Devon Hunter

Hello Devon,

I just saw a bit of your Rentmen video interview, and have glanced at your blog.  This was enough to send you a “thank you” for your honesty, and for representing someone with talent and intelligence in the adult field.  Your pictures are great, and I believe you promised more adult work to come.  I got a “boner” when you described escorting as a “promotion” you had given yourself.

My background is also in the performing arts, and I am contemplating more adult work (I have done some), in order to help me with a career change that I have already started, toward graphic/digital design.  I am now contemplating a committed effort toward more videos and escorting in order to continue this effort, and so I found your profile to be inspiring and helpful.

I do wonder if you have felt respected in your work, since you seemed to indicate that some clients are not very nice.  I have noticed a lot of judgmental gays, even though they pay for companionship and are avid consumers of porn.  I imagine you must be finding your way, or you would not have done the video interview.

Good luck to you,

Sonny

Hello Sonny,

First, thank you for taking the time to write such a gracious letter to me. You (and many of my colleagues) prove the point I seek to make: Adult Entertainers can be (and often are) just as intelligent, kind, educated, hard working, and polite as anyone else. The voice in your email is a smart one, and I am excited to hear from someone whose story is so similar to mine.

As to your question concerning respect. I have danced in clubs, done videos, and escorted. Each is satisfying in its own way, but each also attracts criticism in its own way. Of the three, the dancing created the most numerous opportunities for disrespect (because of the face-to-face interaction with so many people); the videos provided the most public airing of insults (see: -1 + 1 = 0); and the escorting has created the most personalized forms of disrespect (given the very intimate nature of the interactions).

When you are dancing (nearly) nude, you will be open to all sorts of potshots from people in the audience. When you are on the internet this is also the case, but the people saying whatever comes to their small minds will be published for the world to see (and you probably won’t have had the pleasure of meeting the anonymous hypocrite[s] in question). And when you escort you may find yourself at the whim of timewasters and powerhungry clients who seek to dominate you with issues surrounding money.

My advice is this: If you dance, be as friendly as you can without allowing people to take advantage of you. Your bar should have a “no harrassment” policy in place. If someone is disrespectful and/or violent toward you, have his sorry ass ejected and/or banned. Do not work for a club that doesn’t support you in this manner.

If you are going to do video, you have to simply own that there is a whole strand of the human population that thrives on negativity. Make the choice to not read the discussion boards (e.g. SeanCodyReviews.com, JustUsBoys.com, etc.). They are full of unhelpful, stupid, and mean commentary that will do nothing to make you better as a person, artist, or entertainer. Look for constructive criticism, but do not look for it in those review boards.

And finally: If you decide to go into escorting, I would strongly advise that you NOT look to the forum at Daddy’s Reviews. Contact escorts directly with questions. The threads at Daddy’s take on a decidedly confrontational tone at all turns, and any value in the information you might find there gets drowned out by the ridiculous flame wars and peevish attitudes of most of the clients there (many of whom do not even hire, but merely spout off threats to not hire you if you have the audacity to formulate your own thoughts). There is very little input from escorts on those threads anymore, because most of us don’t feel like being harrassed with arguments. Listen to the advice I ignored: Do not become involved at Daddy’s. You will gain nothing from the exchanges.

Ultimately you have to define your terms for yourself. I am not obliged for any reason whatsoever to be anyone for someone else. I am Devon Hunter. You have to be Sonny. You cannot maintain any other facade. Be exactly who you are (while still being professional and kind), and extend to people the respect you want from them. But remember my platinum rule: Do unto YOURSELF as you would have others do unto you. Do not tolerate attacks to your sense of self just for money. There are lots of clients who will treat you nicely, so do not feel obligated to put up with those who would transform you into something you are not.

I wish you success,

Devon

Warning for DC boys: A time waster’s method 

Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame and plague on you… fool me thrice, and I tell everyone on the internet about your bullshit…

If you are a companion in Washington, D.C. there is a particular time waster you need to know about who is cruising the ads right now. He almost undermined my entire trip by filling up my schedule and then not showing up to any of the bookings. He is clever, and it took three times for me to put together all the similarities of his scam, and now I will share them with you, so that you do not risk losing not only the opportunity to see clients, but also the money the trip costs to go to D.C. The three instances I am about to describe were spaced out over weeks, and did not happen in even/rapid succession.

