Tag Archive: porn producers

Photos From Phoenix

Posted by Michael on April 5th, 2016

Just got back from this year’s Phoenix Forum, an annual adult industry trade show. Had an AMAZING time and came away from the experience feeling more educated, rejuvenated, and motivated than ever before to make BBA the best black gay website it can possibly be!

Hosted at a beautiful resort in sunny Tempe, Arizona (right outside of Phoenix), it was pretty much your usual business convention during the day, with lots of meetings, networking, and seminars led by panels of experts from some of the most successful brands in the business on topics ranging from Virtual Reality as the potential future of porn, to tips on adapting and succeeding in a rapidly changing market, to the various legal and political challenges facing the porn industry today.

As you might expect, things got a little wilder at night with music, dancing, strippers, poker, and various parties catering to both the gay and straight crowds. On Friday night, they even had a live concert featuring the Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man and Mix Master Mike of Beastie Boys fame.

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This year’s show overlapped with Isaiah‘s Spring Break, and since I was already planning to do some filming with him earlier in the week, I invited him to join me and represent the BBA models.

It wasn’t exactly the most racially diverse crowd, so a 6’3″ tall black college basketball player with Isaiah’s physique and striking good looks turned plenty of heads – and hopefully had many pulling up the site on their phones to check out his scenes 😉 !

This was no doubt the largest crowd of gay men he’s ever been around at one time, and I think he was a bit overwhelmed by everything at first, but ended up coming out of his shell and having a fun time with everyone. I’m sure the free lap-dances from the female strippers didn’t hurt either, LOL! (Check out the BBA Tumblr for some gifs from one of his many lap-dances). He has told me several times that it was his best Spring Break ever, and an unforgettable adventure for him for sure!

One unexpected highlight is that I finally got to meet and hang out with the creator and owner of FlavaWorks in person for the very first time, as well as his new exclusive model Trey Donovan who I personally think is one of the hottest and most exciting new faces in black gay porn today. And believe it or not, he’s even sexier in person! (Reminded me A LOT of Blake Bishop).

It was definitely more than a little surreal to be hanging out and discussing business as an industry PEER with someone whose groundbreaking company and websites I was watching as an obsessed fan long before BBA ever began!

The REAL “Dark Side” of Gay Porn

Posted by Michael on January 23rd, 2016

I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to share a reply to my recent post defending the many “good” people working in the porn industry today. Many of you brought up some very interesting and thought-provoking points, and it’s such a refreshing change of pace to see an intelligent and civil conversation taking place about such a complex and controversial topic.

HarlemBrotha’s comment summed it up perfectly and really gets at the heart of the matter, in my opinion. The real issue here is that sexual desire and pornography, and to an even greater extent GAY sexuality and GAY pornography, are still repressed and severely stigmatized by mainstream society and it’s these anti-porn and anti-gay attitudes that create the REAL “dark side” of gay adult entertainment.

I have witnessed firsthand the ridicule, mockery, harassment, judgment, and even threats of violence suffered by porn performers, in many cases by their own so-called “fans” and GAY PEERS, and this ignorant behavior has caused more emotional damage and psychological harm than a dozen “sleazy” producers combined ever could.

When this anti-porn, anti-gay climate drives individuals to the desperate extreme of inflicting violent harm on themselves or others, it’s a hell of a lot easier to blame the “evil” producer than look in the mirror at the ignorance, harassment, and in some cases downright hostility and threats against these young men from their own families, friends, churches, and neighborhoods.

In the past, I’ve used the analogy of a hate crime. If a gay person gets beaten up or even killed as part of a hate crime by people who see that person leaving a gay club late at night, we wouldn’t blame the VICTIM for being gay, or the owner of the gay bar for providing a safe space for community and self-expression. The blame lies solely with the homophobic assholes who chose to gay-bash an innocent person.

In the same way, pornography itself is not the enemy here, but rather the pervasive ignorance and homophobia that even in the year 2016 makes parents disown their own children, casually condones and even celebrates violence against GLBT people, and breeds so much fear, insecurity, and self-hatred in so many young black men in particular that some feel driven to the extreme of either killing themselves or others when they are exposed.

