Gio

After writing my column for the past few years I am left pondering a question that has been posed to me on more than one occasion.  That question is - “What constitutes someone being able to call themselves a porn star?”  I have had the pleasure of meeting, interviewing and photographing some of the biggest names in gay porn and each one of them has been billed as a "porn star" upon introduction.

Now, do not get me wrong, most of these men certainly have a star quality about them.  Perhaps it is their amazing physique, their on-screen presence, their endowment or that rare ability to get it up and stay up on set for hours on end.  But, I am still left wondering how the term ‘Porn Star’ was born?  Going back to the 1970's and the heyday of pornography, I am well aware that porn performers like Linda Lovelace and John Holmes achieved a sort-of mainstream acceptance and were considered stars by the media.  This held true and still does for Ron Jeremy and he has even crossed over into mainstream films and television.  Nowadays people like Jenna Jameson and Peter North have achieved star status for their work in the porn world and that is not disputed.  However, each of these “stars” falls into the straight genre of porn (well Peter North did do gay porn in his early career) and yet they still became household names in both gay and straight households.  Is that what makes a person a porn star, their ability to become a household name?  According to the “Urban Dictionary” a porn star is “any person who performs a sexual act on camera.”  I am not sure I agree with that definition.

It seems that in the gay world, the guys who perform on camera have become icons and are often called “porn star” regardless of how famous or not they are.  I have often replied that you cannot call someone a porn star until they have been featured on the box cover of at least 3 videos or they have been a featured performer on a well known gay porn site in at least 5 scenes.  Until then, they can only be called a porn model or performer.  In today's world of gay porn, there are 1,000's of guys going in front of the camera each year and they all claim to be porn stars.  Yet, only a handful of them become household names.  How come every time I meet someone that has done a porn film or internet scene, they refer to themselves as a "porn star?"  Do we just assume that they are a star because they have appeared naked on camera?  Are they really a star?  At what point can we truly refer to them as a porn star?

Certainly I have no trouble calling Matthew Rush (Falcon Lifetime Exclusive) a Porn Star, as he has become perhaps the most well known gay porn icon in the past several years, has crossed over into mainstream film and it seems everyone in the gay community knows who he is.  The same holds true of Michael Lucas, who took his porn star status to big heights when he launched his own successful gay porn company Lucas Entertainment.  Colton Ford is another performer who has achieved star status both in gay porn and through a thriving music career.   Johnny Hazzard was made famous by Chi Chi LaRue and he has crossed over into mainstream modeling and is gaining success as a singer in the genre of dance music.  Aiden Shaw achieved fame through his work in porn and then became even more famous for his autobiography My Undoing: Love in the Thick of Sex, Drugs, Prostitution and Pornography.

If I utilize my criteria of being on at least 3 box covers before becoming known as a porn star, each of these men has surpassed that by far.  But, I am not sure if that is the only qualification.  Again, I think there needs to be some mainstream recognition of image and work before being labeled a true porn star.  Do all of the above men deserve the title of porn star because they have done more than just sex scenes on camera?  I ask this question, because after all, do we call everyone that appears in a mainstream film that appears on the big screen a "star" just for being in a movie?  No, we do not...they have to earn that title through their body of work.  Often times it takes not only the work done in front of the camera, but what they do off camera to help catapult a mainstream actor to star status.  Should the same be held true for the porn actor?  Perhaps that is what makes a porn star, their body of work (of course a great body helps) and what they do outside of the industry as well.  It is certainly a hard question to answer.