When a writer is introduced to the gay OnlyFans world
My first lessons in gay romance? Forget meet-cutes at the county fair. It was Brad Pitt smoldering on TV, or—let’s be real—porn, where every guy had sharp V-lines directing eyes straight to their uh, assets. The only men I saw kissing each other were the ones getting paid to do it on screen. I spent more time plotting imagery scenes with them than I truly care to admit.
But I never wanted to be them exactly—an adult actor. Too many questions—what would my mom say? Would LinkedIn ever forgive me? Would simply entering a Chick-fil-A break the fryer? Nope. I didn’t want to answer these questions. Safer to just write about sex than perform it for everyone, thanks.
The closest I’ve come was modeling for an underwear brand this summer. I did it because I wanted to know what it felt like to be the fantasy for once, instead of just watching from the sidelines. It was a chance to cross and step into a scene, clothing included. I wanted to see if being part of that world would change the way I see myself. I wanted to know if the confidence I’d always admired in those men could rub off on me, if just for a moment.
Picture it: a house full of hot gay guys with glistening abs and sharp smiles. The ticket to come might as well have been at least 400k Twitter followers, a blue badge, and a history of at least being banned on IG once. I was the oddball—the writer, the farthest person from ever being an OnlyFans star. But nothing brings people together like shared vulnerability (and matching fire-engine red briefs).
After all the cameras for the underwear model shoot had been put away, we went to the Airbnb of one of the most famous content creators there. It was over eating pineapple, when someone cracks, “You know what they say about pineapple, right? Makes your cum sweet.” Suddenly, someone has dared to prove it—next thing I know, the fabric in the room has disappeared, as did any space between us.
One of the guys—let’s call him Big Jake—had taken Trimex to keep things, uh, photo-ready. But he’d overdone it, and now his, well, centerpiece wouldn’t deflate, even though everyone else was well-exhausted. Most people worry about erectile dysfunction as they get older, but in this line of work, you can actually give it to yourself—just by trying too hard to match other people’s fantasy.
“Should we Google it?” “Call a doctor?” “Hey Siri, what should you do when your junk won’t clock out?” I glance over someone’s shoulder and see him struggling to type “antidote.” “One ‘d’ or is it a ‘c’?” he asks. “One ‘d”,” I say, feeling weirdly proud to be the spelling bee champ at a sex party.
We considered having Big Jake injecting Sudafed, which, for the record, is not FDA-recommended. (We did not do this. Take pineapple, sure. Sudafed, no.)
I’d never been invited to a party like this before. It was equal parts wild fun and social experiment. You think “adult film star” means glamorous, but “star” is a loaded word. Turns out, they’re just people—people who can’t resist a group text called “Pineapple Express.”
As the adrenaline continued to fade, I realized just how extraordinary—and ordinary—these men are. I watched the way a couple of the guys checked their phones for calls from agents, or texted partners to tell them they’d be late. I noticed how a laugh could shift, just for a second, from genuine to performative and back again. I caught glimpses of nerves, of boredom, of that look you get when you’re at work, even if your “work” is what most people dream about. I overheard one guy lamenting how his equally famous content creator crush had ghosted him, and suddenly realized—even in a room full of professional nine and ten-inchers, the world is so terrible that nobody’s safe from being left on read.
And then there was the guy who had to take testosterone just to keep his body in line with the fantasy—so the pictures would look right, so the fans would be happy, so the paycheck would come through.
That hit me harder than I expected. Sex is supposed to be this universal thing, right? It’s about intimacy, pleasure, connection. But for these guys, it’s also a performance, a product, a transaction. Their bodies are their livelihoods. How do you protect the parts of yourself that belong to you, when everyone’s asking for a piece? How do you keep some corner of your desire private, when so much of it is for sale?
I realized how much discipline it must take to draw boundaries between what’s for the camera and what’s just yours. How much intention it takes to keep your humanity intact, to find pleasure that isn’t just a performance. There’s a toughness to that—a quiet resilience I’d never noticed watching porn from behind my laptop screen.
I left thinking about that gap—the ordinary and the extraordinary, the public spectacle and the private self.
And would I do it again? Absolutely.
