The Bare Backed Beast: Adult Content And Dysphoria
I click the shutter, and let out a sigh.
I’ve been going at this for roughly two hours. My stomach is clawing at me. It’s demands aren’t abating so I finally decide to relent and get some food. Between ginger-seasoned ramen noodles and hunks of chicken and broccoli, I review all the raw footage I just shot. I’m clocking in at a little over two minutes of a planned ten to fifteen minute shoot.
But again, all this is raw. There’s going to be a snip here, a snip there. I still have to film the raws for the other scenes, including me stripping bare and pumping my cock. I still have to score it, and score it right. Porn has such a terrible fucking reputation for it’s music and I refuse to be one of those kinds of fucks that puts shitty EDM behind random non-sequiter clips and call it a PMV.
We’re making something. Not necessarily porn, but not something fit enough to go live on YouTube. Oh, there’s gonna be dick. Cum shots too. Plenty of salacious dialogue without a script in sight. But to call it porn just yet, that’s jumping the gun. Because I’ve zero idea how pornographic I’m going to get aside from making sure my peen is in frame.
I gulp down the last of my lunch. I put some coffee on. I dice up a trailer and shove it on Twitter. There’s a pop from the feed, and I smile. Yeah, this might just work.
People make adult content for all kinds of reasons. Money, to feel attractive, or to ride the wave of assured attention.
Me though?
It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Oh, This Weary Flesh of Mine
The man in the mirror, for he’s undoubtedly that, he’s trimming the hair from his ears. From his nose. He’s grabbing a pair of scissors and snipping away at the coarse hairs above his lips. I’m not in view, not yet. But as he draws the razor to his neck, I start to come into focus. I dared once to call that man in the mirror hideous, for I felt it true as any fact I know. And yet.
When he cleans up, I see only myself. With my styled hair, with my kept beard. Nails painted or not. The tube of lipstick in my hand, it still scares me. But I pull back the cap. I dab the red over my lips, and I’m me. If only for a moment, if only for an hour. Not this troll that woke from my bed, but this thing that seeks to straddle the gender binary and tip over it on occasion.
This concept, this makeup on my counter. None of this would have seemed viable a few years ago. I was too masculine, I’d say. I’m too much of an old man, a bear. Then came the requests, the shutter clicks, and the voice of a woman reverberating from the back of my throat. All things that I only explored (and safely, consensually, on my terms) because of making adult content.
Maybe today I was going to wear panties and a skirt. Knee high socks that only just made it over my calves. Perhaps today I was going to be a football coach, a researcher, your boyfriend or girlfriend. The role didn’t necessarily matter so much as the sense of given consent. Total strangers-for I’m far too hyper critical of myself to trust my friends-said it was okay. And so it went.
I’ve talked at length about how my work was a battle with dysphoria, with my mind. But what I’ve failed to mention was the true depth of the issue.
I’ve always hated my body. Hate, hate, hate it. I’ve molded and shaped it in various ways over the years-endless curls and pushups. Changing styles with my mood swings. Yet, I constantly found myself awash in the alienation of the gender binary. I always returned to the root of seeing this ghast in the mirror, begging and pleading for him to be pretty. Just for a moment. A second, a day. To see the being I knew dwelt behind his jowls and scars.
That’s how I got an eating disorder when I was 16.
That’s why, even today, my first reflex when I get a compliment is to make a joke of it.
The waking world, with its gendered expectations of what my flesh should, could and needed to be was crippling me beneath its mammoth burden. I hated my flesh for not being the masculine ideal, this nebulous thing that had chiseled, muscled definition but seemingly little substance behind it. In attempting to be the perfect man, I nearly killed myself a few times.
To this day, I don’t know why that rope snapped or that bullet didn’t fire.
If there’s a god or it’s a devilish jest in both cases, I don’t question it anymore. Not out of fear, but thanks that I’m even here typing this.
