Instagram became more fun for him once he felt better, but it took me a little while longer. Even what constituted better in me made me think it wasn’t enough. That’s indicative of being an ingrate. I know that everyone’s path is different. I understand that what’s for one person is for them, and what’s yours is yours. But if you go on a platform where everyone’s showing their best, it can potentially delude you into thinking nothing you have is good enough. It’s similar to what traditional media can do to you. I won’t pretend that realization instantly led me to no longer looking at people who appear to be leading better lives with superior bodies and greater disposable income, but I have altered some behavior—starting with electing to spend less time on Instagram.
I used to look backward when bored. I don’t know why I’d occasionally go back and look at people I let go of or who threw me back in the water, but I did. There was someone in particular I would revisit more than the others. There was no point to go and look at him stand next to the man he chose over me, the one he didn’t want, but I looked for a while. Curiosity should be applied more selectively.
And I’ve considered spending more useful time in the morning—like looking at amateur porn on Twitter or just catching up on NPR podcasts. And then telling myself what ought to be obvious, but I can be dense. Go back to running my own race. Stop allowing comparison to steal my joy. All that affirmation shit. Whatever it takes.
Because I love Instagram. I want to keep loving Instagram. It’s still where all the cute boys are. It’s where my people are.
I just have to remember that I’m watching de facto commercials of other people’s lives, so view them within reason, and when all else fails, look away. I don’t need nobody bringing me no bad news, and I don’t need to go looking for reasons to make myself feel bad. And if I can’t stop myself from scrolling for too long on a given day, there’s now a setting on Instagram for folks whose self-control may fail them on a given day: a timer that alerts you the second you’ve reached your daily allotted time for Instagram usage that day. Bless my heart.
SWIPE UP
I have never been that fond of porn. The first time I ever shared this fact with someone, I instantly heard the shock and subsequent disappointment in his tone. It recalled the period in my life when I did not eat beef or pork. Whenever I made that admission to a southern Black elder, they would gawk at me and speak to me as if I had let down, if not the entire race, at least the ones that had good enough sense to never turn down some bacon. Harriet Tubman didn’t risk her life trying to help Black people break from bondage for you to only want the pineapple topping of the holiday ham, Uppity Negro is the sentiment I felt was often intimated but left unsaid. Unsaid because I got tired of trying to explain that if you get turkey bacon made from the thigh, it’s not that bad an alternative to real bacon. After they shook their head the third time at what they dismissed as lies and heresies, I’d shift the conversation to the weather or less combative topics such as “When do you think the race war will finally begin?” and “Who made the potato salad?” despite me not enjoying potato salad.
I will never get potato salad. It doesn’t matter who made it, Black people. It doesn’t sit right with my stomach or spirit.
I treat porn a lot like potato salad: something I understand to be something that I am supposed to enjoy, but can’t wrap my taste buds around.
My history with porn began with me first stumbling upon one of those softcore movies on Cinemax. Does that count? They were simulating fucking on television, so it has to count.
My mom had recently gotten cable, following months and months of badgering her to get cable so I could watch Wrestlemania VIII. The pay-per-view viewing was a gift since the event was a week before my birthday. We didn’t have Cinemax, but as I learned, we were given a trial period for a week.
Everyone was asleep, but I couldn’t knock out, so I went into the living room and flipped channels. That’s when I saw some white woman in white lingerie moan with her nipples exposed as some man behind her was pulling her slowly back and forth. She did most of the moaning while he made grunting noises. Her performance was much stronger than his. In the background was music playing that I imagine was intended to speak to the sexual eruption on screen, but sounded more like the background of the Sega Genesis game Ecco the Dolphin. Madonna’s Erotica was released the year I saw this on television. The person who edited this movie should have drawn inspiration from that.
Our home was filled to capacity, but no one came in the living room, because I had the volume low and I sat near the speaker part of the television. If memory serves, that TV was a result of the other one abruptly dying on us and my dad being insistent we take someone’s hand-me-down rather than go out and buy a new set—to my mother’s dismay but eventual shrug ’cause who wants to argue about this since the big-old-ass television is already here now? I recall having to use pliers to turn the volume up and down because the knob was missing on the too-old-for-the-early-1990s telly. They didn’t hear any of it, as I had reached for those pliers at a rapid pace once I saw what was going on.
I only watched it for a few minutes longer before turning to something else and deciding to return to bed and give sleep another try. It would be my luck that one of my parents walked in and then, then . . . um, I’m not sure what would have happened. My dad might have been amused more than anything. That wouldn’t have been the kind of thing that upset him. My mom might have yanked me up a little bit, but I lean more into her finding a way to make me feel even more embarrassed. I’m glad both were in bed.
I didn’t feel much from what I did see. Maybe I was too young to catch on. I knew sex made babies, and I had crushes and whatnot, but I wasn’t at the age where my dick wielded greater influence over my urges and viewing habits.
Once my hormones did declare “we’re hummin’ comin’ at ’cha,” those new softcore Cinemax flicks one could catch during another one of their preview trials took on new meaning—in theory anyway. I was mostly curious, and to a greater extent, I was trying to force myself to like women.
