It's hard to think of site - let alone a gay porn blogging site - that is a better distillation of what the 2000s came to mean for the adult flesh market than Fleshbot. Launched in 2002 by an uncannily prescient - and openly gay - Nick Denton of Gawker Media (the umbrella company for such well known blog sites as Gawker, Defamer, Gizmodo and, of course, Fleshbot), he saw the ubiquity of porn that was only possible because of the the-once-funnily-named "Internets." He then set out to chronicle the Adult world with the right literary cocktail of snark and wry irony that became one of the cultural tags this past decade in part because of people like Denton and sites like Fleshbot.
By 2004, the site - both the gay and straight sides - had the sort of caché that most bloggers, in porn or otherwise, could only dream of: It was ranked in the top 10K sites according to Alexa AND it was making money. (How much we don't exactly know as Mr. Denton is circumspect about his P & L.) It was also, and continues to be, one of the - if not the- go-to site for news and commentary on the gay porn world: its stars, their movies, and the explosion of blog sites that produce or reproduce gay porn. Today, Fleshbot is ranked 1471 on Alexa.com, a usually reliable source of web traffic. Oh, and that's 1471 out of hundreds of millions of jillions of sites on the web.
The site proved that with the right mix of respect for porn and puckishness over its excesses, people would trust a single site for all of their sexual wants; a sort of masturbatory NGO whose goal is to help with your carnal suffering. Helping is that it has also attracted some top-notch writing talent including the formidable skills of their Founding Editor - known on their masthead simply as John D. - Lux Alptraum (their longtime Editor), Audacia Ray, Rod McCullom and, during what all the important blog historians now refer to as their Golden Era, me.
But by 2008, the porn landscape was already changing. It wasn't that people were any less interested in reading and hearing about porn but a combustible mix of over-saturation and the economic death spiral drove advertisers to more reliable commercial ventures and before the end of the year, 19 of Denton's 133 editors were out. John D. was among them.
By about this time last year, Contributing Editor Brian O'Brien took over and one year later I was fortunate enough to speak with him about his role at Fleshbot . He is, from all appearances, very smart, playful, funny and, above all, unpretentious. Many times the opposite, in fact, of the very things he covers so well.
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW AFTER THE JUMP. (This interview has been redacted for clarity.)
MOC: Tell me something about yourself. Where are you from? What were you writing before you took over the helm at gay Fleshbot? How do your friends describe you?
BRIAN O'BRIEN: I was born in Connecticut to a lovely Irish family. Because I couldn't stop touching myself inappropriately, i was shipped off to St. Dymphna's School for Wayward Boys at a young age where I was in a dorm full of other dirty miscreants. We were under the watchful eye of Sister Nicotena of the Holy Smoke and Monseigneur McGillicuddy, who was the most strapping priest you ever did see. He never touched me in my no-no spot, which completely ruined my self esteem for the rest of my life. Am I that ugly? When I was finally kicked out of the school I moved to New York, where I now work as a full-time freelance writer. Only a part of my work is Fleshbot, even though it is by far the most fun.
MOC: How did Fleshbot find you? Or did you find them?
BO'B: About a year ago I was thinking, "How does one get to write for Fleshbot, that would be a killer job." About a month later, I got an email in my inbox from Lux Alptraum, the awesome editor who runs the whole site asking if I'd be interested in talking about working for the site. Oprah is right! Envisioning what you want really works! She apparently had gotten my name from a mutual media friend who recommended me as a witty gay who could write about porn. I met with Lux and we set up an "audition" on the site, and I got the job just before Thanksgiving of last year.
MOC: How would you describe your writing style?
BO'B: I would say it's fun, punny, silly, outrageous, and a little bit informative. Mostly it's sadistic and maddening, but people seem to like it.
MOC: The tone of the site is quite different than your predecessor. Call it Snark-lite. Was that a conscious decision or merely a reflection of your own, personal style?
BO'B: I would say it's just my personal style. At Fleshbot we do like to have a "tone," but we never like to be too mean. For instance, we never pick on people appearance or other things they can't control, like their voice. However, things they can control, like haircuts, tattoos, and porn names are fair game. Come on, if you're a twink who picks Diesel as your porn name, you're just asking for it. We also don't pick on other people's kinks or what other people are into. We're all for encouraging the exploration of sex and pornography, whatever that means to you. So, yes, we can be a little snarky, but at the end of the day, the reason I write the site and why people visit is because we all love porn. We love the guys who make it and we love to watch it and read about it and talk about it. Are we going to make fun of some of the silly or absurd aspects of it? Of course, but we kid because we love.
MOC: How do you decide what to publish? What aspects of gay porn – from press releases to video clips to new discoveries, etc. – strike you enough to report on them?
BO'B: I report on things that are hot and that our readers will think are hot. If I write about something and people click on the post a lot and leave lots of comments, then you bet we'll be posting similar stuff in the future. Gotta give "the boys" what they want. Basically I just look for things that will give readers wood. Nothing too too industry insider. I like things with lots of pictures or videos and things that haven't been on every single blog yet. I have a pretty diverse taste in terms of the types of guys and scenes that I like and I try to reflect that in the things that I post. I like to reward things that are different with some attention and take into account things other guys might be into that aren't really my bag. There are also certain things that personally drive me crazy that I'm lucky enough that my readers respond to, like superheroes and sci-fi stuff, jocks and wrestlers, guys in glasses, gang bangs, and arty photography. My collection of furry videos I keep mostly to myself though.
