MTV’s The Real World & Gay Porn
Well…
I spent part of this evening Googling gay porn.
Wow.
The reason for the excursion was the story from The Real World that one of the guys on the show turns out to have been a celebrity in internet gay porn videos. The business is called Fratmen, which seems to be, like many straight porn businesses, a grouping of young people willing to have sex on camera and pretending to live together, eat together, shower together, etc. And this guy claims to have done it for the money and that he identifies as straight.
But why this was interesting for more than the first 3 minutes – in which I found out that this issue has been much discussed on the web already and the kid from the show long identified by his fake porn name – is that MTV, in cahoots with the Fratmen site, seems to have managed to disappear a video that involves this guy performing a sex act with skills rivaling Linda Lovelace. And, it seems, the hundreds of web sites that ran images of this event, which were once free promotion for Fratmen, all scrubbed.
I find this fascinating. Because it’s really, really hard to scrub ANYTHING from the web.
Now… there were sites claiming to have the video for download. But I never download from any of these kinds of sites. So maybe it exists somewhere. Maybe it doesn’t.
But 15, 20 Google search pages into a variety of versions of this subject and nothing out there except for a few photos of the guy sitting on a bed naked with an erection and another guy.
Viacom is deeply invested in scrubbing the web of its proprietary content. But can you imagine making the phone call to the online experts to ask them to bury a number of gay porn videos? What would HR make of that?
Moreover, it seems that there are videos seen on the web during the course of the production of the show. So did they know the porn films were out there and wait for his showmance girlfriend to find it, and then start the scrub? Did they scrub and then drop a dvd in the girl’s inbox?
How will this play on Fox News when the show gets into the subject in detail? Will a gay porn kid living the straight high life in Vegas on MTV be seen as worse than Ms Hilton or Ms Kardashian? (According to a few web chat boards, he performs the act in question with more skill than either celebuslut.)
Anyway… odd evening. But still very interesting, especially as there’s been so much coverage of the disappearing content in the gay press and i have not heard a peep about it in the straight press.
maybe it was pulled because it will eventually be put back out after the on-show reveal with viacom getting a piece of the pie…
“Crazy James” of Big Brother 9 (the crappy and hastily-cast winter season they ran during the writer’s strike) was discovered, well into the season, to have done a shitload of gay porn. It never came up in the house or on the show (he likewise identified himself as straight and had a “showmance” with a hot chick during the season)…
Mostly bring it up because that was a prime-time reality show on CBS, and it didn’t seem to be a huge deal to anyone. Odd that MTV of all networks would be squeamish UNLESS, yes, they’re saving it for a reveal within the season.
Also for some reason this thread, and this topic, reminds me of that hilarious old Kevin Nealon bit on Weekend Update where he reviewed porn and kept going back to the gay video “Excited… excited… ashamed…”
it gets ‘revealed’ next week…i’m pretty sure the ‘leaks’ and ‘requests’ that explicit material be removed from certain sites was completely orchestrated….
actually, both the first episode and the original on-line bio made a vague reference to zito’s past without being too graphic… what makes this particularly interesting to the gay community is that, a couple of weeks ago, he made pretty offensive homophobic remarks when the prospect of having a gay roommate was introduced…i’ve seen both the vid and the pics and this was definitely a pot/kettle situation… the way the show is edited and the way this story is unfolding (mostly on-line), i’d bet it’s all part of the plan….
and, jftr…anyone interested should tune in to HBO’s premiere of CINEMA VERITE this saturday… a behind-the-scenes look at the first prime time reality series and the first openly gay teen on tv…james gandolfini, diane lane, tim robbins…nice work all around….
I imAgine the god is still out there ona tube site probably purposefully mislabeled. But I must say the recent RIAA type lawsuits have a lot of sites running for cover.
Wow, a Gay Porn thread became all about Lex.
Huh.
DP NOTE: A load of posts have been removed. Both LexG and Scooterzz claiming I am the bad guy when the two of them just couldn’t help to make this into some personal penis measuring issue that carried over from last week’s drama.
Gentlemen… no one cares about this petty personal stuff except for the two of you. I am not going to adjudicate who is the biggest victim, so don’t ask me to do so. As I suggested to IO earlier, if you know you are just going off, do us all a favor and shut up.
