10 Years Of Str8Up: The Stories, Stars, And Scandals That Shaped Gay Porn Since 2013
Ten years ago today, on November 14th, 2013, the first article published on Str8UpGayPorn was a simple one. “Shocking New Photos Of Mick Lovell Leak” was the headline, and while there wasn’t anything shocking about those photos (other than how hot Mick looked in them), one of which is above, there were of course many actual shocking headlines to come on Str8Up. After a decade of massive cocks, wild controversies, and incredible cum shots (some of which were fake), Str8Up is proud to have broken all the exclusive stories that shaped gay porn trends and provoked industry conversations, all while helping to make so many gay porn stars become household names.
When publicist and marketing executive Davyd Dixon and I launched this site ten years ago, little did I know we’d be producing award shows with Emmy-winning celebrities, breaking the story on a billionaire who fucks Sean Cody models, served a cease and desist letter from a basic cable hooker, traveling the globe to report on the world’s hottest men, and surviving not one but two pathetic cancellation attempts!
[u still mad?]
For the first year after Str8Up went live, the site made very little money, and I had to make ends meet by renting out my apartment (which I was actually already renting from someone else! whoops!) on Airbnb. Things changed dramatically in 2015 when I broke the story of Jarec Wentworth’s arrest and covered the subsequent extortion trial, which catapulted Str8Up into mainstream news. Our traffic skyrocketed (the day I reported from the courthouse on Wentworth’s guilty verdict is still the highest trafficked day in Str8Up history), and things haven’t been the same since.
[coverage of the 2020 Str8UpGayPorn Awards in The Hollywood Reporter]
The Str8UpGayPorn Awards soon followed, and for three years in a row, we and hosts Sandra Bernhard, Bianca Del Rio, and Kathy Griffin elevated the industry and the stars to a level that other award shows never could. In fact, with the exception of the GayVNs (which came back from its own hiatus the year after the first Str8Up Awards), all other gay porn award shows either died or faded into total irrelevance following the inaugural Str8Up ceremony in 2017. And yes, the Str8UpGayPorn Awards are eyeing a triumphant return in 2024 after being sidelined by the pandemic for the last three years.
Other than one seven-day period in late October 2016 due a craniotomy (yes, that’s me above, after I had a literal craniotomy due to a head injury that caused a skull fracture and epidural hematoma), I’ve published on Str8UpGayPorn every single day for the last ten years. With articles in Str8UpDaily, scene coverage in New Releases, and all those Hot Links, I’ve published a total of 25,563 posts, which have garnered over 1.1 million comments. While I’ve had to block a lot of commenters (many of which are just industry lowlifes working/performing at dying studios and using fake names), the overwhelming majority of readers have been key to Str8Up’s success, and I’ve never taken any of your clicks or comments for granted. Thank you.
Finally, here’s a look back at some of the biggest Str8UpGayPorn exclusive stories that were the most-commented and most-viewed stories of the last 10 years. While there have been hundreds of reviews, interviews, rankings, and news articles that I’ve been grateful to write and publish, I chose these 10 exclusive stories because they are what made Str8Up “Str8Up,” and most of them truly were the most shocking. Here’s to the next 10 years of dicks and drama, and again, thank you all for reading.
10. Exclusive—Arad Winwin Responds To Criticism Of Bisexual Scene And Questions About His Sexuality: “I’m A Gay Man, And This Was Only A Job”
Gay-for-pay stars (or, in this case, bisexual-for-pay?!) have dominated and will continue to dominate headlines for as long as gay porn exists. I was fortunate enough to talk with now retired performer Arad Winwin about his bisexual debut in 2018, and to date, the interview still has the most comments on any article in the history of Str8UpGayPorn.
9. Logo’s “Prince Charming” Bachelor Robert Sepulveda Jr. Is A Former Rentboy With A Giant Uncut Cock
The person reporting the news should never become the news, but that’s unfortunately what happened after Str8Up reported on Rentboy turned reality star Robert Sepulveda back in 2016. Sepulveda’s lawyer filed a copyright claim against Str8Up for posting Sepulveda’s XXX Rentboy photos and reviews (which were already obviously very much part of the public domain), and for the first (and only) time, Str8Up was forced to temporarily remove content that we published. Of course, 10 days after we filed a DMCA counter notification arguing that we had the right to post the photos, the Rentboy relented, and the photos went back up.
