Gay-for-pay describes male or female actors, pornographic stars, or sex workers who identify as heterosexual but who are paid to act or perform as homosexual professionally. The term has also applied to other professions and even companies trying to appeal to a gay demographic.[1][2] The stigma of being gay or labeled as such has steadily eroded since the Stonewall riots began the modern American gay rights movement in 1969. Through the 1990s, mainstream movie and television actors have been more willing to portray homosexuality, as the threat of any backlash against their careers has lessened and society's acceptance of gay and lesbian people has increased.[3]
In the gay pornography industry, that uses amateurs as well as professional actors, the term gay-for-pay refers to actors who identify as straight but who engage in same-sex sexual activities for money or sexual gain. Some actors who are actually gay or bisexual will be marketed as straight to appeal to the "allure of the unattainable," because straight men (or those newly coming out) are virgins to sex with other men; scholar Camille Paglia declared that "Seduction of straight studs is a highly erotic motif in gay porn."[4]
Pornography
Because some gay men consider heterosexual men to be objects of fantasy, some gay porn producers have almost certainly described some actors as heterosexual to increase sales and publicity for their product.[5] Moreover, many gay or bisexual men who star in gay porn films may wish to be identified publicly as heterosexual for personal or professional reasons.[6]
Some straight actors have started acting in gay porn only to be accused of being gay while others' first step was to strictly do solo masturbation or muscle exhibition scenes.[7] The higher pay scale and profile within a production often leads to group scenes where a straight actor only "tops." A "top" actor will often be sought as a bottom and the debut is often treated as a notable event or even its own release.[8]
BluMedia Inc, created a made-for-TV docu-series called Broke Straight Boys. The show "Broke Straight Boys" is a reality-based docu-series that explores the world of "Gay for Pay", a term used to describe when straight men do gay porn for money. The show explores the dynamic relationships between the owner of BluMedia, Mark Erickson, his business staff, and the young men who choose to do gay porn to supplement their income by performing for adult websites.[9]
In the sex worker industry, the term may also be applied to straight people of either gender (including "male escorts") who have sexual contact or scenes with a client or another sex worker of the same gender. Although sexual contact is often involved, sex scenes or solo scenes (like masturbating to climax) or even a BDSM scene for the client's stimulation can take place. Sexual arousal without direct sexual contact may also occur in such niche trade as muscle worship. As in porn work, a gay identity is not necessary to make money from gay clients and consumers.
Go-go dancers
Go-go dancing originated in the 1960s. It was eventually appropriated by burlesque and striptease establishments, which became known as "go-go bars". Many gay clubs had male go-go dancers, called go-go boys during the period 1965–1968. After that, few gay clubs had go-go dancers until a resurgence in the late 1980s, when go-go dancing again became fashionable, and has remained so ever since.
"Go-go dancers" who perform at night clubs, special parties, circuit parties or rave dances wearing colorful bright costumes (which may include battery operated lights, fire sticks, or a snake) can also be called performance art dancers or box dancers. Large circuit parties and gay clubs often have very attractive go-go boys of all sexualities who will allow patrons to touch and rub them but only for tips. This is typical in Thai venues, such as in Sunee Plaza, Pattaya.[10] Some criticize the practice of employing straight dancers to perform erotically for gay audiences when gay performers are available.[11]
In film and television, the term "pinkface" is the use of straight actors to play LGB roles or characters. Anna King of Time Out likens "pinkface" to blackface.[12] Pinkface differs from straightwashing, which is the erasure of gay characters and themes from stories in film and television.
Controversy has arisen from this practice due to nominations and wins of awards from these roles, particularly for gay men. For example, since Hanks' win for Philadelphia in 1993, only two openly gay actors have been nominated for either Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards: Nigel Hawthorne in 1994, and Ian McKellen in 1998 and 2001. Neither man won, nor has an openly gay man been nominated since.[14] Meanwhile, sixteen straight actors have been nominated for gay roles, with five winning.[15] The same has also applied to television, where Jim Parsons remains the only openly gay actor to be nominated for or win an Emmy Award in the lead acting categories; meanwhile, the heterosexual Eric McCormack was nominated and won for his portrayal of Will Truman on Will & Grace, which remains the only nomination for a gay male character in these categories.
