Devon Hunter

So, if you are ever interested, you can see here how I have discussed an ongoing eating issue. I’m not going to go into it here, and I’m not going to post links, because a lot of that history is embarrassing and painful, and I don’t feel like looking at it right now (especially when I have such good news). If you want to know more on the “back story” of this, you can do a search at the bottom of the page for “anorexia,” “dysmorphia,” or “eating disorder.” I don’t want to dwell on that, so you’ll have to go look it up yourself.

Okay, so I had an “AHA!” right in the middle of starting Part 2 of 13 for the Establishing a Career in Adult Entertainment series (I will do that either today or tomorrow). For quite a while I’ve had zero trouble with eating and remembering to eat. I’ve been enjoying food, and everything has been awesome; however, for the past three weeks I have simply dropped off completely from eating regularly, eating only when other people suggest it. And what was particularly scary yesterday is that I felt empowered and beautiful because of it. NOT GOOD. NOT GOOD AT ALL.

Then I made a series of connections that I can’t believe I never understood before…

When I was nine years old I had two falls one after the other. I fell out of a tree, landed on my back across a root, and knocked the wind out of myself. About two days later I was swinging on some scaffolding at a friend’s house. I was trying to show Jamie some new stuff I’d learned for the high bar at gymnastics, my hands slipped, and a fell across a lower beam, striking the exact same spot in my back. Obviously, I was a bouncing baby boy. Ever since then I have had a vertebral subluxation at the level of Thoracic-6 (T6). You can actually see it: My spine disappears there when you look at me from behind.

This misalignment eventually caused me all sorts of problems as a dancer, and I started seeing a chiropractor in college. College, if you’ll remember, is when my weight was at its lowest: I had gotten down to 111 pounds during my sophomore year (I currently weight almost 150 pounds, so imagine me 40 pounds lighter). It was bad. But in retrospect, I remember always being hungry immediately after an adjustment and finding a way to tolerate the horrendous food at the college cafeteria. Years pass and I now go to my massage therapist on a weekly basis. Every time Ron presses on a certain point in my neck, the action releases the tension in my mid-back, and I get ravenously hungry. Okay, here is where the “AHA!” happens.

Three weeks ago I tweaked my neck/back during sleep, but I also had to cancel both my massage and chiropractor appointments for two weeks in a row. The pain went away, and I thought my vertebrae had moved back into alignment on their own. I didn’t realize I’d stopped eating enough over the course of weeks. Yesterday, as I was about to blog for Part 2, my phone’s alarm went off reminding me to eat prior to working out. I realized I’d not eaten at that point for 28 hours, and that although I had a remote notion of needing food, I wasn’t particularly hungry, the thought of food seemed abhorrent, and I felt as if I’d successfully vanquished the personality flaw of hunger. BAD BAD BAD. I made a point of going to the chiropractor yesterday, because I was feeling out of kilter, and I mentioned my suspicion that there was a connection between my spine, massage, and appetite.

Thoracic-6, the location of my subluxation, is the place where the nerve that feeds the stomach branches off from the spinal cord.

NO!

Yes…

In retrospect I realized that maintaining my back was helping to also maintain my appetite. Being a dancer and a model definitely added to the pressures of looking a certain way and maintaining a certain weight; however, I was aided in my self-destructive behavior by those residual injuries from when I was nine years old. Gymnastics, dance, working out, etc… All of that was knocking my T6 out of alignment all these years! This misalignment alone isn’t responsible for everything that was feeding my self-esteem issues; however, I now have a clear picture of one way that I can make a tangible improvement in all of this.

This is extraordinarily liberating. It is also helpful on a practical level. You see, I don’t (anymore) purposefully avoid eating, and I am not afraid (any longer) of food; however, there are times when I simply don’t get the impulse telling me I’m hungry, and when I’m busy (which is always) I simply forget to eat. I don’t realize I’m hungry, and after all those years of starving I know how to ignore the sensation without realizing I’m doing it. But some hints that I can recognize are the symptoms of hunger: I feel frantic, I can’t concentrate, my moods cascade through hundreds of unrelated and bizarre emotions in a matter of minutes, I get ANGRY over NOTHING, and my hands shake. Yesterday all that was happening, but I was actually resisting eating anyway.

My chiropractor put my back in alignment and within moments I was so hungry that I was afraid. The urgent need to eat hit me so fast and so hard that I almost passed out. I’d gone nearly 30 hours without ingesting anything AT ALL. And there it is: I have to maintain the alignment of my spine. It isn’t a fix for any emotional/psychological issues I have concerning appearance and self-esteem, but it is a practical aid that can remove part of the compounding factors that have caused me a great deal of angst.