8. Exclusive: Gay Porn Star And Convicted Sex Offender Sebastian Young Shot Dead After High Speed Police Chase
After all the arrests and convictions for truly heinous crimes, perhaps it really was the best (only?) way for this to end.
7. LISTEN: Michael Lucas Says He’ll “End” Porn Star Logan Moore’s Career In Threatening Voicemails
When Michael Lucas wasn’t being sued for defecating all over someone’s rental house or forcing porn stars to inject drugs, the deranged and unhinged right-wing zionist was leaving audio evidence of his model abuse, which you can hear above (backstory on the voicemails here).
6. Exclusive: Corbin Fisher’s Elian Reveals His Favorite Scenes, Why He Started Porn When He Was In High School, What He Really Thinks Of Max, And More!
While I’ve been fortunate to interview so many of gay porn’s best stars, this one was a true “get” in which I really lucked out. It’s hard enough to track down a Corbin Fisher model, but then to find that Elian was one of the sweetest guys who gave such a great interview, well, it doesn’t get any better than this.
5. Gay Porn Star Colby Keller: “I’m Going To Vote For Trump!”
Colby Keller’s admission was not a Str8Up exclusive (he gave the interview to a hipster arts/culture online zine), but we were the ones that brought the news to the gay porn industry and gay porn viewers, who became enraged. The rest, much like Keller’s career, is history.
4. EXCLUSIVE: Violent Fight Breaks Out On Gay Porn Set During Bareback Orgy
It was the kick heard ’round the world, courtesy of a clearly aggravated Tom Faulk. Eight years after publishing it, I still get questions about this FratX video (watch it above) that was leaked to Str8Up in 2015.
3. Cameron Diggs Responds To Claims That He’s A Racist: “I Prefer To Stay Inside My Race…Is That So Wrong?”
Sadly, racist gay porn stars continue to turn up in gay porn (look no further than Ben Masters or that Sean Cody model with the Confederate flag tattoo), and nowhere was this more apparent than with gay-for-pay white supremacist porn star Cameron Diggs in 2016, as clearly evidenced by his words in the headline above. Both articles on Diggs’ white supremacist tattoos generated over 500 comments here, not to mention a feature in Vice magazine. Back in 2019, Diggs had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for meth trafficking, but just two months ago, he was released early.
2. Sean Cody’s Randy Has Died
The one story over the last 10 years that I genuinely hated to publish, and probably the best example of the only thing that makes my job difficult, in that it was a story I simply did not want to write. As if me posting it or not posting it could’ve somehow changed the reality of what had happened. Randy was one of the greatest gay porn stars of all time, and he tragically left us far too soon. His revealing 2018 interview with Str8Up, showing us just what a great guy he always was, is here.
1. EXCLUSIVE: Jarec Wentworth Arrested For Felony Extortion; Demands Included $1 Million, L.A. Condo
There have been so many shocking stories of gay porn star arrests broken by Str8Up (Johnny Rapid, Sergeant Miles, Trent Olsen), but the #1 story obviously couldn’t be anything else. Although, it was hard to only put one headline above from just one of the Str8Up articles covering the Jarec Wentworth saga, given all the twists, turns, subplots, gay porn stars, CEOs, and billionaires involved. We obviously all knew about Jarec Wentworth’s extortion of escort client Donald Burns heading into the trial, but who knew that while covering that trial in Los Angeles, I’d end up breaking the additional news that billionaire David Geffen was also paying to fuck Sean Cody models? It was the story that kept on giving, and here’s the timeline leading up to Jarec’s guilty verdict. As you’ll recall, he was sentenced to six years and then released in 2020. Donald Burns, meanwhile, was proven to be a literal sex trafficker in federal court, but he never faced a single consequence for his criminal activity. That’s the American “justice” system for you.
