Devon Hunter

For those of you who know me well, you know that the title I used here today is also the title of my favorite book, which was written by Mary Renault. You can see two entries I wrote about this book back in May, 2009 (“The Last of the Wine:” Sokrates, on getting and keeping a true and honourable lover, and “The Last of the Wine:” Lysis, on prayer), and upon rereading them I see how everything gets knitted together. Everything is connected. There are no coincidences.

On October 12, 2006 I left my last boyfriend after I discovered he’d defrauded me for tens of thousands of dollars in credit cards he’d opened in my name and in cash he’d removed from various bank accounts. Two years later, On October 12, 2008, I went to the discount wine warehouse store to make a hefty splurge purchase: I wanted to spend $100 on a bottle of wine. At the time it was a luxury that almost crippled me for the rest of the month. But I had a reason for doing this. I had decided that I was going to pay down my debt as quickly as possible, and I began formulating my plan for doing so. I bought that bottle of wine with a very particular goal in mind: “I will eliminate not only this fraudulent debt, but all my pre-existing debt as well, by my birthday of 2012.” I bought a bottle of Duckhorn Vineyards Merlot (2004, Napa Valley) to celebrate my rediscovered faith in the idea that everything would get better. I promised myself I wouldn’t open this bottle of wine until the day my last outstanding balance was reported as ZERO by the creditor in question.

I formulated a payment plan by December, 2008; I implemented in in January, 2009; and I have stuck to this plan religiously ever since. I realized several months later that I’d done the math wrong in my favor: I could have it all paid off by my birthday of 2011! A whole year sooner!! And then, just as I was getting comfortable with this idea, I realized a few months ago that I’d done the math wrong in my favor yet again: I could have the entire debt gone by Valentine’s Day of 2011. This puts me 16 months “ahead of schedule.”

I am writing this now to announce the news: Although I paid “only” $100 for it, this bottle of wine cost me almost $100,000, and it is the best wine I have ever drunk in my life. It is true: The more you pay for wine the better it tastes. And right now I am sharing the bottle with a few friends (who will also be enjoying this nectar of the gods with some gorgeous chocolate that was formulated specifically for wine pairings). This is what freedom tastes like, and it is sweet!

Put “Emancipation” by Prince on repeat, baby: I gotta jam to some funky music RIGHT NOW.

I just wanted to give an update on all this. I was in the middle of shooting my scene at HotHouse with Gavin Waters when I got the email from a reader informing me about Sean Cody and QueerClick revealing my legal name. A minute later Gavin got the text telling him that his ex girlfriend had outed him as a porn model. That was an interesting scene to try to finish. I’ve never been able to watch it. I can look at each moment and remember too much about what I was actually feeling, and I don’t want to go back to that space. It’s a porn time capsule that I would prefer to leave buried.

When it all went down I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed; however, I took time to myself as I needed, and around September the noise finally buzzed itself out. At any rate, I ended up doing almost a dozen videos last year, despite the predictions of Sean Cody’s disciples. It was funny for them to say, “You’ll never work again!” because I could reply, “The scene with (insert model name) is going great today!” LOL I had a flourishing year as a companion, and I got to spend lots of time with high quality friends and clients. Except for that “blip,” 2010 was an amazing year. I even got engaged on December 21, but that symbolic process is already described on my blog. Also, I am one payment away from bringing the balance to ZERO on the $30k fraud from my last boyfriend (whom I left in October 2006). Yes, I’m doing just fine without Sean Cody.

So, 2011 started with a visit from a great friend from Minneapolis. The day I took her back to the airport, however, my Grampa passed away. It’s kinda amazing how you pull energy and inspiration from life’s various experiences. It’s taken some weeks to get back into balanced head space, but I’m feeling amazing again. I’m so happy! There’s both good and bad stress, you know? At any rate, I’m feeling very energized, and I have all sorts of creative projects in mind. Specifically I am working on getting the dance company involved in performances outside our home geographic region, putting the plans together to start a gay-affirming adult media company (the home video I shot with DavidSF was an experiment in minimalism that I enjoyed), and collaborating with a composer friend to create an album of spoken word, poetry, songs, and other audio treats. I’m also achieving my goal of seeing fewer clients for longer appointments, and THAT is wonderful: There is so much more to exchange in those types of meetings. If you book only 1-hours, consider going longer with the guys you like: There’s so much more to gain.

Anyway, I plan in the future to give Sean Cody and the other homophobic “amateur” sites a nice square punch in the gut (and yes, some of the other sites are just as bad). Competition is beautiful, yes? They have stopped their vagina monologues at the beginning of the scenes at Sean Cody, because I was a “gold star gay” in their ass. I am quite proud to have embarrassed them into doing what is right. The day I finally get this media company going online, I am quite happy to say that I don’t see how they’ll be able to show their faces in public once my business model, process, and structure are known. Their intent in revealing my legal name was to ruin me; however, they don’t know the first thing about me, if they think I respond to bullying by running away. Six months ago they started the process of ruining themselves, because they inadvertently inspired me to make work better than their own.

I have discovered a new fear (or at least a different incarnation of a familiar one): The fear of financial success. It’s odd… I find that I work very hard in various endeavors, hoping to attain some modicum of “success” in whatever it is I’m doing; however, as soon as I start to see those results, I (without realizing it, until after it has happened) back down/lose interest/get scared. Why would this be?

