Get Educated!

In the last week, I have found myself appalled several times at the lack of education among the younger generation (God, at 29 am I old enough to say that now?) when it comes to HIV.

To me, the word "irresponsible" derives from NOT taking responsibility.

Because it is a personal choice and because the only truly safe sex is no sex at all, there are varying degrees of safety. A condom prevents a lot of things, but not all things. Testing is good to go too but there's always a window of days inbetween. Even testing and condoms together will not prevent all STD's. So what this comes down to is personal choice and an individual must decide for themselves what they are most comfortable with, where they draw their line of safety, and then take responsibility for that decision and accept whatever consequences befall them.

But people don't seem to be educated on the subject, so how can they possibly make that personal decision?

- One gay porn performer this week told me he assumed everyone working in gay porn was HIV- and that if anyone was HIV+ they would no longer be allowed to work in gay porn. This is someone who has worked on sets before and just didn't notice he was never asked to be tested? Did he think porn stars were just going to volunteer the information then? I mean, are you kidding me? Gay porn studios do NOT usually test their models. If they did, we would lose AT LEAST half of the industry and that is a sad but very true fact. That's part of the reason why they choose using condoms over testing. On top of which, condoms are incredibly effective in preventing the spread of HIV -- something else the performer actually did not know if you can believe it.

- Another performer told me he thought he contracted HIV from being on a porn shoot where condoms were used. ...Okay, do you have any idea how incredibly unlikely THAT is?

- Still another performer asked me if you could catch HIV from eating ass. ...Sure, if his butt and your mouth are bleeding and one of you is HIV+.

- Finally, one told me he had always thought HIV was a death sentence. Hmm. Could you die from it? Well, technically no. You would die from AIDS which some people with HIV progress to though many do not. HIV and AIDS are NOT the same thing. If it is 2009 and you don't know that yet, you should seriously take a sex education course, especially if you are working in the sex industry! And regardless of that, we're all either living or dying depending on how you look at it, so it's much more thoughtful to refer to someone as "living with HIV" as opposed to "dying with it." This should be common sense and ettiquete.

- One of these same people also told me they would never kiss someone with HIV. Like once you get the disease, you should cease all forms of affection?

I am thankfully (and God, so luckily!) not HIV+ but these days I worry more about how I would be treated if I had the disease than the actual having of the disease itself. I am concerned how this generation that follows mine will treat people afflicted with HIV if they do not INSIST on taking the time to educate themselves.

Responsibility goes so much further than putting on a condom or knowing your status, guys. Protect yourselves as you see fit (it IS a personal choice, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, I happen to like living in a free country) after taking the time to find out what exactly it is you're trying to prevent and why so you know enough about it that you do not treat an entire group of the gay populous like they are lepers that should be relegated to some island. I will not stand for it!

In an age where you don't even have to subscribe to a health magazine or make a trek to your local library but instead have Google at your finger tips and an archived encyclopedia like none other called the world wide web, this lack of education about how you can and can not get HIV, what HIV actually is and what someone can do if they contract it, is as reprehensibly irresponsible in my view as not using protection!

We have chosen to use fear over knowledge when it comes to sex education. Tell someone they might die if they don't do something and it gets the point across real fast. Where else have we seen this tactic used? The holy rollers use it to get you to name Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior to avoid damnation. George Bush used it after 9/11 to get us to support an unlawful attack on another country that did not attack us. Wake up. Fear over knowledge breeds hatred. Don't just put a condom on because you're scared. Get educated!

Sick-lical

When you debut, they root for you.

But everything changes when you're no longer the underdog. Once successful, they want to knock you down off this pedestal you never asked to be on in the first place because it's far more interesting to read about a successful person's failures than a successful person's successes.

Then when they've knocked you down, suddenly you're the underdog again and they'll root for your comeback.

Good thing what "they" think of you is none of your business.

"Business" ...in every definition.

Just food for thought today. ;-)

Ambitious, Grateful, REALLY Excited...