I could get erect sometimes from watching the women, but there were obvious difficulties and they were not limited to vaginas being the star of each production. On those Cinemax movies, the women were all white. And like white-white. Most of them were blond. As for the men, they all reflected the same genre of white guy: Steve Sanders on the original 90210. Why not throw in a Dylan or Brandon knockoff? Obviously, adding melanin into the mix would be too audacious, but why not diversify your white guy? (To not totally shame Cinemax for past grievances, I want to share that I enjoyed Banshee and recognize that, in 2008, Zane’s Sex Chronicles debuted on the network.)
When the internet got faster, I tried to search for color on my mama’s Packard Bell—and then the Hewlett Packard she got to replace it. Much of what I saw grossed me out. It didn’t look at all appealing. All that bad acting. That production value. And what is it with the racist overtones? You can’t even try to get a nut without white supremacy tagging itself in?
Assuming maybe I perhaps needed to try the less-is-more approach with pornography, I turned to magazines—i.e., tradition. Vibe was inspiring me creatively, so I asked myself whether or not I just needed to see it in print. I discovered Playboy at the barbershop. I must admit, the articles were poppin’. And Smooth magazine! I once had my best friend Kim buy me a copy of that because Trina and her big ole booty were on the cover. I pretended to truly love that back shot, but in real life, we could only ever be besties—well, so long as she is fine with the idea of me randomly rapping “Da Baddest Bitch” in its entirety. The same goes for King magazine. I didn’t care about Esther Baxter’s tits or Melyssa Ford’s ass. If anything, I was mad I couldn’t be dancing in the “Freek-A-Leek” video.
“You’re gay, you big ass dummy. Go look at some gay shit” is a response I can recall hearing from yet another person perplexed by my lack of interest in porn.
I was always wary of trying to look at gay p
orn while living in my parents’ house. I was good about clearing the history search often, but something about looking up gay porn felt too risky. I almost did once as my mom walked in from work with the food she’d bought after calling us to ask what we wanted to eat—she was rightfully in no mood to cook after another twelve-hour shift at work. It would have been an utter nightmare if she saw me looking at this man’s ass that only could turn on people with a Chewbacca kink.
(Please don’t take offense to the invocation of Chewbacca, hairy community. I’m one of you, although I tend to shave. Regardless, I am a Star Wars fan, and Chewbacca is my dude, so please don’t take that descriptor pejoratively. Now, if I said “Sheev Palpatine ass cheeks,” be offended.)
At least if I had gotten caught looking at women, my parents might have felt a sigh of relief. I didn’t need this smoke. Thankfully she missed me. If I were going to be caught looking at some naked man and find myself drowning in a pool of holy water, it’d have to be a man I felt worth it.
I looked at more gay porn when I was in college, but wasn’t particularly impressed with it even with freer access.
Gay porn from the bigger companies manages to be more racist than the straight porn I used to watch and squeal at before clicking out. Most of the Black boys are subservient in their roles regardless of whether they take it or put it in. As for the gay Black gay porn, respectfully, the economic inequality screams at you so much that me, a caring person, cannot watch that and not want to write an essay about inequitable allocation of income and resources—not the kind of hot take that’s supposed to be happening in this situation.
After a while, I stopped trying. I chalked it up as somewhat of a personal failure. I’m too picky. I’m prudish. I shouldn’t be thinking about trickle down economics while looking at ass cheeks being clapped anyway. I like figuring out new and interesting ways to fault the Catholic Church for something, so I threw that in as an excuse, too. The Pope will deal.
However, I consider myself enlightened now. Much of the credit goes to the thots I follow on Twitter and Instagram who indirectly led me to a revelation that I, too, can enjoy adult entertainment, only with a model that’s more peer-to-peer and oddly populist.
OnlyFans is a membership platform that allows “fans” to pay a subscription to see content from “earners.” In other words, it’s a way for people to sell their nudes directly to the consumer. As a business model, I found it ingenious—particularly for nonwhite queer men.
I became a customer after an extremely long time of internal debate.
I thought I was too good to be spending money on amateur porn. These days, you don’t even have to pay for porn. Although I use Twitter mostly to talk politics and reveal what song I am dancing to in the morning, there is a plethora of pornography floating throughout that site. I discovered this going through someone’s likes on Twitter. But most of what I saw reminded me of what I hated about porn—the dustiness of some of the participants, the weird racial politics, and the angles I wish were more tailored to my interests.
The earner I chose posted plenty of previews. You could get off from those alone. I don’t think a lot of them who have OnlyFans pages grasp that there is enticing people and then there is giving them so much in your preview that it doesn’t push people to actually spend their money because you’ve already satiated their curiosity. He posted too much, but I ended up giving in anyway.
Not with an actual subscription. I was not letting my debit or credit card bill reflect that. I never wanted to see my loan payments on the same list as my newfound porn habit. This kind soul allowed those who had issues with subscribing on OnlyFans for whatever reason to send him money via Cash App for their thirty-day window.