Clue #1: Totally ordinary (and complete) name revealed in message/address
This person uses ordinary names. He changed it for each time he contacted me, obviously. The names he used are not obvious fakes like John Smith. They are just ordinary enough to seem real. Although these are not the names he used, they set an example: Brian Fannerty. Jimmy Copeland. Frank Westerman. They sound like real names… He was too sophisticated to go for over-the-top names like Rex Hammer, or some porno sounding crap like that.

Clue #2: Gmail server
All three of these “people” had username@gmail.com emails. Take particular note in D.C. if you get an email from a GMail account with a perfectly normal first and last name put together as a compound word or separated by a period. (e.g. brianfannerty@gmail.com or brian.fannerty@gmail.com) Although not unheard of, most people will contact you with an email that does NOT reveal their entire name. Most people prefer more discretion than that, until they become acquainted with you.

Clue #3: Extended appointments
All three jumped right into asking about multiple hour sessions. “I have a birthday I want to celebrate with an overnight;” “I just broke up with a boyfriend, and I want to go a little crazy;” and “I got a raise, and I had the extra money burning a hole in my pocket.” Although I didn’t ask for an explanation from these “people,” I was offered overly plausible reasons for wanting long/overnight sessions on first meetings. All three ultimately went from 2-, 3-, or 4-hour sessions straight to overnights with no suggestion from me to do so.

Clue #4: Questionable photos (given without being asked)
All three attached photos within a few emails. I never ask for this. If someone wants to share his pics he may do so, but I never ask or insist on it. All three ended up attaching photos that I didn’t think seemed authentic, but I wasn’t going to question. However, the pics from the third “individual” were what finally made all of this click into place. (If you find yourself in this scenario in D.C., and you find yourself looking at a photo and thinking “Hm, I wouldn’t have expected that” for any reason… well… there you have it.)

Clue #5: Dead email, phone number
For all three the GMail addy stopped working days before my trip or during it. For one of them the phone number had also been disconnected (yes, I’d spoken at length with one of the “individuals” on the phone, and since he was the “first” to contact me, but the “second” to disappear, I had zero reason to be suspicious about connecting the three together).

I ended up having a good trip to D.C., so I thwarted this; however, I did leave early when I started not feeling well. Despite this person’s overly thorough efforts, I did just fine. Just sayin’…

On the way home from D.C. today I had an extended conversation with a very friendly, intelligent, handsome, and curious patron who was interested in knowing more about “the biz.” He expressed the concern that he was often shy of tipping dancers, because doing so would mean he was a “troll” (because only “trolls” tip). He thus often refrained from tipping, even when he wanted to, for fear that others would think him desperate or disgusting. The following is a re-cap of what I then explained to him:

There are many types of people in clubs. Some are very well-mannered and kind, regardless of their appearance. Others are not. I think the reason the “trolls” stand out in people’s minds so much is because of the way these types of people carry themselves: They are people (often older men, but not always) who make no effort to mask their aggressive sexual energy. This being the case, they draw attention to themselves. They tend to hover and lasciviously rake a dancer over the coals for a dollar. This, however, is the very smallest minority of people who tip. They are the most visible, but the least common.

All sorts of people tip. Last night alone I was tipped by three young women, an Asian twink, several upper middle class White men in their mid- to late-thirties, a reserved but kindly White gentleman who has generously offered to let me use some of his frequent flier miles, many Black men of various dispositions ranging in age from about 25 to about 50, at least five or so Latinos (one of whom was a “troll”), and also by two affluent Lebanese college students. Those are just the ones I can think of at a moment’s notice. Now that I remember it more clearly, last night there were also several older gentlemen who tipped me repeatedly; however, they were so polite, well-groomed, and gracious that they could hardly be categorized as trolls. Of that entire list of people, only ONE was a troll.

This particular Latino of about 40 years of age was a sloppy drunk who tried to finger me several times. He followed me around the bar harrassing me for my phone number. He said, “I’ve given you so much money. Why won’t you just come home with me?” He’d tipped me a dollar about four times. THIS is a troll, and it has little to do with his age/race/appearance, and far more to do with his attitude/behavior. He was scaring me.

The point is this: Tipping doesn’t make you desparate. It doesn’t make you disgusting. Being an asshole makes you a troll. I asked this person on the phone if he’d noticed, out of the approximately 500 patrons last night, anyone he thought was normal, polite, and/or attractive. He said he definitely had. I then asked if he saw any of these people tipping dancers. He said yes. He went on to say that he didn’t think less of them for tipping. He answered his own questions.

Don’t be afraid to tip, but do approach it with some modicum of respect for the working boy who has fired up your fantasies.

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?