WWW- A GAY PORN star named Johnny Rahm killed himself two weeks ago. Rahm was the winner of the 1993 Gay Video Guide’s “Best Supporting Actor Award” for his role in “Body Search,” directed by gay porn favorite Chi Chi LaRue.
Right before committing suicide, the guy was apparently trying, in desperate vain, to buy a house. Johnny was flat broke, even as loads of his movies were being sold at video stores and online. Since his death, Johnny Rahm videos are probably whizzing off the shelves.
Something’s rotten in San Francisco and L.A. and everywhere porn is produced.
What’s rotten is that most porn “stars,” like Johnny, are broke. They’re prostituting themselves (besides shooting porn) to pay the bills and they’re forced to live on the edge of a society that really can’t see them doing anything but porn.
In other words, Johnny had a lot of trouble getting what you and I take for granted: a decent job with benefits. It was said that he had “trouble settling down.” No wonder.
We love to glamorize them in publications like Unzipped and Inside Porn. We live vicariously through them. We’re educated by them.
A friend of mine was having trouble coming out, had problems with the whole anal sex thing. I told him, “Watch gay porn. You’ll feel much easier about anal sex when you see it performed in extreme close-up with good lighting.”
BUT WHATEVER YOU do when watching porn, don’t let the word “exploitation” come to mind. According to Webster’s “exploitation” is defined as “to use selfishly for one’s own advantage”.
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but let’s face it. We “exploit” porn stars. We exploit their hopeless addiction to sex. We exploit (yes, you and me, buddy, and this goes for straight men, too) their financial desperation, their willingness to perform acts of sex in front of a camera, and their hope that nobody in the real world will care what they’ve done.
It’s hot to think that they did it ’cause they were super-horny when they shot it, just as super-horny as when we watched it.
I was once employed as an actor and worked in a McDonald’s commercial. I did not have to get naked and ejaculate anything except really bad ad copy, from my mouth. Had the commercial aired past 13 weeks (it didn’t), I would have received a financial residual each and every time it aired.
All that commercial did was bring attention to McDonald’s, which may (or may not have) brought hard profits to the company. But I, the actor, would have made money off of it.
My friend did a mayonnaise commercial that aired for two years. He bought a new car and put a down payment on a house from the proceeds. It took all of one day to shoot that spot.
Funny how mayonnaise pays better than spooge.
Why don’t porn actors get residuals too? Because porn “favorites” like Chi Chi LaRue (please) are greedy pariahs who want to keep getting rich. And they do get rich. They exploit.
NOW WATCH. I’LL get a letter from Chi Chi saying, “Honey, those boys know what they’re getting into. Some of them make a thousand a film. They sign releases. They’re adults. I need dicks and I need holes and they, honey, are more than willing to supply.”
I don’t care. A thousand bucks ain’t nothin’ and every person reading this knows that.
I bet Johnny Rahm thought his “stardom” would lead to lots of money. He had a right to expect this. But what he mostly got was signs saying “Not Welcome” from the opportunities many of us take for granted.
I know, I know, but he won all these awards and he’s so “hot” and he’s such a good performer. He was a free spirit! An arteest! A sexual dynamo! I keep telling myself that.
On Tuesday nights I can rent two videos and get a third for free, so next Tuesday I’ll rent a Johnny Rahm video. I’ll use J.T. Rogers (Johnny’s real name) selfishly for my own advantage, just like Chi Chi LaRue used J.T. Rogers selfishly for her own advantage.
I wonder if she showed up at J.T.’s memorial and told everyone how much that body – I mean person – meant to her.
Rest in peace, J.T. There’s a house for you in heaven, mortgage-free.