This is connected to one of my Thanksgiving meditations: “I am maintaining or improving, as well as learning to see and appreciate, the beauty in me that so many others already exalt, and I am humbly luxuriating in that Gift.” We need inspiration to persevere consistently enough to attain our goals, and visualizing the desired result is proven to facilitate its realization.

I know it will sound completely hysterical or melodramatic, but Dylan Rosser‘s work makes my eyes glaze with tears. When you hear people say something akin to, “The human body is the most beautiful machine in the universe,” they must have something like his photography in mind when they say it. Perhaps I am too much of a Toreador (or perhaps it actually is a wonderful suffering that I should enjoy indulging), but agonizing over his images is making me want to concentrate deeply, sleep and eat regularly, and exercise intensely. And isn’t that an expression of something that goes far beyond the superficial motive of looking a certain way? To me it means that I yearn to take care of myself, and that reaching a high level of fitness is a fortunate byproduct of doing so.

Is male beauty only skin deep? The Classical Greeks thought the honing of the body through sport also improved the heart, mind, and soul of the boy in question. The work ethic and commitment needed to achieve prowess and skill, along with the humility youths were expected to express, married external and internal excellence into the ideal we still fantasize about 2,500 years later: The intelligent, kind, beautiful lover. Is it fair to be dismissive and to presume that athletic male beauty MUST equate to something simple, crude, or unrefined? I have often reviled athletes, because they bullied me severely from the time I was six until I was 24 (that is, 24 for the first time). I have often lumped athletic men into the “dumb jock” category, even though I know too many men whose external beauty grows out of a commitment to other forms of excellence for me to reasonably accept this mean cliché. I want to believe that Dylan Rosser’s models are the kindest, smartest, and most enlightened men on the planet. Yes. They must be (even if they’re not). But that is my privilege as the viewer: I can transform these “objects” into anything I want. And I don’t want them to be “just” sex machines. I want them to be artists/scientists and philosophers, too. I want their physical bodies to be the tangible expression of the hearts I am giving them, whether they have them or not.

But I’m a greedy bitch like that.

Click this link to see Dylan Rosser’s website.

Nothing to say tonight, just learning to use my new stuff, and I realized I had a new pic I wanted to share. It can be enlarged by clicking, and will be in the Gallery as well:

“From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”

We all have our demons. I am definitely not an exception. I still have a particular monster under my bed. (I would say I have a skeleton in my closet, but the door is wide open, and nearly all those have come clattering out onto the floor.) But to stretch this extended metaphor to its breaking point, I will say that I am still haunted.

I have been eating irregularly again.

I thought I’d completely contended with the anorexic tendencies, but they are back. And it helps to talk about it, to examine it, and to get it out of my head. It’s like clearing the cobwebs out of a spooky house. I am eating as I type this, in a bid to reverse the habit that has been coalescing since Sean Cody published my legal name. Over the last several weeks I found myself falling into a familiar thought process: “Oh, it’s too much trouble to eat. I’ll just put it off. What I’m doing at this moment is far more important (plus I’ll look better, too).” That last part is what betrays the underlying problem. The rest of that notion is fairly typical to American workers… but the last part… I have to break this cycle NOW. I have accidentally initiated a process of feast and famine, and it’s wrecking my mood and wellness.

Looking at what might have triggered this, I have to say it’s pretty obvious: My stress levels went up dramatically just before my birthday, and have never really diminished completely. At the exact same time that everything was happening with the gay porn blogosphere in June and July 2010, both Gramma and Dad went into the hospital on my birthday. Dad has recovered, but Gramma has not, and it’s wearing Mom out (who is getting almost no help from her brothers, which is pissing me off more and more). While I was trying to take a break and retreat from everything for a couple weeks, I ended up having to contend with various types of emotional traumas simultaneously, and my response was to stop eating properly (to say nothing of my drinking water and sleeping enough). All of it together has thrown me into a bit of a tailspin, and my sense of happiness and optimism have definitely taken a hard knock. In addition to these factors, the trolls guarding the G4P bridges on the intrawebzes got in some painful licks: It was extremely jarring to have so much homophobia lumped on me by my own people. I admit it: That hurt.

It’s an odd addiction, attention. When I was getting far too much of it, I just wanted it to go away; however, there’s some kind of reality-show-need to maintain it (despite the fact that I didn’t want it in the first place). I feel a little bit like a used car: I’ve been afraid of becoming an obsolete model after having been driven hard by too many reckless drivers. It isn’t that I care specifically about becoming a porn star, but I have been fretting over preventing the prediction of my detractors: I have been trying to stave off their desire for me to fail in my video endeavors. But it isn’t for these anonymous “people” to define my happiness or my success – I have given them a power that isn’t theirs.

And so, as you can see, doing porn is also contributing to this eating situation: I am constantly worrying that I look ridiculous next to my scene partners, that I look utterly disgusting next to their beauty. (But my agent told me that nearly everyone in porn suffers these same insecurities.) Part of the problem in maintaining a strenuous diet is trying to stay in tip top shape constantly, so that I can be ready at a moment’s notice if I get a call for a scene. I haven’t allowed myself enough down time to rest and enjoy food. It’s irritating, because they call when I’ve been enjoying desserts too much for two weeks, but when I am a good boy I don’t hear from them. I had a carb meltdown yesterday and ate half a box of Golden Grahams. Sigh. Watch them call me in three days once the puffiness sets in around my bellybutton…

It was my goal to do 10 scenes. I have already done 11 (nine of them this year, AFTER the bullshit with Sean Cody… so MNAH!), and I feel the need to dig my heels in and remind myself that I am an escort who has done some porn. I’m not a porn model who sometimes escorts. I did what I set out to do. There are now examples of me in a variety of scenarios. Worrying about whether or not I will get more scenes has become too much of a priority. I can check off the porn item on my Adult Entertainment To Do list.

I am going to put the focus back where it belongs: On being happy. And I was happy when I wasn’t worrying about proving something to a bunch of assholes I’ll never meet (thank the Goddess for small miracles). If I continue to do video work, great. And if not, okay. I will accept reasonable video offers for scenes that don’t diminish me as a person or cloud the clarity of my brand, so long as the dates don’t conflict with my travel plans; I will continue spending time with the people who enjoy my company; and I am going to calm this porn noise by reconnecting to a spiritual practice that I have recently neglected.

Besides, I have other concerns: A Greek Orthodox Monk is on his way over to my apartment to talk to me about the plot for a musical he wants to write. And he’s using my poetry to do it. I think that is far more interesting than whether or not I’m given the nod of approval from a group of rampant consumers who are impossible to please.

Speaking of rampant consumers: I’m hungry. I’m going to go eat some more. I’m making a conscious effort to exorcise this demon.

Hello – nothing much to say tonight. I added some new photos, removed others, and generally rearranged everything. In particular there are some more shots from “Fresh off the Vine,” and my favorite is the one you see here (which you can also see in the Gallery):

As I mentioned a day or two ago, here is the first of the new pictures taken about 36 hours ago (click to enlarge):

by Julian Vankim, 2010