You don’t need to know all he did on his account, but I can confirm being thoroughly entertained. Maybe it was the fact that he looked like someone I could realistically be around if we were located in the same location. Or that he dispelled a lot of the presumptions people make about those who turn to porn—e.g., nothing about him suggested I needed to feel bad. He had agency, so I could enjoy his content without trying to contextualize it. Let the right head guide me, as it were.
I won’t say ole boy was the wind beneath my wings, but once I was able to see the content after being granted access, I did hear Bette Midler sing, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero?” while watching one post in particular.
I tried to write about OnlyFans for work once. Not solely as a democratization of porn in which those more likely to be marginalized in the porn world have control and a larger private share, but generally, how it’s to me like the equivalent of that grocery store Aldi, in that it’s without all the bells and whistles but serviceable and cost-effective. It’s kind of European to boot, because don’t the Euros love a good peep show?
Not to mention, after finding out that some of these extra-fit folks have made thousands of dollars just for showing off their body parts to thirsty men like me, I applauded their hustle.
Consider all of the thirst traps you might see people post on Instagram. Depending on your social circle—and mine consists of lots and lots of queer men—you may see a wave of ass cheeks, toned bodies, and behavior I can only describe as misguided attempts to do seductive karaoke. And depending on some of your friends and what they like on IG, if you turn to your Explore page, there’s a whole lot more going on. I don’t feel old enough to put into words some of what I’ve spotted there, and won’t feel old enough until my AARP subscription is at least six and a half years old.
It’s all there for free.
As much as I’ve seen people complain about others giving away their creativity on Twitter, I applaud these young men for finding a way to earn a profit off of our collective thirstiness. That’s not to say that everything we do must be commodified. If you’re a voyeur who doesn’t mind spreading wide eagle without compensation, do it and have yourself a great time. On the other hand, I bet most economists would agree with me that showing your ass crack for 107 likes on Instagram is not the shrewdest move to make in this economy. Of that 107, we all know about 12 to 15 of those accounts come from users who are bots that will turn into accounts selling weave or Republican falsehoods before you know it.
Why not if you want to?
Still, I am aware that for some people, this is a bit of a last resort.
As fate would have it, I learned someone that went to my gym had an active account.
His name was Abram. I thought he was a very light-skinned Puerto Rican or Dominican, but it turned out he was Russian. He had a fade and looked “swirly” as my daytime TV deity, Wendy Williams, would say. In my partial defense, I’ve since learned, while at brunch at a restaurant called the Grange, that a lot of Dominican men are named Vladimir. Our server was Dominican and named Vladimir. Although he did offer some explanation behind that fun fact, I can’t remember a single thing he said. However, I can say with complete clarity and conviction that Dominican Vladimir had the kind of smile that makes you swoon internally about the gift of sodomy. Also: that spot really should bring back its biscuit sandwich with fried chicken and sausage gravy.
Abram had a very low haircut and stood out from all of the other white men in the gym who relocated to Harlem and started hogging the squat racks.
By the time I made the connection, my pitch was passed on. As legend has it, my direct editor was heavily into the idea, but her boss apparently didn’t want to dissect pornography in his section of the publication. That section did, more than a year later after my initial pitch, but sometimes progress bends to another’s byline.
There may have been no point in talking with Abram for journalistic reasons, but I was intrigued for my own reasons, so I wanted to have a conversation regardless. I appreciated OnlyFans helping me once again find pleasure in a way that felt most comfortable to me and all that paranoia about sex that I continued to shake off with time. I was fascinated to know how he felt about what he was doing. Unfortunately, the exchange gave me sad after-
school special. What he advertised on Instagram (and Grindr) was nothing compared to how he actually felt about his new line of work.
“It’s too hard for me to post something personal like porn on OnlyFans and I’m crying every day about it,” Abram told me. “Because my music is not so popular and I do that only for money.”
If you looked at Abram, with his chiseled face, abs, tattoos, and body that makes you regret allowing bread into your life, you would assume he made music like Zayn. He was actually a composer and pianist from Moscow.
“I hate this country. First time I came, it was for performance at Carnegie and now I’m posting some porn . . . it’s horrible.”
It reminded me of a comment a guy made to me while I was prepping my original pitch.
“It’s more interesting to me when I see people who resort solely to sexual expression as a means to support themselves,” he told me. “Not judging at all, because I’m guilty of indulging, but I just wonder if certain broadcasters are only presenting themselves because they aren’t motivated or have limited opportunities to financially pull themselves out of their current situation.”
As if I weren’t teetering toward flaccid already now, he continued by asking, “Is this form of quick money any better than drug money? At whose expense?”
I appreciated his line of thinking coming from a sincere place of concern and pondering of the larger ramifications of so many young men increasingly turning to pornography. Still, like, can I just enjoy my new favorite toy in peace? I need dumber friends.
Now, I believe it’s perfectly reasonable to highlight that this line of work is not an ideal circumstance for everyone, much less their first choice, but as someone who grew up around people who sold drugs, I can tell you that those people were largely glamorized. I won’t lump those selling dime bags, but for those who sold harder drugs, they were poisoning people for their own survival, whereas people who provide sex work are often dehumanized, and their contributions trivialized.
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