Devon Hunter

(fade up to Star Wars theme song by John Williams)

Okay, sorry for the overly dramatic beginning. Well, my roommate got my car started, and all the electrical bugs got fixed, but the Miata ended up costing me $500 more anyway: The rear brake calipers started leaking, and they sprayed brake fluid all over the brake pads… Long story short: Had to get new brake pads (which were more than 50% worn anyway, so no biggie - they would have needed replacing anyway soon), but I also had to get new brake calipers. But the car drives like a dream again. Just have to figure out where the water is coming from that is flooding the floor panel under the passenger seat… HMMMM! Anyway, there you have it.

BUT!!

There is something wonderful to share: While I was getting my brakes fixed I went to lunch. At the table next to me were two of the happiest women I’d seen in a long time. They were having such a good time together. OMG! Their energy was captivating. They were laughing deep in their bellies, and it was like listening to music. They had beautifully braided hair, and their dresses were covered in colorful African (or African inspired) designs. Their bangled jewelry clinked like little bells every time they’d throw their hands up in hysterics. They were so happy!

“I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

“Yes?” one said with a delightful glitter in her saucy eyes.

“I’ve been having a rough time lately, and, although I’m not listening to your conversation, I can’t help but overhear how happy you both are. I just wanted to tell you that I feel better for having heard real friendship next to me.”

“AWWW! That is so sweet! And you know what, baby? Whatever is getting you down… It’ll pass.”

“I think it just did.”

Now… time to go pack some boxes, so I can start moving into the new home I’ve found for me and Sméagol. He’s playing in the tape and cardboard: He’s always so happy to see all the new places to hide and ambush me from. His collar jingles as he’s playing, and it reminds me of the laughter of the two friends.

I feel good.

In the first “Food for thought” entry I discussed my supper at Taverna Plaka in Atlanta, Georgia. That was a wonderful experience, but not quite perfect (but through no fault of the restaurant itself). Something was missing for that dinner: Company. Meals are the very essence of quality time for friends and family, and I wasn’t able to share my pleasure at Taverna Plaka (but next time I will go with a friend).

Today I had lunch with my friend Joe. We went to Fogo de Chão in Washington, D.C… Ohmygosh!! It was one of the single most spectacular lunch experiences I have ever had. It was an event. The setting is immaculately clean and beautifully designed, the Brazilian/Portugese servers are prompt and courteous (almost to the point of embarrassing me), and the food is both visually and nom-nom-nomerifically stunning. It was almost overwhelming, it was that splendid.

We started with the “salad bar,” though I feel I do it a disservice to call something that looked more like landscape architecture a salad bar. I don’t know what else to call it though. It was perfect. I would almost venture to guess that each greenbean was placed strategically on the serving platter, and that each shaving of Parmesan was carved with care (so as to give the illusion of perfectly homey crumbles). I was nearly scared to touch anything. But I did. And it was yummy!

The meat portion is interesting. Each person at the table is given a round piece of paper that resembles a coaster. One side is red, the other is green. When the red side is up no one will come offer you his meat (if only it were that easy in the clubs, right?). But when you turn the green side up within moments a gentleman with a particular type of meat (sausage, chicken, lamb chops, leg of lamb, filet mignon, etc.) will come and offer you some of whatever is on his skewer. After I got a cut I left my green light on, and immeditely someone else came and offered me something else. I said, “No, thank you,” and he went away confused. Then immediately a third came… and then I was getting panicked… Finally Joe said, “You have to turn your coaster back to red.” Ohmygosh! Fabulous!

At any rate, Joe and I sat for what must have been nearly two hours talking. And you know what? The meal was superb, but it was made all the better for sharing it. With Taverna Plaka I was reminded that food is joy. But with Fogo de Chão I was reminded that people with food lifts that joy to inspiration.

I don’t socialize near enough in my personal life. I just don’t. I get tired of deflecting assumptions and defending my choice of career. I get tired of expectations, and I am generally worn out of people’s company after the weekend; however, this trip to Washington, D.C. has reminded me that I really do love people. Yes, I needed a reminder.