I called that era my “wilderness years”, a sad trope I think many go through. But even escaping the thicket of it all didn’t mean I had any more of an idea of where safety lay than I did within that darkened glen. I was out, metaphorically and literally, but what was I? Who or what was this thing in the mirror before me, smiling with my face and speaking in a tone too familiar? It wasn’t me, yet I wore its flesh all the same.
Ugh. Gods. What did people see in it? Why did they talk about it?
In seeking answers, I found a camera. Getting a smartphone made sharing and posting semi-anonymously a breeze. Taking a picture of a cock is something people do every day without so much as a thought. It’s sent into the ether, and we give only a fleeting worry that it might wind up the subject of parody.
For me though, it was the first time I’d revealed myself to anyone but my lovers in literal years.
I posted it on my Tumblr account, then busied myself with raw embarrassment. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, look at my phone. Sweet fuck I was not ready for any comments one way or another. I’d take zero notice over being seen.
Why the fuck did I do that? For who? Me, or that hideous, bag-eyed gaze in the mirror?
Finally, the moment of truth came. I opened my blog.
It was the highest engagement I’d ever had. Reblogs to things named MonsterCawks and SuperDong and other titles that only could have existed in that era, on a place like tumblr. I turned my phone back over, feeling my hands shake as my face warmed right away. That feeling, I wasn’t sure what it was. Apprehension, arousal and appreciation mixed into a slurry behind my eyes. I barely slept that night.
And a week later, I did it again. And again. I started up a second blog. I sent my pics to other blogs for ratings. Always the comments came, lurid and otherwise. I didn’t shave or preen in those days, I didn’t think it’d make a difference.
Then the NSFW purge came, and the entire house of cards came down in a single night. Life happened, I started the site and got busy behind a mic for a long time. I’d do the odd shoot now and then for people. Without lighting, without a proper backdrop. Those came in time thanks to the incredible generosity of strangers yet again. I didn’t question why I offered to make porn. I swore it was the money at first. That had to be it.
Then came the fan sites. The ability to once again post that kind of content every single day for every kind of person. My finger hovered over the sign up for OnlyFans, and then I looked in the mirror. At this hideous, deformed thing that I wore over myself.
I tabbed out of the page and didn’t think about it again for a year.
The Festering Question
“These are hand written notes-they’re fucking worthless!”
I did that scene in a single take, tossing the folder I’d purchased at Dollar Tree to the side. The pages inside were blank. The doctor’s robe on me was sent by a friend. I’d purchased the card carrier and lanyard off the net, along with a “japanese branch” clearance four SCP identification card. Total cost was below twenty bucks.
None of this was real, but the inflection of my voice, color correction, timing and editing was enough to fool even me. I could pretend, for just a second, I was confident.
I’m of course talking about the SCP shoot I did recently (I say recently, but it was half a month ago as of this writing). I didn’t actively think about the shoot while filming, save the dialogue I improved on the spot and lighting. Even as I was purchasing props for the monster-Mister Noh-Bod-Ee-I didn’t so much as blink at my choice of flowers, or make up. After I was done filming though.
After the lights were off and the footage had been edited and shipped.
I sat down and watched the entire thing again. Something I normally don’t do, save to ensure the scoring of my work and scene transitions are fine. As Mister Noh-Bod-Ee lurched on screen, I hit pause.
I sat there and stared at the other, this thing that wore my face and flesh beneath a veiled guise. One that still had the audacity to announce its presence loudly via bright red flora that gripped its throat and crowned its head. That smile, those red lips.
Oh god.
Oh fuck oh shit the monster was how I viewed my dysphoria. Fuck me.
I had done all of this unconsciously. The choices for what composed Mister Noh-Bod-Ee seemed and felt “natural”. I didn’t question it, didn’t second guess it. Applying that lipstick and making the costume felt like the most natural thing in the world.
At the risk of sounding egotistical, I looked beautiful. To embody this petulant fear of the “other” via beauty is in retrospect no coincidence.