Though I've been working at it under the radar for the last week or so, this morning I made the official announcement that I am becoming a manager for a select group of gay porn performers and launching DV8 Casting along with a new web site, DV8Casting.com.

I have to say, I'm more excited than I expected to be. Like, really REALLY excited!

This feels... really, really right.

The weird thing is, I've had guys ask me to manage them for years and always said I had no interest in it. But since David Forest is no longer managing talent (who if I'd ever tried competing with would have made my life a living hell, besides which, he was always one of my biggest advocates and supporters and I never wanted to lose his friendship) and I have really graciously received the blessing of Howard Andrew, it just seemed like the time was right.

I hemmed and hawed over it for many months and the second I finally decided, "Okay, look I'm just gonna do this and see what happens," within 24 hours I had negotiated Josh Griffin on his Jet Set Men debut movie in this year's GayVN Hall of Fame inductee Chris Steele's football-themed movie"Tackle," and booked Phillip Aubrey as the LEAD in Chi Chi LaRue's biggest budget movie so far this year, "TAKE," where the ENTIRE movie is centered around him! ... In 24 hours!

I took it as a big sign. I bought DV8Casting.com, had my trusty web team start on the web site and voila!

So, I announce all of this the eve of The 2009 GayVN Awards, one of the biggest nights in the gay erotic film industry. But I've decided I'm not heading up to San Francisco for the big GayVN weekend. I am going to be a good boy and rest this weekend so that I can be at my desk bright and early on Monday morning and start sending these boys out!

It's so weird, it feels like I'm starting a new job on Monday morning or something!

I guess I am.

You know, I said this to Howard Andrew when he was on my Internet talk show a few months back and I didn't really realize I actually felt this way until the words were coming out of my mouth...

I can tell you after having been here for over a decade, you go through many different stages when you work in adult entertainment. At first it's like being a kid in a candy store and living this incredible dream life that everyone wants to live. Then, as the years go by, working around gorgeous naked men loses it's thrill, sort of like what your mom used to tell you about how no matter what your favorite food is, if you eat it every single day you're eventually going to hate it.

Then you start thinking about all of the things you wanted to do with your life or your career but instead devoted so much time to this industry and so you start to resent it heavily. Even Chi Chi LaRue once said in an interview that "this thing" was a hole she'd dug herself that she could never get out of and that she wakes up several mornings wishing she were doing anything but this for a living.

But...

Then, if you're unfortunate enough, or maybe really fortunate... you experience some tragedies in your life. You lose some things you never thought you'd lose or things that you once thought were forever you come to realize are not.

And as it's all crumbling around you, you look around and you see this amazing, dysfunctional, incestuous family that you're in and you're so grateful you have them. You see the in roads that you've made and how what you've done has affected an entire industry. Instead of the lust that comes with being that kid in a candy store... that lust is replaced with love.

It's like the song at the end of the movie "Boogie Nights" goes, "God only knows what I'd be without you."

I'm so, SO glad to be here.

More than I've ever been.

Back From New York

I haven't left The Mans for the last 48 hours since I returned home from New York City. For the most part, I've hardly left the bed! ...And unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons!

I tried to convince myself while I was packing for my trip that I was certainly NOT getting sick, that it was all in my head and surely I could psyche myself out of it with enough positive energy. Sorely, this was not to be the case and by the time I touched ground at JFK, I had a full-blown sinus infection with fever.

Despite being under the weather, I must say I had a wonderful weekend! I accomplished what I went there to do: Surprise one of my best friends, Brandon Baker, with The Lifetime Achievement Award at "The Hookies." I covered the whole shindig too of course for the "News Desk" blog at JasonCurious.com and helped RentBoy.com promote the event as much as possible. I adore Sean and Jeff and always love being involved in the RentBoy events, so I try to help wherever I can.

