First, I need to thank Jack Shamama of Gay Porn Blog (gaypornblog.com) for his concern about my blog post “Inside gay porn business” that pointed out to the article on Naked Came I Blog that insulting almost everyone involved in gay porn industry which may hurt my blog and me as gay porn blogger.
But finally, I think he understand what I’m trying to do. Just ignore the lie didn’t make it fades away. Especially for internet. Someone (who’s outsider just like me) may find this article, believe it, forward it to his friend and so one. I think that will hurt gay porn industry in the long run.
I believe that we need to fight lie with truth, So I put this article on my blog and invite people who’s gay porn insiders to comment on it. I also forwarded this blog post to directors, porn studios and bloggers in gay porn field I can think of and ask for their opinion.
Jack Shamama is the first one who response and here’s what he has to say…
Someone forwarded me this entry a few days ago and asked me to comment on it. As someone who works in and knows quite a lot about the gay porn industry, I initially felt the need to point out the many, many factual errors.
But as I re-read it and realized how spiteful the overall tone was I figured, “What’s the point?” Obviously, Tim, you have an ax to grind with the gay porn industry and you are just looking to spew some bile — (certainly not “carry on a dialogue” as you later claim).
It’s not worth my time, but the thought of people reading this and thinking some of your preposterous claims are actually true is the kind of thing that drives me crazy, so here I am, taking time out of my busy fucking day to point out as much of the bullshit I can, and hopefully shut you up about this topic.
1. YOUR LIE: “Falcon, for example, can barely put streaming video online. It has a minimalist members-only section with little more than the odd photo and access to streaming video at a lower rate than the pay-per-view approach offered by its public pages.”
THE TRUTH: Falcon allows members to stream their last six months’ of new releases at 512k. They post anywhere between 50-100 images per movie.
2. YOUR LIE: “Content unique to the Internet is almost unheard of. ”
THE TRUTH: SeanCody.com, RandyBlue.com, Fratmen.com, ChaosMen.com, CorbinFisher.com are all examples of unique web-only content. Falcon posts one full-length sex scene a week that they produce exclusively for the web. They stream weekly live sex shows and each of their exclusives do live webcam shows for members only. ColtStudios also does frequent webcam shows with their exclusives, too.
3. YOUR LIE: “Among gay porn studios, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone with a college degree, much less a business degree. The degrees you will find are usually film-oriented.”
THE TRUTH: Have you really asked EVERYONE in the gay porn industry if they went to college? I work for a porn studio and I’d be willing to bet money that I went to a better college then you did, Tim. I can’t talk for everyone in the entire industry but lmost everyone in my office has a college degree. Chris Ward has a PhD in History.
4. YOUR LIE: “For example, John Rutherford over at Colt Studios has a film directing degree from UCLA. But that’s all.”
THE TRUTH: Rutherford graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Broadcast Communication Arts. (Source)
5. YOUR LIE: “Chi LaRue has talked at length in his autobiography about the amount of cocaine he snorted. Do you think the funds for those drugs came from a trust fund? … No: They came because LaRue paid himself a hefty salary for each film he did, and that salary was used to pay for drugs (not good porn).”
THE TRUTH: Chi Chi’s autobiography was published in 1997. He didn’t start Channel 1 until 1999; he was working freelance for a variety of studios. Freelance directors can’t pay themselves hefty salaries.
6. YOUR LIE: “What usually occurs is that directors skimp on performer pay, sets, cinematography, editing, and more in order to pay themselves a fatter salary.”
THE TRUTH: You appear to be conflating the role of a producer and a director. A director is hired by a studio and paid a flat rate. They are not in charge of paying for everything — that is the role of the studio or the producer.
7. YOUR LIE: “In fact, gay porn is so full of high school dropouts, drug users, incompetents and the beneficiaries of nepotism that studios really pay for reliability, not great porn.”
THE TRUTH: I encountered far more drug use when I worked in publishing. Also, could you clarify how nepotism could play in a role in an industry where few people have children?
8. YOUR LIE: “Studio 2000 is so far behind the game in this regard that it had to offer 50 percent commission on all sales generated by a Web affiliate.
THE TRUTH: 50% is the industry standard pay-out for affiliates. Falcon pays 40-50% based on volume. SeanCody, RandyBlue, Corbin Fisher, etc, all pay 50%.
9. YOUR LIE: “But gay porn studios haven’t even begun to place ads on popular gay sites like Gay.com, PlanetOut, TLA Video, or A Different Light Booksellers.”
THE TRUTH: PlanetOut doesn’t allow adult advertisers. Gay.com has many adult advertisers, but they are kept behind a firewall in their “Men After Dark” adult section. TLA doesn’t accept advertising. A Different Light’s site ranks 246,000 on Alexa – which hardly makes them a “popular gay site”.
10. YOUR LIE: “The guy’s porn name was “Cliff Rhodes” and when he started working at Titan, they made him give up the blog (“Wet Dreaming”).:
THE TRUTH: Cliff is a good friend of mine, and he confirms with me that this is blatantly untrue.
-Jack
Editor, GayPornBlog
*UPDATE* Read what Chris Steele has to say about this issue [READ]