Is there worry that once I have achieved a particular “bench mark” there’ll be nothing left to do? Probably not. I don’t think in those terms. But what I have realized (and have said in various ways in different entries) is that I thrive on the process more than the outcome. I think there is also some small part of me that worries about maintenance/endurance/consistency… If I attain “success” how will I then avoid losing it?

An interesting part of me that I need to examine more closely… I think this misstep in logic has cost me a great deal, and I need to reflect on how I think it has tripped me up in the past. I think I purposefully sabatoge myself, and I need to think about the subtle ways this fear manifests itself. Any insight from y’all would be greatly appreciated.

I am on the verge of creating tangible security and stability for myself for the first time, and I’m scared I’m going to get scared and fuck it up.

Perhaps this isn’t the case where you live? But I’m working throughout Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I can speak only from my own experience…

I know several gorgeous dancers of color. Some are Latino, one is Asian, and the remaining are African American. Most of the Latinos do very well, and so does the Asian. I frequently hear complaints from those who are Black, or some mix thereof. I cannot speak for them or from their perspective, but what I can do is voice frustration for them. (If you are a Black dancer, or if you know one, please consider writing a blog entry for the site on this subject.)

Before I continue, let me say this: If you are one of my beautiful Black brothers in the art, you should consider very carefully the venues you choose. I know career dancers who are Black, and who do very well; however, until we as a culture mature enough to see beauty as it is, you are likely to run into a passive form of racism at predominantly White clubs (“I’m not racist. I’m just not attracted to Black guys.” Ergo, I won’t tip them.). It’s impossible to force people to budge on preference, so you’ll need a strategy in mind for placing yourself amongst people who will appreciate you. As a person of color I’m sure it is frustrating to be fetishized, but as a dancer/business man you have to perform where you can make the most money.

I’m trying to make an ugly truth known to a wider base of patrons. I go into this entry knowing that it is a minefield, especially since I’m from the South. But I am not trying to discourage anyone, and I am not trying to offend anyone (likely, that will happen whether I try or not). What I do want to do is bring attention to the fact that most Black dancers work hard. The sad truth is that it’s because they have to. I’ve seen it first hand far too much – the White dancers who just stand there like (poorly rendered and often arrogant) sculptures and get money literally thrown at them, while the Black dancers putting on a fucking show come off with a tiny fraction of the same… It’s not right.

I am not going to tell people whom they should fantasize about, nor am I going to lecture people about racism. Both tirades would be ridiculous at best. What I can do is remind patrons that everyone has bills to pay, and that everyone is hurt by rejection/invisibility/marginalization. Yes, you as a patron are there to exercise your right to dawdle over the dancers you like. But please consider the entertainment value of what you are seeing. Regardless of which dancers make you hot, are there any that simply command respect just because their skills are amazing? Would it kill you to tip a brotha for being off the chain?

One of the frustrations in this career is that what you make isn’t necessarily connected to how much you work out, whether or not you’re nice, and being a good performer. You are at the mercy of Whim. Whim is the god of moodswings. We aren’t rewarded or compensated on a regular, consistent basis for anything other than the benefiscence of Whim. Speaking as someone who has had bad nights and knows how frustrating they can be, please consider interacting not just with the dancers who make you think “Mmmm!,” but also with those who make you think “Ahhh!”

My Gramma and I were yesterday discussing the salient distinctions between exotic dancers and strippers. One of the points of differentitation for me is desparation, as I stated in one of my first blog posts on this site. If there is desparation, standards get lowered (if they weren’t very high to begin with).

This conversation started after she told me about an incident in the paper about 40 years ago wherein a man and female prostitute were arrested on the street after arguing over her price. Evidently she wanted $200 (in 1970′s dollars), and he thought it too much. Gramma said she was discussing it over lunch one day later that week with her lady friends, and that she’d scandalized them all by saying, “Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine anything I could do that would be worth $200!” I thought it was funny, especially when she followed it up with, “But in all fairness to the lady, I didn’t see the gentleman in question.”

To illustrate my point about desparation, I told Gramma about the following conversation I had with Angel about a year ago. Before I begin, I should point out that Angel always came in with a particular goal in mind. “Well, I gotta make $287 tonight – speeding ticket.” Or another example: “Man, I gotta pull $416 tonight. They put tires on my truck and I said I’d pay ‘em tomorrow.” So… here we go:

“So, what’s your goal tonight, Angel?”
“$312.”
“Why that specific amount? Why not $300 or $325 or $363?”
“Gotta pay my electric bill.”
“Your electric bill?! How the hell do you have a $312 electric bill on a trailer?”
“I have alot of lamps.”
“That’s a LOT of lamps. Why don’t you get some energy efficient bulbs?”
“No, I have to have a particular type of lamp.”
“Do you have vision problems of some kind?”
“No, I was growing pot.”
“Oh… Well… That must have been a helluva lot of pot. Or are you just not very good at growing it?”
“Hell no, man! I grow pot better than anyone I know.”
“Then you must have been growing alof of it.”
“Yeah.”
“I presume you’re going to sell it.”
“Yeah.”
“So then what’s the problem? Why don’t you just sell the pot and pay your electric bill?”
“I smoked all of it.”

Of course that’s not really any more ridiculous than the straight dancers at Swinging Richards who get paid to be sexualized by gay men, in order to have the money to go to the titty bar down the street and give all their tips to the female dancers (who oftentimes turn right around and come to Swinging Richards to give those same dollars back to the same male dancers who’d just spent the money at the titty bar). Jesus. Just because you can breed doesn’t mean you should.