While I’m praising Joe’s company and Fogo de Chão I should also heap some praise on Dr. Terry Gerace. What a perfect host he is. He, as you may remember from my other postings about him, is a huge portion of the energy behind the FUK!TS I came here to help promote. He is also the owner and operator of what is probably one of the single most amazing Guest Houses/Bed and Breakfasts you’ll ever hear about: The Artists Inn Residence. It’s uncanny - he found a muralist who can do trompe-l’œil effects so well that I thought the wooden staircase was marble until I actually stepped on it. Amazing!

Dr. Terry spent three years on the house, and it features many reclaimed works of antique metal, stone, and wood. I’m staying in the Shakespeare Room (each room is themed to focus on a particular artist: William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Katherine Hepburn, Salvador Dalí, and Duke Ellington). It’s quite simply the most relaxing and intriguing sleep over I’ve ever had (which is almost as insulting as calling the vegetables today a salad bar). The format is adjusting from nightly/weekly rates to monthly rates, so if you are planning an extended stay, you should definitely consider contacting the Artists Inn Residence, which is right in the middle of DuPont Circle.

Joe and Terry (as well as many other recently discovered precious friends) remind me to invest in people more deeply than I have in years. They are fantastic people. Between food, conversation, and hospitality they have made my visit here both constructive and very happy. As I venture more and more outside of the clubs in pursuit of my adult entertainment career, I am finding that this is a journey I should have started sooner. I am excited again about the possibilities that wait ahead.

Hello everyone! It’s absolutely gorgeous today in Washington, D.C.!! I love Dupont Circle on a pretty day (yes, I love the Fruit Loop). I hope this finds you well. Below is the link I promised for the story I wrote for Matt Comer’s blog at www.InterstateQ.com. The essay I wrote is part 5 of 5, but when you go to Matt’s page you will find the links for the first four installments at the bottom of the page.

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

I am about to write this blog with the full knowledge that it could set off a series of conflicts later. I also want to preface what I’m about to say by admitting that I am in no way perfect in regards to safe sex. In fact, I’m not very good at being consistent with practicing it. I know the risks, I know the consequences, but (like a huge number of people) I have not completely embraced 100% safe sex (and I don’t believe other people when they say they have: I’ve hooked up with far too many people who claimed 100% and then fell short with me for me to buy into all their nonsense).

All of this stems from the following: 1) Most of the condoms I’ve tried have either desensitized me or hurt me (however, Pleasure Plus are almost awesome and Lifestyles SKYN are passable), 2) Condoms have been served to me (and the rest of the U.S.A.) with a hefty dose of guilt and fear, instead of eroticism and empathy, and 3) Gay + Artist + Middle Class + America = worthless (if I’m not rich, straight, and corporate then I don’t have any real value in this country anyway, right? Imagine the potential extra layers of burdensome self-loathing for people who are poor and/or non-White).

But I recognize that this is not good! I recognize that this needs an adjustment in behavior on my part. I own that I am making bad choices when I opt for natural, rather than safer, sex. I know I am valuable and deserve better, that I should be respecting my partners. I know this. It is one of the reasons I am so intent on helping with promoting the safer sex strategies Dr. Terry Gerace wants to implement on his website. It’s because I truly want to acclamate to taking better care of myself, my partners, and my community/world. I feel bad that I’m not there yet. But I definitely never advocate barebacking.

So, after acknowledging that I need to practice safe sex with better than 50% regularity, I am going to go out on a limb here and call Mason Wyler out as the single most irresponsible person I can think of in adult entertainment. I saw that he was wanting writers for his site/blog, and I submitted my name before I read his content. All I knew of him was that he is a bottom with a reputation for being a gutter slut. However, I’d not actually read his own words before…

Utterly irresponsible… It is bad enough that gay porn is reinforcing the notion for gay men that bareback sex is “better,” but the outright smut from Mason’s own pen breaks my heart a little for him. In his entry “I want Brock Armstrong” Mason Wyler writes that Armstrong is hot specifically because he does bareback sex videos. He then defends this outrageous statement by saying, “That’s right, I said it!” beaming with pride, as if he has liberated himself and his readers from the cold, dark abyss that is safe sex. BULLSHIT!