I had some really great bonding time with Brandon on this trip, in and out of the hotel room as by the end of the weekend, I managed to have him laid up with a cold as well! (First I give him the award, then I give him a sinus infection. At least I think it was in that order? ...Is it any wonder his love for me is like a roller coaster?) We had a fun dinner at Cafeteria, a not so fun dinner at Julius and dropped into Club G (a letter many of my friends are usually falling out of and where I felt the sudden urge to text Erik Rhodes who tells me he's in Prague shooting for Falcon Studios!) for a short while on Friday night, but overall... the majority of my trip was spent either chilling with Brandon in the hotel or working on my laptop -- which I must say proved quite productive! I've been working on launching a new branch of my business for a couple of months now and with all the work I got done in NY and from my bed here the last 48 hours, it looks like it will be launching by the end of the week. There will be a new site to go along with it. Just in time for GayVN madness! Maybe I'll head up to San Francisco after all. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm on the last leg of this cold and I have a feeling I'll be back to normal tomorrow so expect more updates.

In The Clear

Weights over the past year or so have lifted from me like the smog after these rainy Los Angeles afternoons. It clears the air so I can see out my mind's window as far as the eye can see and there's clarity where before there was none.

An immovable joy is something I've written about in past months, this ability to choose happiness through the acceptance that there will always be something wrong and that it can always get worse.

Last August I wrote, "If the amount of joy we are getting out of life is dependent upon the things that happen or don't happen to us... well then we're all just perpetual victims aren't we? The happy is always there. Don't play the victim by letting life get between you and it."

That was a big weight lifted.

I also used to associate certain things I did with how I felt about myself. My love for myself was not unconditional but instead dependent upon what I was doing with my career, what I was eating, how much money I was making or spending, etc. I was confusing what I do with who I am. Who we are is comprised not of the things that wither or fade but of the things that don't change, the things we will take with us to our death bed: Honesty, Spirituality, Talent, Humor... whatever lifelong traits one may have.

Another weight lifted.

But a few months ago I was fortunate enough to find still more lightness in being, this time pertaining to the idea of "love" and "relationships."

It's as though I awakened one morning and my desire -- that hunger! -- to find a partner... well, it had vanished in the night.

I'm not sure where it went.

It's a weird feeling, not being on the lookout for a boyfriend or even sex really for that matter. Not needing anyone to fill the emptiness.

It's scary too.

One of my first boyfriends complained that I don't need people enough. I'll never forget him sitting there saying to me, "I need to be needed, but you... you're the sun and the moon."

Truth be told, I did need people. Desperately.

In the past two years I've found how important it is to have real friends. Not just one co-dependent friendship where you create a bubble and don't let anyone else in, but a whole circle of companions with whom you share yourself. Those people, and they know who they are, I am more intimate with them than I've ever been with any boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe even more intimate than I've been with anyone in bed.

I'm completely in love with and utterly devoted to my best friends. They are what has truly taken the weight off my shoulders that has sat there since I was 13. They are what has brought the clarity.

They lift my smog.

I can't imagine what having a partner could possibly bring to my life right now but unnecessary stress and upset. I have everything I could possibly want emotionally -- and being gay and working in the porn industry, physically too.

Most of the spiritual study I've done over the past ten years has pointed towards relationships and marriage as being one of the most important things you can do with your life here on Earth, to live selflessly for that one special person.

But isn't it better to live selflessly for as many as possible?

There are days however I wonder if this is all just a big trick the Universe is playing on me. If this assumed lack of desire is all just part of the process of finding real love. Maybe before the true love of our lives comes along, some of us have to find the clarity to be the best friend we can be, to learn the definition of selflessness, to love ourselves unconditionally, to be whole so that when it comes to love it's not out of an aching "need" but out of a true ability to "offer" so that you're contributing to someone's life, not taking.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a relationship by any means, but I'm glad that if I ever do again, it will be for the right reasons. It won't be because of a void within myself or a need for acceptance or because the sex with someone is just so damned good. It'll be because I don't feel like I have a choice in the matter. And what love is more real than that?