Okay, I gotta go eat… later.

I make no secret of the fact that I love Janet Jackson: OMFG ILOVEJANETDAMITAJOJACKSON! OMG!

I think she is one of the most amazing human beings. EVER. I know it’s excruciatingly melodramatic for some of you to bear it, but my eyes water up just typing about her. I admire her for her heart more than anything else, and I have never been a fan who liked her only when she was skinny. I continue to contend with my own eating and body issues (though they trouble me less than in years past, thankfully), so I have never been in a position to judge her on that front. In fact, her new book, “True You” (a self-help book about compassion-for-the-self and attaining-balance-through-setting-sensible-goals), makes me feel even more attuned to her as an artist: All this time when millions of people have thought her stunningly beautiful, she has seen only her “flaws.”

That blows my mind completely out of the water.

But it is EXACTLY the same conversation I’ve been having with myself and with many of the people closest to me over the years. How many times over the decades have I said, “I don’t like (insert perceived flaw),” only to have someone gasp or say incredulously, “But you’re amazing as you are?” It doesn’t matter what someone else tells you, if you don’t believe it. That’s why one of my meditations is: “I am so happy and grateful that I am maintaining or improving, as well as learning to see and appreciate, the beauty in me that so many others already exalt, and that I am humbly luxuriating in that Gift.”

Of all the many quotes I highlighted in Janet’s book, this is the one that sticks out the most for me: “Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Comparisons are almost always harmful. Comparisons mean there’s a winner and loser – and you’re the one who winds up feeling like a loser.”

True.

I really can’t think of a single instance during my past struggles with Anorexia or Dysmorphia, or my current struggles with feelings of inadequacy in Adult Entertainment, that didn’t grow out of comparison. But I also have to pat myself on the back in retrospect: There have been many situations where I recognized that contests, auditions, competitions, and/or pageants would have done nothing but fuel a fire that was already burning hot enough, so I have mostly avoided them. I don’t win in those types of scenarios: My esteem doesn’t hold under that type of pressure. I am best when I do what I enjoy within its own context. I am most beautiful when I’m allowed to nurture my own sense of presence and style. I fail miserably almost every time I have to “win.” I hate winning. I love excelling. I flourish when I’m allowed to express my “true you,” and I generally get aggressive, defensive, belligerent, or pessimistic when I have to do something that will be judged against something or someone else. It’s one of the reasons that I have never played sports, despite being athletic. It’s the reason I detest gyms, despite being a trainer who works out with a trainer. It’s the reason I am quite content NOT to get nominated for video/escorting/blogging awards – God forbid I should “lose” publicly. I am very happy to leave awards to those with the audacity to sell themselves on Twitter for votes.

I loathe that type of activity. It doesn’t motivate me. It makes me feel inadequate, I cease to try, I don’t “win,” it reinforces why I didn’t want to do whatever it was in the first place, and then I’m left feeling bitter.

That’s why I have to remind myself from time to time, in various ways, that I don’t want or need to “win.” I get an incredible amount of satisfaction from a job well done (whatever I might be doing), and I prefer enjoying the intrinsic value of accomplishment (which cannot be taken), rather than getting accolades from others (which cannot be maintained).

I hope you have discovered, or on the path to discovering, your “true you.” I hope I’m getting closer to that, too. Thank you, Janet, for reminding me to continue growing. (See the response to this in Part 2 and Part 3).

Well, where to begin??? As always, too much to do in too little time; however, I prefer being overwhelmed to being bored ANY DAY. I have to say it: I entertain myself pretty well. What with all my projects and drama, there’s never a dull moment, eh?

Okay, so it’s time to start getting ready for the summer. This is going to be a time of change for me. Literal physical change. My exclusive contract with Sean Cody will run out at the end of May, 2010, and my friends at Fabscout (whom I don’t believe I’ve mentioned until now) are is hopefully going to be keeping me pretty busy with a variety of gay video projects. One of the many aspects I have enjoyed with Fabscout so far is their unrelenting expectation that their models use condoms. I wouldn’t continue on with the porn if I thought I’d be expected to do bareback scenes.