The LGBT community has also raised concerns about when actors in pinkface have used negative or harmful stereotypes in their portrayals of gay characters. Dennis Lim states that the depictions of gays in mainstream film typically include the "gay joke", in which LGBT people are depicted to create humor; depicting gay men pejoratively as a "daisy, a fairy, a nonce, a pansy, a swish" or showing lesbian woman as "butch"; and to create a homosexual panic that plays on heterosexual people's fears of experiencing sexual advances from LGBT people.[16]
The 1980 film Cruising created controversy due to its plot of a straight cop, played by straight actor Al Pacino, going undercover to infiltrate a gay nightclub, and its negative depictions of gay men that seem to justify a gay panic defense from Pacino's character.[16] Straight actor Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of a gay man in the film Brüno also created controversy, being described as an attempt to "...mak[e] fun of the queer community."[16][17]
Pinkface in television advertising has also been compared to blackface; similar to the way 19th-century blackface performances created and affirmed a hierarchical system that presented certain identities as "preferred and privileged", with pinkface ads, LGBT people are portrayed to create "humorous stigmatization" which is "insidious," as "like blackface, pinkface advertisements create a culture that posits the identities of GLBT persons [to a mainly non-GLBT audience] as inferior, inappropriate and ludicrous."[18] One source called pinkface ads the "most destructive genre of queer commercials," as they manipulate queer identities to create stigmatization at gay people's expense and strengthen heteronormative standards.[19]
Some pinkface TV ads depict hairy bearded men in drag (wearing dresses), with the intent of making fun of and devaluing trans women and present a "campy, stigmatized" depiction of trans people.[20] Bud Light's 2003 beer commercial "Clown" depicts gay men as perverse by showing a man in a clown costume who appears to be walking on his hands, so that his mouth is positioned at the location of his costume's "bottom," thus making his drinking of beer look like the bottle is going into his anus, as the "bar patrons look at...in disgust," showing that the gay reference is derogatory.[21]
In the 2007 Snickers chocolate bar ad "Chest hair," two men eat the same chocolate bar and then accidentally end up kissing when they eat the entire bar, causing them to scream and rip out their chest hair, which implies that if two men kiss, they must prove their masculinity with pain-causing "hypermasculine behavior," which implies it is "preferable to physically harm one's self than to be identified as gay."[18]
Gary Nunn of The Guardian, noting that he grew up as a closeted and confused boy, said that while he understands gay people wanting to "redress the balance" of "gay actors hav[ing] been told by Hollywood to stay in the closet if they ever want to play a straight role" and straight white men having more power and influence and access to better jobs than other people, "to demand that only gay actors play gay roles is not the way to correct an inequality." He believes that "in a world where gay actors are still denied straight roles, it'll just lead to typecasting of gay actors - the very thing they're wanting to escape. Gay actors want a diversity of roles just like straight actors do."[22]
Popular culture
The Fluffer, film about a fictional gay-for-pay actor
A term that is derivative of "gay-for-pay" is the partly tongue-in-cheek term "straight-for-pay," which describes gay men who have sex with women for pay. The term was coined to describe the film Shifting Gears: A Bisexual Transmission, due to gay porn stars Cameron Marshall and Blake Riley being featured in heterosexual scenes. Other notable examples of gay porn stars going "straight-for-pay" are Steven Daigle[23] and Arpad Miklos, the latter of whom received a great deal of criticism for his scene on the site Straight Guys for Gay Eyes (SG4GE). SG4GE's company principal Jake Cruise defended the scene, stating that it was a "winning idea" to portray a "masculine gay man exploring straight sex" because "I've always loved to push boundaries and press buttons with my work."[24][25]
In August 2018, the gay male pornographic website Men.com released its first scene featuring MMF bisexual porn titled "The Challenge." Arad Winwin, the star of the scene and a self-identified gay man, faced backlash from fans for acting in the scene, with some fans accusing him of being straight or of having "converted" to heterosexual or bisexual. Winwin told the gay website Str8UpGayPorn that "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."[26][27][28]
Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia, it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure.
Heteroflexibility is a form of a sexual orientation or situational sexual behavior characterized by minimal homosexual activity in an otherwise primarily heterosexual orientation, which may or may not distinguish it from bisexuality. It has been characterized as "mostly straight". Although sometimes equated with bi-curiosity to describe a broad continuum of sexual orientation between heterosexuality and bisexuality, other authors distinguish heteroflexibility as lacking the "wish to experiment with ... sexuality" implied by the bi-curious label. The corresponding situation in which homosexual activity predominates has also been described, termed homoflexibility.
Lesbian erotica deals with depictions in the visual arts of lesbianism, which is the expression of female-on-female sexuality. Lesbianism has been a theme in erotic art since at least the time of ancient Rome, and many regard depictions of lesbianism to be erotic.
LGBT stereotypes are stereotypes about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) people based on their sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions. Stereotypical perceptions may be acquired through interactions with parents, teachers, peers and mass media, or, more generally, through a lack of firsthand familiarity, resulting in an increased reliance on generalizations.
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
Bisexual pornography is a genre of pornography that most typically depicts men and at least one woman who all perform sex acts on each other. A sex scene involving women and one man who all perform sex acts on each other is generally not identified or labeled as bisexual.
