Devon Hunter

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The hammer shook in Jamie Duncan’s tiny hand. The job of putting it back on his father’s garage workbench was forestalled by confusion and fear. Eight years old, he did not have the frame of reference needed to process what he was seeing. The frayed and battered tennis shoes, the ones his brother Benjamin wore every single day, were suspended about a yard from Jamie’s frightened face. Surprised amusement had surrendered quickly to shocked disbelief as Jamie noticed the white socks still peeking out from below his brother’s jeans, just above those beloved red canvas shoes.

A strangled scream, drowned in his panic, erupted from him as nothing but a strained whimper. Reaching out, Jamie touched his big brother’s leg, alien in its stillness. The younger boy could not remember a time when Benjamin had ever been so still; it was almost worse than the silence. Staggering back several feet, Jamie continued to stare at the cherry colored sneakers, terrified to look any higher and see his brother’s face.

“Benji?” Jamie whispered, his voice small and scared, it was almost as if he were trying to wake his big brother, like he did after he’d had a bad dream. In his heart, the little boy wished as hard as he could. In fact, some may have even called it prayer. He wished that Benjamin would wake up and tell him that there was nothing to be afraid of.

“Benji, I’m scared.” He thought about how his brother would sigh and pretend to be mad when Jamie woke him in the middle of the night. In the end, the older boy would always pull his blankets back, inviting his little brother in so he could protect Jamie from the monsters.
Jamie looked up to see his brother’s staring, unseeing eyes and he knew that the monsters had finally gotten Benji.

Standing as high as his little feet would allow, Jamie stretched up and pulled at his big brother’s T-shirt. He wanted to make Benji mad, to make him yell – because even yelling would be better than the silent blank stare. A crumpled piece of notebook paper fell from his brother’s slackened grip and dropped to the grungy floor. Not taking his eyes from those red sneakers, Jamie bent and scooped up the note.
Slowly, he sounded out each word like Mrs. Martin had taught him. Reading the words around the damp smudges, he thought maybe his brother had been writing in the rain.

Their hatred burns like fire, scorching, consuming
The very air blisters my lungs
I can’t breathe
Acrid smoke blocks out the sun
I can’t see
Roaring Flames engulf my soul
Everything lies in ruins
There is nothing left

I’m just so tired. I can’t fight anymore.
They tell me I’m going to go to hell for being a fag and maybe I am, but it can’t be any worse than school.
I’m so sorry. Please tell Jamie that I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be there to protect him but how can I do that when I can’t even protect myself?

Clutching the note against his chest, Jamie sank to the floor and pulled his knees up trying to protect himself from the weight of his brother’s confession. He knew what it was like for kids at school to be mean. Joey Thompson had pushed him off the bars at recess a few days ago. In his child’s view, he couldn’t understand why Benji didn’t tell a teacher. They had to have teachers in the tenth grade, just like they did in third.
The reality of his brother’s death became more real for Jamie as he held the note in his hand. He wanted to run, he wanted to tell someone, but he just couldn’t leave his brother alone. In that note Benji sounded scared. Benji would never have left him if he were feeling scared.
Jamie continued to sit on the cold concrete floor below his brother’s body and waited for someone to come.

I don’t really know why I’m doing this, or why my first impulse is to come here and write it. I don’t know if it’s symptomatic of living in a Twitter/Facebook world, or if it’s because I think of my blog as a safe space where I can just get everything out of my head. Either way, it’s a mix of shame and shock I’m feeling for doing this here; however, I don’t know where or how else to contend with this.

I am one of the luckiest people on the planet: I knew all four of my grandparents. I didn’t lose my Grampa K until I was 12. I’ve had the other three ever since, and I’m 34. I’ve had them all with me my whole life. And it’s too fucking weird to understand how someone who is such a constant is now not. My Grampa V was a staggering genius. You have know idea. He was one of the top five engineers in the world in his field while he was working. He wrote the program to prevent a nuclear meltdown in GA/SC like the one that happened at Three Mile Island – the script for that program was given to President Carter as a present. He supported his wife and six kids, and he paid for my college education. He was one of the quietest, kindest men I have ever known. And I love him so much that I think my head is going to cave in now that he’s gone.

I was very calm with Mom just now. She’s already under enough pressure, and doesn’t need my crying. But the more I type the more I don’t feel good. I’m going to stop now. I just needed to get that out of my head. I don’t know anything about the way this is going to be arranged, so I don’t know if I will be going to Atlanta this weekend or not.

At any rate, Grampa V is not suffering anymore. Although I will miss him, I know that for the rest of my life I will have a firm memory of him as one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever known. He didn’t believe in any particular afterlife, given that his math and science were all he felt he needed to explain what he needed to know (and he was very satisfied in that, and expressed no fear); however, I know that… oh, shit. I don’t know what I know. I’m just glad he’s not sick anymore.