Because that’s what dysphoria is like. It tells you you’re never enough to pass, and then with the truth before your eyes of how gorgeous you are forces you to reject it. It leaves your existence as a queer in a constant state of questioning the reality of yourself and your support network. So to err on the side of psychological caution, you go “boy mode” some days. You preserve that “gay shit” for when you’re in the safety of your own home, alone.
Yet that monster still calls. That beast that begs you to lay yourself bare and then mocks you for it. We all slay that creature in our own ways. Therapy, drugs, hobbies. For me and many like me however, that avenue often becomes adult entertainment. Kink isn’t without it’s perils and bigots (fuck off forever, Buck Angel)-but it is predominantly a space of experimentation. Of the queer identity, sure. But what’s more, an introspective glance at the aspects of our humanity we dare not show anyone else.
Can I be beautiful?
Can I be wanted?
I began wanting to answer both of those questions as I stepped foot in front of the camera. Years later, as this has largely become my profession, I realize the answer to both is yes. I would not be the person I am today had I not begun creating adult content of all sorts. Yet there was another question that came to the forefront of my mind. One that, in the long hours of the night, I’m unsure of.
Am I going to be okay?
Physically, mentally, spiritually. Adult entertainment creation is an avenue that has given me so much, and in my works I hope I’ve given just as much back. But every day. I see the news. I see the way in which people talk about us. Not just as queers, but those of us who create these works as well. For all of a moment fear grips my heart. I panic. I rage at the idiocy of it all.
The fact of the matter is, an attack on porn isn’t a moral crusade to protect people. It isn’t something “for the children ” in any way, for were it as such I can think of countless other quality of life political maneuvers that would help them exponentially more. To attack porn is to attack our very bodily autonomy, to attack our exploration of what should be the last vestiges of privacy we can claim: our bodies and our minds.
It’s to give that hideous monster power over us, our lives. We may not physically die, but we rot from the inside. We search for alternatives only to be denied those avenues by an ever increasing puritanical fascist America. “It’s for your own good” we’re told as their boots press upon our hearts and crush them to paste.
I don’t know if I’m going to be okay.
But I know one thing for certain.
I wouldn’t be who I am were I denied this path years ago. I may not even be typing this, had I not been given the courage to rise to the opportunity. As much as I might deny the good in what I do, I wouldn’t have touched the lives of my audience, my friends, my lovers and acquaintances. My life and sense of self would be radically different. Mister Noh-Bod-Ee would be hideous instead of audacious and stunning.
For I’d wear his face with a grimace, my continence slumped as I shuffled through a nine-to-five. Chain smoking and drinking still if only in the hopes I’d pass sooner than later. A life without autonomy over myself is a slow death. Hell would be a kinder punishment if only it were real.
I can’t speak for everyone.
But I know I’m not alone.
I’ve spoken to many sex workers, voice actors, porn actors and actresses. I’ve seen their quality of life improve radically as they assert control of themselves and their self expression. I’ve seen the real-world good the adult industry is capable of. I can’t let that go, if not for myself than my friends.
I cannot do much.
But I can promise I won’t go quietly into the droning insanity of puritans.
I would like to end this thusly:
All of us right now are in the most curious predicament. We’re staring down our own monsters and fiends, sweat beading on our brow. You’re likely asking that same question-if you’re going to be okay. If that beast snarling back is going to consume you.
You will be, if only you speak up. If only you stand tall, and defend the rights of your own autonomy and freedom of expression. Nihilism is an easy, sweet poison designed expressly to rid you of the will to affirm the rights of your own existence. It’s only when we give into fear, panic and hopelessness are we truly gone. For all the criticisms of what we do, hold fast to the good.
Hold fast to the freedom that lipstick, those costumes give you. Grip the hands and hips of your peers, and hold fast.
For if we don’t, we’re all likely to wind up as those wretches we see in the mirror sometimes.
Noh-bod-ees leave no bodies to the opposition, as it were.
I love you all.
Good night, and good luck.
-j