MOC: Why does gay Fleshbot continue to rank so well traffic-wise, aside from your genius? What is it about reading about porn that makes Fleshbot so captivating?
BO'B: I like to think that you can get all your masturbatory needs met by reading Fleshbot. We have a little bit of everything--free clips, gossip, hot guys, fun games, etc. We have a distinct tone and style that I think people enjoy, and it's becoming more and more of a brand. That's especially true on the straight side.
MOC: Describe a typical day in your life at work. Can you wear pajamas? Do you get to meet a lot of cool porn stars and attend V.I.P. parties with endangered species and Kobe beef carpaccio?
BO'B: As I said before, I only do Fleshbot part time, so my porn writing is usually done at night and on the weekends. I still check my Fleshbot email and Tweet and stuff during the day, but most of my energy is spent on my "big boy" job. Being in New York, we don't get the same kind of porn world stuff that the LA and SF bloggers do. We only have a handful of stars here (a couple of whom I'm friendly with) and we don't have any regular events to meet all the porn stars here. That's good and bad. It's good because I think it gives the site kind of an "educated outsider" feel, which readers enjoy. It's bad because I want to force porn stars to suck my dick for press coverage. Where are the fucking perks!
MOC: What do you see when you look out over the Gay Porn Landscape? Studios are merging or shutting down. Publications are going out of business. The recession is hurting the bottom line of many producers. There’s ubiquitous free porn and illegal file sharing. Is this Gay Porn Armageddon? Or this just a phase in our evolution, like acne or young, twinky boyfriends?
BO'B: I think it's a phase of evolution. Print is dying everywhere, especially in porn. And while I'll miss having Honcho around, that is certainly a natural evolution. What really pisses me off though is the preponderance of pirated porn on the internet. I even have friends who refuse to pay for porn and just steal it from some torrent site. They don't do that for music or films or any other medium, but because porn is "dirty" they feel like they have the right to steal it. I think that is fucking bullshit and it drives me crazy. If we don't pay for the good stuff, then good stuff is going to stop getting made and we'll be stuck with 30 second XTube clips to get us off. While that's not the worst thing in the world, I don't want to live in a time where porn studios don't make at least one crazy big budget movie with sets and costumes and a plot. So, all that said, some of the best porn being made these days is on the different websites like Randy Blue and College Dudes 24/7 and even on the studio sites like Hot House Backroom and Falcon Str8men. I think it's a natural evolution from DVDs to single scenes online and VOD and subscription sites and the like. I'm down with that change, especially when there's someone like Randy Blue who puts a lot of thought and design into his productions instead of just filming boys on the same bed over and over and over. If the studios die out, then the websites are going to need to step it up, or they're going to have Brian O'Brien to deal with.
MOC: It’s 2012. The day after Obama wins his second term he begins a rapid descent into alcoholic madness. In a moment of drunken tomfoolery, he signs legislation banning all porn. You have one week to make the last gay porn movie. Who stars in it?
BO'B: Here is what I would do. I would get all the truly gay porn stars (not the gay for pay ones, with the exception of Reese Rideout, who I have made an honorary gay for this project) together in a giant sex club and get like 20 cameras and just say "Have at it." Just get a bunch of really hot gay guys fucking who they want to fuck and having a great time and get it all on film. Hopefully we would get a giant train pulled on Mason Wyler just like in Spokes 3, Fleshbot Crush Object Hall of Fame Inductee Arpad Miklos would bottom on camera for the first time for Walking Work of Art Logan McCree, Fleshbot Boyfriend Race Cooper and my love Diesel Washington would double stuff Francois Sagat, and The Jarics would flip fuck alongside Steve Cruz and Bruno Bond. Too bad Nash Lawler isn't a fag, cause I'd really want him there to eat a bowl full of twinks for breakfast. But really, all the real gay dudes are invited to my giant sex party. It might even end with my porn debut, not that anyone would want to see that.
MOC: Racism in Gay Porn. Discuss.
I really, really, really wish that the big studios and the better websites would be more diverse. I don't mean just including one black or Latino guy in each movie, I mean having men of all colors in every movie. The same holds true for "thug porn" and other pictures that fetishize race in the opposite way. In my Utopian porn ideal, all movies would just be a big mocha mix of types of men, skin color, and ethnicity. They say that pictures with men of color don't sell as well, and I think that's bullshit. When we post about men of color on Fleshbot, the posts do just as much traffic as comparable posts about white stars, so the demand is out there. That said, I do post more about men not of color because there are a lot more of them out there, but we're always thinking about how we can make the whole site (not just the gay side) as diverse as possible and, though you may not always be able to see it, it's at the forefront of our minds. That said, sometimes "the boys" don't even know what they want until they see it. And then they see it and they think it's hot and want more. I challenge a major porn studio to film a scene with a black man getting fucked by a tranny. I will write about it every day for a week. Everyone will go "ew," but I will watch the shit out of that scene and blow two loads just in celebration of someone trying to do something different. Porn is just like food. If you order the same thing off the menu every time, you know you're going to like it, but you'll just be eating the same meal over and over. If you try all the things on the menu, you'll find things you don't like, but you'll also find unexpected surprises that you totally love that you might not have had otherwise. That goes for both consumers and producers.