What does this mean in terms of going to the next level? Well, I am going to workout with my trainer an extra day each week during the next few months, and I have restarted a system of very clean and high quality supplements by Cellucor (I will be doing the Lean Muscle Growth system). I know some of you will see some red flags in this, because of what I have said in the past about anorexia and Dysmorphia; however, there are videos on Cellucor that explain how the supplements work. I also want you to know that I am approaching this from the perspective of healthy, sustainable gains, not obsessive or exaggerated notions about my shape. Also, I am keeping the word “supplement” firmly in my mind: I am definitely eating (I just polished off a whole box of couscous with two chicken breasts, 1/8 yellow bell pepper, a cup of fresh spinach, and a handful of cherry tomatoes… and I’m still hungry. My baby gotta eat!).

Don’t worry: I AM EATING. I’m just getting polished up. Always remember, my little ones: Pain is temporary… Video is forever!!

I am not so worried about getting help with body fat – I have been trying to monitor refined carbs (CHOCOLATE!!!! xoxoxo I love you, and I miss you dearly… we shall meet again soon one day…), and I’m confident I can manage that on my own. But what I am preparing for right now is to do some photoshoots in the coming weeks and video shoots beginning at some point in June. I gotta get my sexy on in a hurry!

OMG… I have to hang with the Big Fellas again… I really do hope this isn’t Swinging Richards all over again. I’m not feeling (in terms of social mores) any conflict about this, and once I get some fine tuning done on the chassis I think my confidence will be just fine. I am excited at the idea of working with models who are gay. No matter what, that has got to make filming easier than what I did last summer: I really don’t dig working with Paysexual dudes. They’re pretty to look at sometimes, but the ladies can have them, thanks very much.

It was brought to my attention that there are sites that do nothing but discuss the material that is generated at places like Sean Cody, Corbin Fisher, and Randy Blue. What’s more, it was brought to my attention that people can respond to those critiques/discussions. There are so many opinions out there… It’s pretty amazing how much they can differ from person to person or site to site. It’s also amazing the extent to which some people try to invade the privacy of others.

What I have read essentially brings me to balance: There are at least 15 sites I have found that have discussed and/or reviewed my solo at Sean Cody. This was not something I’d thought to consider before I did it. It never occurred to me that there were full-time movie critics and peanut galleries for Sean Cody; however, these not only exist, they proliferate in large numbers. And that is what is interesting: I am only one person, and yet some of the responses I elicited from people were as divergent as you could possibly imagine.

Some people were revolted at the thought of me being gay and 32 years old. Others liked me specifically because of it. There were as many comments that I was fugly as there were that I was gorgeous. All of the reviews themselves were glowing, but it was the conversations that followed that could be startling. And yet, after all that reading, what I have finally accepted is that I am who I am, and that’s going to just have to be good enough.

So, although some people have called me a pasty grub and others have called me a creamy boystud; and although some have called me a nelly gay-faced homo, while others refer to me as a hot gay jock; and whereas there are people who think me ancient and/or decrepit, there are others who applaud me for admitting my age (which makes me seem, to them, even more youthful); and since in the same conversation there are people who think I am nothing arguing along side of people who think I am everything… What all this essentially means is that all the negatives are cancelled out by positives, and I’m left right where I was before: Me.

And that’s not such a bad scenario.

The question has come up (not worded exactly this way, but pretty close), “How did you maintain a balance between staying small and getting bigger?” In other words, how do anorexia and Dysmorphia co-exist? Well, to be frank, they don’t balance, and they don’t co-exist. It’s like being pulled apart – I would actually feel that kind of shearing force in my brain. It was horrible, and looking back I don’t know why I held onto that turmoil so long.

Ups and Downs

Constant fretting was a part of my life because of these two situations both vying for my attention. I desparately wanted to put on lean muscle, but every time I inched up even two-tenths of a pound on my digital scale, I would figure out which meals I could skip “to make up for it.” It doesn’t make any sense. I knew it didn’t, even when I was in the middle of that terrible dichotomy. I wanted the look of muscle without the numerical “score” of my weight going up (I suppose it’s a game, like Hearts, where the fewer points you have, the better?). At any rate, it was a dizzying, confusing, and frustrating teetering act.

And it had other repercussions, other than my body composition. I am already prone to mood swings; however, when you do not eat properly your body systems get out of kilter. All of them. Including your hormones. One hormone in particular, serotonin, is in your gut. This hormone affects mood. If you do not eat properly this hormone gets out of balance, and then your moods get out of balance too. So, my eating disorder also escalated my emotional stress. I’ve been blessed to never have had any major injuries – I can presume only that taking vitamins protected me from difficiency disorders, because my teeth, bones, hair, skin, connective tissues, and all other systems seem fine to this day. If I’d not been at least taking vitamins, I could very well be falling apart already. That happened to my friend Cheryl. She was anorexic for 18 years, never took supplements, and now her teeth, bones, and joints are a wreck.

