilding, World War II patriotism, and civil rights movements of the 1960s—laid the foundation for male objectification and how men see themselves.
How male-on-male sex has existed (often openly) in homosocial environments throughout history—militaries, monasteries, fraternities, prisons, and more.
How religion and colonialism reshaped global attitudes toward same-sex intimacy in many cultures across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas that previously held more open, neutral, or even reverent views of same-sex relationships and gender diversity.
The evolution of male sex work—thousands of years in the making—and a precursor to “rough trade” and modern-day “gay-for-pay” tropes.
“Gay-for-pay” origins and cultural implications—including how the term surfaced in the early 20th century and how it's expressed in contemporary content.
The explosion of military-themed and reality-based gay porn that feature models who are former or sometimes active members of the armed forces – and what it reveals about desire, masculinity, and cultural contradictions. Not to mention the fallout for some models and directors who participated in these films.
The double standards surrounding male vs. female same-sex intimacy—and how porn, patriarchy, and misogyny reinforce them.
The social, sexual, and emotional impact of straight-identified men seeking intimacy with trans women, crossdressers, and gender-nonconforming individuals—and the violence these communities face as a result.
The ways people re-closet themselves inside identity labels—limiting themselves in the very spaces meant to liberate them.
Why Gen Z is choosing freedom over fixed definitions, and what that means for the future.
Uncovering, Undressing, and Revealing
Str8 No Chaser® will include a dynamic blend of research, archival footage, historical documents, cultural analysis, and interviews with a diverse cross-section of contributors—from sexologists and sociologists to adult content creators, cultural critics, and storytellers whose lived experiences mirror the docuseries' themes. Rather than relying solely on traditional 'experts,' SNC draws from lived expertise and firsthand accounts across generations, races, genders, and orientations. Each episode weaves compelling visuals and human stories with historical context, bringing often-overlooked truths into clear, unforgettable focus.
Why It Matters
At the heart of Str8 No Chaser® is a plea: to see one another and ourselves more clearly. To loosen the grip of assumptions and expectations. To make room for contradictions and the unknown. Because identity isn’t just political—it’s personal. It’s spiritual. It’s messy. It’s human. And uncompromising.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot that intimacy is not the enemy. That sexuality—fluid, messy, joyous—doesn’t need to be boxed up and labeled, especially when those labels are barely 100 years old.
And yet, we’ve watched those boxes get weaponized: against women, against queer people, against straight men themselves. And we’ve called that "normal."
This series is about taking the shame out of sex, the myth out of masculinity, and the fear out of questioning. It’s also about remembering: before there was a “closet,” there was simply human experience.
Follow the Journey
If this project resonates, share this post. Subscribe. Become a paid subscriber. As Str8 No Chaser® unfolds, some entries will be free and others for paid subscribers. Either way, your engagement means everything.
Future Str8 No Chaser® posts will unpack behind-the-scenes insights, follow-ups, and companion essays. But lemme know what topics you think Str8 No Chaser® should explore. Drop a comment with your thoughts or questions you’ve never seen answered.
Are you a creator, scholar, sexologist, historian, or storyteller whose work aligns with these themes? I’d love to connect. Feel free to reach out by clicking the “Message” button on my profile.
“If the point of pleasure is to create meaning in our lives, what are all these other ideas doing here?”
The Principles of Pleasure (Netflix, 2022), Episode 2