I’m sorry, but at what point do we start holding people accountable for the net they cast? Yes, everyone is free to make choices in their lives, but at what point does your personal life start affecting everyone else too? Thomas Jefferson said that one man’s rights end where the next man’s begin… okay… so… The porn industry works with people who, in their personal lives, make the choice to practice bareback sex. Fine. However, once the industry becomes saturated with this imagery/attitude, and once the public begins responding by imitating this behavior more and more (and then STD infections explode again), isn’t the industry responsible on some level? Yes, there is still a freedom of choice innate to the consumer, but underneath it all, wasn’t that free choice heavily weighted towards the self-destructive?

Tobacco companies are being held responsible for addicting people to their product and for the health consequences of the general public. Don’t be surprised when the same becomes true for restaurants that offer fat/salt/sugar-laden food. These foods are addictive. Don’t fool yourself - these chains train their customers to want only bad food, to the exclusion of more healthful options. There’s a push to hold these purveyors of toxic food responsible for the product they make. So then, why not adult entertainment too?

I offer this question for debate: Is a person who takes Mason’s opinion into himself, practices the same behavior as his dysfunctional role model (with Mason’s example specifically in his mind), and is consequently infected with a disease, not in a position to hold (himself and) Mason Wyler responsible?

If we as a culture could be gobsmacked by 0.03 seconds of Janet’s titty (which is so completely ridiculous on so many levels that I’m not even going to entertain addressing them), then why aren’t we outraged by Mason Wyler’s wholly chaotic attitude towards safe sex in the midst of a resurgence of HIV infections? I believe that people imitate what they see, and I don’t think it’s fair that gay men seem to see only bad examples. Where are the portrayals of healthy, compassionate, generous same-sex interactions?

Believe it or not, this is the response I got from three different people in D.C. last weekend. I’d asked three people if they’d like to be part of an advertising campaign to promote safe sex. All three rejected me. Two said, “Condoms are so 1985,” and the third said, “Condoms are so 1980’s.” A fourth person finally said “yes,” but I’ve not heard from him since. It had never occurred to me that safe sex was trendy, much less that condoms were connected in some way to fashion. This attitude may explain why D.C. has the highest rate of new HIV infection for 2008 in the United States. Perhaps condoms should be so 2009?

I am trying to help a doctor friend of mine in the capital to get free safe sex kits into various venues throughout the city. We are hoping to generate some new stategies for encouraging safe sex/safer sex alternatives. It is obvious that the standard American model for teaching anything sexual to anybody is a general failure, and I think it’s because the well-intended professionals in this country have done everything possible to make safe sex look like a sterile, dehumanized, anti/non-sexual hassle. Droning on and on about numbers, and threatening people with consequences isn’t working. (Of course it doesn’t help when medicines are advertised showing stunning models.) A different approach is definitely needed.

Dr. Terence Gerace, a medical professional in Washington, D.C., will be exploring options for eroticizing condoms, and will eventually be producing videos that allow users of his website, www.fc-kits.org, to interact in creative ways with the multimedia that will eventually be added to the site. (Just a head’s up: I plan to interview Dr. Gerace soon, so don’t be surprised when you see his name come up again). If you are interested in being part of this project, check out www.fc-kits.org and contact the site administrators.

There are going to be some changes to the blog in the coming weeks. I announce this here in this particular entry, because it is connected to what is happening behind the scenes in D.C. I may be exploring a new avenue of adult entertaiment. One that has, at its core, a philosophy that is not like any other I’ve heard of or seen. Not to be cryptic, but I may have some big announcements about the direction of my career by the end of this summer.