Porn-stars versus politics

On one hand, this might seem really straightforward - particularly in the context of the US presidential election.

Porn-stars voting for the Republicans - and their explicit anti-porn agenda - is the classic "turkeys voting for Christmas" conundrum, it just doesn't make any sense.

We've got plenty of examples of gay porn stars who have gone public with their voting intentions - performers such as Devin Franco, Alex Grant, Big C, Hatler Gurius, Hoss Kado, and Ricky Larkin.

That's a boner-killer, right? But the solution is obvious - we simply unfollow and turn elsewhere for the fuel for our fap fantasies that porn-stars provide.

But our desires are complicated. Part of the reason that we turn to sexual fantasies is that it enables us to explore the dark depths of our imagination and takes us into taboo territory that is forbidden to us in our public-presenting lives.

For example, the toxic masculinity that is celebrated by the Republican party in the US can be an alluring way to indulge your humiliation kink. It doesn't take a psych degree to understand why we want our bullies to pay attention to us. Homophobia is a sexual trigger - is he going to kill me or fuck me? Either way, it's kind of exciting.

Even more problematic is race-play. While racism is ever-present in US politics, the sexual role-play side of that does seem to have gone a bit more mainstream in gay porn.

Age-gap fantasies are also part of this picture. While less overtly political, this is a fantasy that embraces the perversion - embraces the concept of gay men as "other", twisted, dark, and dangerous.

I'm not attempting to excuse or justify problematic behaviour, and I'm not defending turkeys who insist on voting for Christmas, but it's worth recognising that we're all a bit complicated.

Announcing that people are "cancelled" because of who they've voted for, or what they've indicated their voting intention to be, leans into the division and polarisation that fragments our community and damages us all.

Elections matter and voting has consequences.

Politics is a kink but porn-stars are not politicians and fantasy is not reality.

Let's hope that our collective post-nut clarity is a future in which we can all thrive.