You both offer good things to the comments section of this blog when you aren’t fighting and baiting and baiting and fighting. I’m sure some people like reading all the personal drama. But this was a serious thread about gay porn and a little blonde in Vegas who isn’t getting her boyfriend’s best work…
Ha.
But everyone managed to be civil and even add smart ideas about the issue… including both of you… until it turned into an episode of Dynasty in here.
Enough.
I think blandsonics is on to something — this is all building up to the big “reveal” that MTV didn’t want outed too soon in the season. The “confessionals” on the show have indicated that this guy is hiding something, but the roommates so far (evidently) have no idea. The roommate that this guy is dating/sleeping with made some comment awhile back that she couldn’t be with a guy who slept with another guy. Now that their relationship is heating up I’ll bet that somehow MTV manages to make sure this girl sees the videos.
Wow… talk about lazy writing. No mention of “the kid” (whose name is Dustin Zito) or his faux porn name (Spencer). Why would one write about something and not include the name of the person involved? It ain’t like you’re avoiding the name mention to protect their identity, seeing as the person is on television and talking about it. And commenting on the sexual skills of someone without having seen any evidence of said skills because you “don’t download from those type of sites?” That’s just ridiculous. If you’re going to write about something, it’s flat out crazy to say “maybe it exists, maybe it doesn’t” when the answer to that question is right there for the downloading.
(For the record? It does exist. I have seen it, and he’s no Linda Lovelace. Both he and the other guy involved look about as into it as I, as a gay guy, would have if I was doing straight-for-pay stuff in the same way they’re doing gay-for-pay).
The bigger issue here, and the far more interesting one, is this guy’s psyche. He has repeatedly said on the show that he’d be “freaked out” if a gay guy moved in because he’d feel objectified, be worried that they’d make a move on him. I have no doubt that in confessionals which wound up on the cutting room floor, he said, “I’m freaked because a gay guy could recognize me.” But both Dustin and his fellow REAL WORLDer Leroy are, whether through editing or the fact that it’s their real personalities, are coming off as major homophobes. The rationalization involved in “I’m just doin’ it for the money” is fascinating.
As for CBS/James: The network didn’t play that angle at all because it was not the type of thing that “works” in the CBS world while sex scandals have long been the bread-and-butter of THE REAL WORLD. (Ironic, since MTV and CBS are both viacom/sony companies). That’s why, even in the reunion show, Julie Chen NEVER mentioned the porn the contestant had done whereas you can BET that it’ll be a big topic on the Real World reunion show.
Everyone,
All this talk about sex and making porn could lead everyone estray and the really important thing to get across to everyone, is, this young man was an 18 yo kid who, if anyone is interested, family dynamics surely played a big role in his reasoning and decision to do the light porn show in the first place. This kid was baited into doing this show with others like him and once they were in and doing the show, they were asked to go a little farther each time, they were seduced by the guys doing this porn, seduced with money, the grander things in life, and by trust which was developed between them and their bosses. If you watch the show, this kid talks about the guy who got him to do this, like he’s a father figure or something. It’s a shame what this guys going to have to go through while the people who made the show stand back and reap the rewards!
So what? Get off his back.. Leave the guy alone two each it’s own!
i thinnk being gay is noot a probleem , because everyone is different in gods ways
Sorry to have come late to the party.
But,I can provide some evidencary information which others may find useful if they come across this blog post.
Here goes:
First, BACKGROUND: Having VIEWED the Spencer/Dustin man-on-man’shower sex scene’ … one of the scenes scrubbed originally and now uploaded again (www.fratpad.com, where currently … and not so incidently … a video of a NAKED Spencer/Dustin opening the pad’s front door and then touring us through the house, still NAKED, is the site’s promo/intro TOUR), having talked with TWO gay media bloggers (www.GayPornBlog.com) about the scrubbing back in April, and as a GAY MAN working in the Gay Adult Industry (who knows his way around those ‘Linda Lovelace’ skills), let me first say that GAY PORN
Second, I In Comments Richard takes David to task for two errors in reporting (of course, MCN and David Poland’s Blog are NOT, in the strictest journalistic sense ‘news’ sites and not bound by journalistic ethics or standards). (1) Mr. Poland says he did ‘research’ but does not cites his two sources (even if anonymously cited) and, by his own admission, has no primary evidence experience. Thus, the reader has to wonder if this post is simply bandwagon titilation. And, yes, David, it is. (2) Richard chides Mr. Poland for presenting third party opinion as fact.