U.S. Government Publishes NIH Research Paper Analyzing The Effects Of Johnny Rapid’s Bareback Debut On His Career As An “Aging Twink”
Well, of all the stories I’ve reported on here, I didn’t see this one coming.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the primary agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that’s responsible for biomedical and public health research—recently published a research article by Dr. Joseph Brennan titled “Going Bareback: Time and Aging in a Gay-for-Pay Porn Career,” and the subject of this PubMed article is gay porn star Johnny Rapid.
Specifically, the paper focuses on Johnny Rapid’s bareback debut in 2015 on Bromo (back then, the site was known as JuicyBoys), “Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback,” and how that bareback debut was met with negative feedback from commenters here on Str8UpGayPorn. Despite those negative comments, the paper’s author concludes that Rapid’s bareback debut was ultimately a successful move for an “aging twink in need of a career boost.” So, while this doctor might be throwing some subtle shade, he and the NIH are basically just identifying how publicity and porn marketing works. (For their next move, maybe they can convince people to stop ingesting horse dewormer?)
Some highlights from the article (you must read it in its entirety here), beginning with the introduction:
Johnny Rapid began his porn career at the start of the 2010s as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, shooting scenes with Boys First Time and Bukkake Boys before signing with Men as an exclusive and releasing his first scene in November 2011. At time of writing, toward the close of the last decade (November 2018), Rapid was just five scenes short of his 200th scene with the studio, and while his age was beginning to count against him, remained a major player—ranked Men’s “most liked” performer with more than 6,800 audience ‘thumbs up’. He was also named as the second most searched for gay porn star in Pornhub’s 2017 “Year in Review” annual analytics report (beaten to the top spot by relative new-comer William Seed, also a Men exclusive) and was the 2017 recipient of Str8UpGayPorn’s Best Gay-4-Pay Performer award. Rapid’s success in 2018 appears to have been buoyed by his highly publicized bareback debut a few years earlier (in 2015, in a series known as Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback), which forms the focus of this article and raises questions that are still relevant at time of revision and publication (in June/July 2021). How was Rapid’s immense popularity leveraged to help launch a new “rough sex” porn studio? Did this move help to revitalize Rapid’s fortunes, who aged 23 at the time of his bareback debut, was a twink performer nearing the end of his expected porn lifespan? And what insights into the mainstream integration of bareback and ageist restrictions normally placed on twink performers are to be gained from textual analysis of audience reactions to Rapid’s bareback debut? Audience reactions that, as I note briefly, also reveal certain class-based assessments of Rapid and his infamy at the time.
My qualitative method—textual analysis in the cultural studies tradition—is used to interpret audience reaction to this debut (both the performance itself and the notion of a ‘star’ being used to promote a bareback launch event), drawing out key themes for discussion. This process reveals a decidedly negative reception of Rapid, the promotion of bareback as event, and the quality of the bareback performance itself, all of which I read in accordance with what these narratives have to tell us about bareback at the time. Yet, I also take the opportunity—writing several years after this critical moment in Rapid’s career (in 2018), and then at the time of revision and publication several years after that again (in 2021)—to reflect on the success of the campaign. Specifically, I read Rapid’s transition to bareback in line with the concept of time, which has particular resonance with bareback. Through reflection, I arrive at the conclusion that the time was right for an aging twink performer to be freshened-up by a transition to bareback; similar transitions of which have become widespread across the gay porn landscape in the years that have ticked over since the 2015 Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback event and our present day—due to the widespread mainstreaming of bareback in commercial gay porn, which has been buoyed in no small part by advancements in HIV prevention technologies.
With regard to what the author did to gather his evidence and research, he explains:
In this article I attend specifically to the competing audience narratives that surrounded Bromo’s launch. In particular, its selection of Rapid as a popular performer whose bareback debut would serve as a “launch event.” I read both Rapid’s performance and discourse accompanying the Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback campaign. Focused attention is given to viewer commentary at key points in the launch, namely: the moment of confirmation of Rapid’s participation, the launch itself, and during the release of scenes. My analysis is drawn from 293 comments posted to six blog entries on Str8UpGayPorn, a popular gay porn blog that covered the campaign. I observe that while Rapid’s first-time bareback performance is marketed as a coup for viewers, the general consensus among Str8UpGayPorn’s readership is more cynical.
I’m not sure how Str8UpGayPorn’s review of Johnny Rapid’s bareback debut and the subsequent anonymous Str8UpGayPorn commenters can be used as foundational data and evidence for a scientific research paper, but I’m no doctor, so what do I know!
In terms of why the author of the NIH article chose to focus on Str8UpGayPorn’s coverage of Johnny Rapid’s bareback debut, he explains:
Str8UpGayPorn was selected partly for its depth coverage of this particular campaign, and partly for the notoriety of its creator, Zach Sire. Sire has a reputation for developing “fixations” (see Brennan, 2016a, 22–23) on certain performers, “power bottoms” (see Mercer, 2012) particularly. His intrusive reporting style has attracted criticism from performers and industry executives alike, such as from Brent Corrigan and Lucas Entertainment founder Michael Lucas.