Janet Jackson + Chris Evans = hot mess

One day I was looking in the mirror for the 497th time that day, and a flash of insight caught me off guard: I was trying to blend two people, whom I looked nothing like, together into one body. Although it hurts my feelings a little when people remind me of this, I am not, in fact, a beautiful Black woman. Also, although I am a White man, I do not look anything like Chris Evans. I don’t understand exactly what amalgamation I was trying for, but recreating myself as a collage of these two was definitely not working well. I look back on this moment, and I realize that it was the instance where I almost pulled myself out of this vortex by myself. But something happened immediately afterwards that distracted me from this little thunder bolt of logic…

Stupid boy

I was with the only guy I had a long term relationship with during college. He was a pudgy little dude with crazy brown hair, and I thought he was absolutely marvelous. When he poked my belly and said, “Getting a little soft around the center, huh?” I took him seriously. It didn’t occur to me that he was being facetious. Over the next few weeks I dropped from 120 pounds to 110. I started passing out in dance class. It was scary. The pic of me that I just posted where I weighed 125 pounds is bad enough – at my worst I weighed 15 pounds less than in that picture. You could see my spine and hip bones. And I thought I was staggeringly beautiful (for a few moments each day between long bouts of self-loathing).

Whether it’s his “fault” for upsetting me, or my “fault” for being so sensitive, or no one’s “fault” at all, that “soft around the center” comment was the driving force behind my eating habits for the next eight years. The effect of the comment lasted years longer than the relationship with Shane.

Emotional instability and therapy

One of the long-term side effects of this “balance” between being small and getting big is that my moods shift very easily and quickly. I feed off the moods of others without realizing it, until after the change has already happened. Also, if I get hungry, I get mean. If I’m ever randomly rude to you just say, “Bitch, do you need a doughnut?” I probably do need to eat something, but a doughnut won’t be my first choice (although the humor will make me smile). My rages would get out of control particularly when I felt people were being mean to me without provocation.

I finally went to a therapist while I was at UCLA. I went because of an incident during my African drumming class. One of the other students (who never attended class, and didn’t know the rhythms) told me I was defiling the drums with my “White hands,” and proceded to push me away from the instrument while grabbing for the mallet in my hand. Well, I was already feeling angry about something else. She tipped me over the edge, and I vented all over her in front of about 100 drummers and dancers. It didn’t help that she was Black, and that everyone knew I was from South Carolina. It immediately became a race issue to them without me ever intending it. They didn’t know what I was already contending with, so on the outside, without any insight into me, I understand why they would assume that. It hurt my feelings they would jump to that conclusion, but it does make sense. I was forced to enter “anger management” classes.

I’m glad. It gave me the opportunity to finally address some of my demons. From that point forward I started improving. But it still took a few years after I completed that therapy to finally let go of my desire to have Janet’s waist and Chris’s chest.

“Better” days

Everything started improving consistently and quickly after I left my last boyfriend in October, 2006. You want to know what finally forced me to let go of alot of my obsessive compulsions? Exhaustion. Pure and simple. I’d been working seven part time jobs to support myself and Scott. When I found out he’d cheated on me with about 30 people while I was out working day and night, and that he was opening credit cards in my name (as well as hiding the bills, maxing them out, and then not making payments), I finally had to work so much that there simply wasn’t time to worry about what I looked like. It didn’t matter if I made the bed or washed the dishes. It didn’t matter if my books were alphabetized by subject/author/title. Suddenly avoiding bankruptcy mattered a whole lot more.

During the months after I left Scott I simply got out of the habit of worrying about my appearance so much. I had a whole new catastrophe to work on (and on a dark level the martyr in me loved the torture). Nearing two-and-a-half years later, I’ve become completely financially independent again, with my credit score being even better than before Scott’s interference. And ironically my eating disorder gave way to fiscal survival. It seems that all I needed was a crisis severe enough to completely distract me from calories.

So, the eating disorder is gone. Done. Good riddance. There are still some traces of the Dysmorphia, in that I can’t see how I’m shaped when I look at myself in a mirror. I see only a flat shape with muddled undulations on the surface. Only in pictures, which are removed from the same space-time as my viewing of myself, can I see me. I need the removal of “now.” By looking back a few moments into the past at how I looked then, I see my curves and proporations. But even then I still don’t trust that 10 seconds later the same holds true. This is getting better as I (slowly) mature.

I look forward to the day, not when my see-saw is balanced, but when I decide I’m no longer interested in the ride.