Hello and Happy Holidays! Wow, 2010 has all but flown by already… You’re getting old! (I’m not. Somehow, I’m still 24. )

I want to take a moment to give thanks and appreciation to family, friends, patrons, readers, and other positive people in my life. Having a network of supportive people is so important, and I am deeply grateful for all of them. I’m even grateful for the challenges, obstacles, naysayers, haters, and porn drama: All of that stands as a contrast to remind me to appreciate what I have that is good in my life. Despite (or on some level, because of) the rough days back around my birthday this past June/July, I think I have never been happier than I have been in 2010. It was an amazing year for me (and yes, I already mark it off as being done, since Samhain was the last day of the year, and all you heathens are still waiting for December 31.) HA!

Lately I have made it a priority to make more time throughout the day to reconnect with my spirituality. It has repaid me well: I haven’t felt this optimistic, empowered, and confident since the Summer/Autumn of 2005 (which is when I met my last boyfriend – you know, the one who defrauded me for $30k and cheated on me with 20-30 men while I was working multiple jobs to support the both of us). But that was then, and this is now. I just paid of my Lasik surgery (the best money I have EVER spent), and so I own my eyeballs free and clear now (and they actually work, too!). I am so freaking excited to have paid yet another debt down to ZERO! Anyway, I find that re-establishing my sense of self has made it far less likely that others can get me down. On Twitter today, someone I was following as a compliment for following me first made the following statement: “Every time I get horny I just think about AIDS and I go back to normal.” That sentiment betrays a hypocritical attitude on many levels, coming from someone who blogs about sexuality. My response was simply this: ” ” His response to me was: “It made my day that a hooker thought my attitude disgusting! LOL”

I didn’t get mad. I just unfollowed him. It really is as easy as that. I’m not upset now. I mention it only as an example of how I feel responsible to myself and my own emotions, without being mired in guilt for distancing myself from immature ugliness. I really don’t have time for silly, stupid people. If you are so insensitive as that, then you really don’t deserve to know me. Your loss.

And this brings me back to some sentiments I have expressed repeatedly on this blog: 1) Pride is self-love based on truth, whereas arrogance is self-love based on nothing, and 2) Devon’s platinum rule: “Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.” Judgmental, hateful, insecure people are not going to be welcome here, if they seek to hurt others to aggrandize themselves. Keep that poison to yourself, thanks. You can disagree with me all day long (as many have done over the years), so long as you keep it civil.

To end on an introspective note, here are my Meditations. I have seven, one for each aspect of my integrated self. If they give you a structure that helps you, please use them in your own way. When you get what you want, please let me know!

In my quest to attract that which I want and deserve, I intend to focus on the following very specific desires:

1. PHYSICAL: 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.
2. SPIRITUAL: I am re-establishing a variety of meditative practices and reconnecting to my journey along the Path.
3. INTELLECTUAL: I am expanding my mind by reading, writing,  conversing with a variety of people, learning new languages and skills, and researching new compositions.
4. EMOTIONAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL: I  am attuning to my inner self and understanding better those stressors  that cause me duress, so that I can better maintain balance and clarity; and I am understanding those impulses at a deeply intuitive level, so that I can help others as much as myself.
5. SOCIAL: I am improving the networking for the dance company, so that a large  and enthusiastic following begins coming to our performances across a  larger geographic region.
6. SEXUAL: I am attracting and having  safe, passionate sexual experiences with men who are able to access, with me, our mutual intensities.
7. FINANCIAL: I am going to be unsecured-debt free by my birthday of 2012. I am accomplishing this by maintaining or increasing my net  income until I retire, but by seeing fewer clients who book longer sessions.

“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.

At the end of June, 2010 I gave a substantial interview to Jayson for his podcast. He interviews a variety of people, and I just happen to be one of the porn models he has interviewed. Jayson has a wide variety of conversations with many interesting people, and I would definitely encourage you to visit his site and peruse the archived conversations. I particularly enjoy the way Jayson injects witty, gay humor into EVERYTHING. He really is wonderful to talk to.

If you have 30 minutes (and the requisite interest in anything I would blab about), I suggest you listen to our conversation. We discussed so many different topics (in no particular order): Stripping, male and female poles, and the economy; DC FUK!T and safe sex; sexual objectification vs. dehumanization; spirituality and guilt; desperation; dating; pricing yourself as an escort; instinct vs. advice; and the list goes on and on. (Which reminds me: One of the very first blog entries I ever wrote came up in this conversation: Your Dollar is Worth About 88 Cents to Me)

I was speaking without a microphone close to my mouth, so I apologize if there are a few moments when Skype had trouble picking up my voice. Other than that, however, I feel that Jayson did a great job of asking a variety of pertinent questions. I welcome any responses here, and I’m sure Jayson wouldn’t mind if you stalked him.

Click here: Cock-2-Go Interview with Devon Hunter