A pornographic film actor or actress, pornographic performer, adult entertainer, or porn star is a person who performs sex acts on video that is usually characterized as a pornographic movie. Such videos tend to be made in a number of distinct pornographic subgenres and attempt to present a sexual fantasy; the actors selected for a particular role are primarily selected on their ability to create or fit that fantasy. Pornographic videos are characterized as either softcore, which does not contain depictions of sexual penetration or extreme fetishism, and hardcore, which can contain depictions of penetration or extreme fetishism, or both. The genres and sexual intensity of videos is mainly determined by demand. Depending on the genre of the film, the on-screen appearance, age, and physical features of the actors and their ability to create the sexual mood of the video is of critical importance. Most actors specialize in certain genres, such as straight, bisexual, gay, lesbian, bondage, strap-on, anal, double penetration, semen swallowing, teenage, orgy, age roleplay, fauxcest, interracial or MILFs and more.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males. Its primary goal is sexual arousal in its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male, and bisexual audiences of any gender.
Shifting Gears: A Bisexual Transmission is a controversial GayVN Award winning bisexual pornographic film written and directed by Chi Chi LaRue and released by Channel 1 Releasing in 2008.
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, to more than one gender, or to both people of the same gender and different genders. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, which is also known as pansexuality.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Queer pornography depicts performers with various gender identities and sexual orientations interacting and exploring genres of desire and pleasure in unique ways. These conveyed interactions distinctively seek to challenge the conventional modes of portraying and experiencing sexually explicit content. Scholar Ingrid Ryberg additionally includes two main objectives of queer pornography in her definition as "interrogating and troubling gender and sexual categories and aiming at sexual arousal."
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
Men.com is a producer of gay internet pornography content. It is owned by Aylo.
Gay Meets Girl is a 2013 Dutch documentary film written, directed by and starring Tim den Besten and Nicolaas Veul. The documentary film explores the subject of sexual fluidity through a gay man's quest to have sex with a woman. The original Dutch title translates to "A man doesn't know what he's missing" and references a gay man's not knowing what he is missing out on by not having sex with women. The documentary aired on Dutch public television.
Hylan Anthony Taylor, known by his stage name Johnny Rapid, is an American gay pornographic film actor.
Straightwashing is portraying LGB or otherwise queer characters in fiction as heterosexual (straight), making LGB people appear heterosexual, or altering information about historical figures to make their representation comply with heteronormativity.
WhyNotBi.com is a producer of bisexual internet pornography content oriented towards bisexual men. It is owned by Aylo.
Arad Winwin, is an Iranian American gay pornographic film actor, model and bodybuilder.
↑ King, Anna (7 July 2009). "Brno reignites the pinkface debate: As gay-themed films Brno and Humpday hit theaters, TONY weighs in on the drama behind the comedy". www.timeout.com. Timeout. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2018. Brno—in which a straight Sacha Baron Cohen plays a flamingly gay Austrian fashion reporter—is the latest film to be accused of making fun of the queer community, drawing the accusation of being pinkface. The epithet is a recent addition to the cinematic lexicon: simply put, it's a riff on the term blackface. It carries the same pejorative connotations but applies to straight actors taking on gay roles. Blackface has long gone the way of anti-miscegenation laws, yet Prop 8 is still with us. Is being gay the new black?
↑ Kirst, Seamus (6 December 2017). "Latest Gay-for-Pay Oscar Bait: Dear Hollywood, Let queer people tell our own damn stories". Them. One need not look far to see that Hollywood often fails to provide both representation of, and employment to, members of marginalized communities. Movements like #OscarsSoWhite, and continued pushback against cisgender actors playing trans roles, have been increasingly covered in media the past few years. Yet the Gay for Pay Problem has not had the same attention, at least in the recent past, as other ways that Hollywood is willing to tell stories from marginalized groups without hiring marginalized people
1 2 Farr, Daniel and Guenther, Gretchen. "Seeking the Rainbow Dollar: Gay and Lesbian Marketing and Consumption." In The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products, and their Cultural Places. Ed. Tanfer Emin Tunc, Annessa Ann Babic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Oct. 2, 2009. p. 49
↑ Farr, Daniel and Guenther, Gretchen. "Seeking the Rainbow Dollar: Gay and Lesbian Marketing and Consumption." In The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products, and their Cultural Places. Ed. Tanfer Emin Tunc, Annessa Ann Babic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Oct. 2, 2009. p. 50
↑ Farr, Daniel and Guenther, Gretchen. "Seeking the Rainbow Dollar: Gay and Lesbian Marketing and Consumption." In The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products, and their Cultural Places. Ed. Tanfer Emin Tunc, Annessa Ann Babic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Oct. 2, 2009. p. 47-48
↑ Farr, Daniel and Guenther, Gretchen. "Seeking the Rainbow Dollar: Gay and Lesbian Marketing and Consumption." In The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products, and their Cultural Places. Ed. Tanfer Emin Tunc, Annessa Ann Babic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Oct. 2, 2009. p. 48
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