I hate to paraphrase the popular NRA slogan, but the truth is that porn doesn’t destroy lives, PEOPLE do. And if you truly care about the well-being of your favorite “porn stars,” stop ridiculing them on social media or when you see them out at the clubs, quit exposing them to their friends and family when you see somebody you know, and most importantly, start speaking up to challenge the hypocritical “slut-shaming” and homophobia in your own communities.

The more normalized and accepted that homosexuality and pornography becomes in society, the fewer suicides, overdoses, and tragic murders we’ll have to read about involving “porn stars” and producers.
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In Defense of the “Good” Porn Producers

Posted by Michael on January 19th, 2016

The following post is something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for awhile and ended up taking the form of a reply in the “comments” section of a popular urban gay porn blog which recently featured an article about the murder of another porn producer by a former model in which the blogger and several commenters once again seemed to imply – without any evidence or apparent compassion – that the producer was somehow to blame for his own brutal murder. Some even seemed to be rooting for the same thing to happen to me!

This was just the latest and most extreme version of a disturbing trend I’ve been noticing on various porn blogs and social media lately where porn producers and models are casually and in some cases viciously mocked, attacked, slandered, and judged with self-righteous contempt by the very same audience watching and enjoying our movies.

So the following are a few thoughts that I’ve been wanting to share for the past couple months, and just kind of boiled to the surface when I saw the calloused way some people were reacting to the tragic story of yet another porn producer’s senseless murder. I’m sure the people who most need to read this probably won’t ever see it, but I still wanted to get it off my chest and speak up in defense of the “good” producers out there:

I agree that this is a conversation worth having, and shady business dealings like those you describe should be exposed and opposed by consumers, models, AND other producers.

But I don’t think all of this vague talk about anonymous “evil” producers does anyone any good or takes any concrete or positive steps toward accomplishing these goals. All it ends up doing is painting the entire adult entertainment industry with an unfairly broad brush and perpetuating a wildly inaccurate stereotype of the adult industry as some kind of seedy and semi-criminal underworld of greedy, predatory producers and drug-addicted, suicidal models. Which I’m sure is perfectly fine for many of your readers, since this only makes it easier to justify their regular consumption of stolen/pirated content and total lack of financial support for the porn studios they regularly watch. But I digress.

There are dishonest and shady people in every business, and the adult industry is no exception. But in the nearly eight years I’ve been working in this industry (starting out as a lover of good porn much like yourself and most of your readers), I have yet to meet anyone even close to resembling the almost comically villainous caricatures regularly described on this blog. The vast majority of people I’ve met in this industry are honest, hard-working, and shockingly “normal” people who have a passion for porn and are just trying to make a living like anyone else.

One of my very first friends and mentors in the industry (the Marketing Director for Badpuppy) was actually a straight and married “Soccer Mom” with two teenage kids, and the sweetest, kindest person you could ever meet. Another friend and mentor was a gay college professor who started his site as a side hobby and over time turned it into a successful business after a lot of sleepless nights and hard work. Most of us are not the ruthless “pimps” you’d think based on this blog, and we try our best to treat our models and business associates with the same honesty and respect we’d expect in return.

Which is why I think you should start putting your money where your mouth is and calling out these shady porn studios by name. Instead of offering the disclaimer that you’re only talking about SOME but not ALL porn producers, why not be specific and tell us who you’re talking about? Who EXACTLY are these “evil” producers and who are the “good” ones? And are you willing to boycott these studios both on this blog and as a porn viewer?

And just to be clear, I’m talking about responsibly researched and fact-based reporting, not simply repeating unsubstantiated gossip or hearsay from delusional Internet trolls or disgruntled and dishonest ex-models with chips on their shoulders. If your allegations are accurate, they more than likely won’t sue, and even if they do, what better opportunity to actually PROVE and EXPOSE the unethical behavior described in this post?

This clarity and specificity will ultimately be better for EVERYONE – viewers, models, AND the “good” producers who treat their models with honesty, fairness, and respect, and don’t like seeing their entire industry constantly being maligned and attacked on porn blogs like this.

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