While it may be true that I’ve attracted “criticism” for “intrusive reporting” (if covering the abuse that Michael Lucas has inflicted on his employees is considered “intrusive reporting,” and that criticism has come from the perpetrator of said abuse, Michael Lucas, then so be it), I never really thought of myself as having a fixation on powerbottoms? OK, maybe the Johnny Rapid Countdown To 200 Cocks list was a bit of a fixation, but lists like that are more about generating traffic on Str8Up, not my own fixations. Speaking of which, take it away, doc:
Evidence of Sire’s near-obsessive Rapid coverage includes his “Countdown to 200 Cocks,” a running tally of Rapid’s anal receptiveness that further demonstrates his bottoming persona and was ongoing as of publication. Sire also tracked Rapid’s first “100 Cocks,” a milestone the performer reached in November 2015—after just four years in the industry. Rapid’s distinctive “bottom persona” is important to the “event marketing” behind the Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback campaign, especially given the potential insights this persona brings to bear on how the campaign and Rapid himself were constructed by online discourse (as well as in a more practical sense, as the receptive partner in on-screen portrayals of anal sex). In particular, the way in which those commenting construed (or imagined) Rapid going bareback as the last-ditch action of a performer past his prime. Such an audience position that is supported by previous studies of performers’ transition to bareback (i.e., Brennan). Rapid’s bareback debut, after all, did premiere in the same month as his 23rd birthday, which is significant as it marks the definitional twilight of what a twink is: namely a boyish, 18–23-year-old (Tortorici, 2008, 205).
Near obsessive?! (That reminds me: don’t forget my other Johnny Rapid list, in which I count down all the times he was double penetrated.)
The paper goes on to describe Str8Up’s coverage of all the scenes from the “Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback” series, and it analyzes several of the comments Str8up readers posted on each Str8Up article:
Four scenes were released as part of the Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback campaign—one per week beginning on August 6, 2015. Scene 1 paired Rapid with Dennis West and was the subject of two blog posts by Sire—dated August 3, 2015 and August 6, 2015. (Scene 2 did not feature Rapid [instead it paired West with Jake Wilder], and thus Sire’s post on Scene 2 is not analyzed as part of this article.) Scene 3 paired Rapid with Vadim Black, and was the subject of one post—dated August 19, 2015. Scene 4 concluded the series and grouped Rapid with West and Wilder. Notably, it ends the series by featuring two variations on the double penetration of Rapid (West and Black, West and Wilder)—‘double penetration’ being a practice where the anus is penetrated simultaneously by two penises. Sire sums up this scene with—some might read—veiled criticism of its ‘first time’ credentials; “letting Johnny perform one of his signature acts—getting double-penetrated. Only this time, the cocks DP’ing Johnny Rapid don’t have condoms on them.” This final scene was the subject of one post—dated August 26, 2015.
[…]
In the fourth and final scene of the Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback series, Rapid performs his signature act—‘double penetration,’ or ‘double anal,’ a form of extreme anal penetration where the performer receives two penises in his anus simultaneously. Rapid is double penetrated as part of two different pairings (West and Black, West and Wilder), which is performed bareback each time. Despite the anal elasticity required for the act, which has been a defining feature of Rapid’s popularity, on balance, Str8UpGayPorn commentators seem unimpressed. There is some evidence of fan appreciation—“HE’S JUST SO CUTE!” (August 19, 2015, C30)—and ‘slut-readings’ of Rapid, common in the reception of power bottom performers—“Johnny Rapid = Sloppobottomus,” (C4) “it is easier to find a dime in the grand canyon than it is to hit Johnny’s G spot.” (C5) Yet the consensus seems to be that Rapid’s bareback debut as an ‘event’ is disappointing.
Finally, as noted above, Brennan concludes that Johnny Rapid’s bareback debut was a success, and in fact, Rapid’s career was “saved” by the bareback debut:
We are left to conclude that Johnny Rapid’s career was not only freshened-up by his transition to bareback—it was saved by it. Rapid’s continued popularity at time of writing (and less so, but still popular, at time of publication) is significant because it bucks received wisdom on the career trajectory of bottom twinks—who tend to retire or fade into obscurity by their mid-twenties, especially when they represent a certain working classness (as opposed to performers like Brent Corrigan, whose industry savvy and connectedness with gay culture has assured his continued relevance). Rapid himself appears to concede this lifeline in accepting his 2017 award for Best Gay-4-Pay Performer: “You know, I didn’t think that I would win another award in my lifetime.”
There’s much more in the full article (some longtime commenters might see some of their comments there), so do read it when you have time.
And if you somehow missed it back in 2015, here is the now scientifically analyzed bareback debut of Johnny Rapid that’s been acknowledged by the NIH and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (watch full scene here):
