GayPornBlog Turns 2!

Popular Gay Porn Blog Turns Two
By: Ken Knox
Posted: 5:00 am PST 2-24-2006

SAN FRANCISCO - Though some may find it a bit ridiculous, there are those in the triple-X business who appreciate intelligent discussion when it comes to adult entertainment. In fact, it’s the primary reason why Michael Stabile and Jack Shamama agreed to take over GayPornBlog.com, which just celebrated not only its second birthday, but also its second consecutive win of the Cybersocket Surfer’s Choice Award for Best Blog.

“We’ve always felt that porn is one of the least articulated and most revealing aspects of society,” says Shamama, who also works as the current product manager for Falcon Studios. “It’s quickly becoming our ‘creed.’ We felt like the level of intelligent discourse about porn was lacking. Since we weren’t going to find it anywhere else, we figured we might as well start doing it ourselves.”

So, when the two men – friends since college (they both attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut) – received the phone call from NakedSword.com to assume the reins of that site’s recently launched porn blog dealing with the gay adult entertainment industry, saying “yes” was a virtual no-brainer. At the time, both were connected to the business, Shamama as a video buyer for the Gay.com-owned e-commerce site Kleptomaniac.com and Stabile as a freelance copywriter and publicist for, among others, NakedSword. Combining their knowledge of the industry, and their self-professed “obsession” with porn, they quickly established GayPornBlog as a hot spot for hot talk—all from an insider’s point of view.

“One of our main objectives was to provide readers with more than a cursory titillation by providing dispatches from inside the gay porn industry,” professes Stabile, who currently serves as the senior media manger for NakedSword. “We work in, are fascinated by, and love writing about gay porn—the aesthetics, the politics, the personalities. Our jobs give us very unique and privileged vantage points in the industry, and we wanted to relay that perspective and enthusiasm to readers.”

Right about the same time, the duo began negotiating with Jet Set Productions and NakedSword to launch Wet Palms, the gay porn soap opera that has gone on to win critical acclaim and several awards (including two 2005 GAyVNs, for Best Screenplay and Best Sex Comedy). Because of this, Stabile notes, “readers really got to grow with us.”

The men admit that starting their own blog took a few adjustments on their part. “We both had a ton of editorial experience when we started, so we had to scale things back and adjust for the medium,” Shamama recalls. “We were both used to working with photo editors, so suddenly we had to find and format images needed for our entries.”

“It took a while for me to find my voice,” Stabile adds. “A lot of the early entries were more appreciation of the various aspects of porn without particular ideas of how it relates to the industry. It’s been exciting to watch the industry grow.”

Though some other notable bloggers have made a name for their blogs by fanning the flames of industry gossip and personality clashes, GayPornBlog has distinguished itself as a bit of a reprieve from such cheap and easy cattiness.

“I’d rather focus on one scene, movie, or site that really pushes the industry forward and try to articulate what it is about it that stands out,” Stabile explains. “There are hot-button topics—controversies that inflame egos and incite political riots. I’m not interested in that. I’d rather focus on what’s great about the industry rather than get caught up in internecine rivalries.

“We can’t claim to be objective,” he adds, “but we can try to be level-headed. The drama doesn’t excite me; the porn does.”

Not that the men totally shy away from gossip, mind you. Surfers can find the occasional entry about Colin Farrell’s sex tapes (complete with “vagina-free” shots of the Irish stud’s manhood) or the current scandal involving Clay Aiken’s alleged tryst with Michael Lucas’ latest exclusive John Paulus. But mixed in with such juicy news are lighthearted posts about porn’s insistence on tooting its own horn (“Press releases for new films frequently tout their film as the director's ‘best ever,’ or the studio's ‘biggest release yet,’ to a degree that borders on comic,” wrote Shamama recently) and sneak peaks at upcoming high-profile releases. All of that has led to an often rabidly opinionated fan base.

“The interaction between the readers and the players is truly unique,” Stabile says. “Not only do we get to talk with the Geffens and Speilbergs and Redstones of porn, we get to hear the unbridled appreciation – or dissatisfaction – of even the most anonymous consumers. A studio can create an amazing marketing campaign, but there’s nothing that cuts through the bullshit like the honest and immediate feedback of porn fans.”

Adds Shamama, “The nature of the medium affords us a certain amount of freedom and immediacy that I can especially appreciate after working in print. If something (or someone) strikes my fancy, I can sit down, write an entry, post it – and get feedback from people who read it – in under a few hours. That is an extremely gratifying feeling.”

Both men (who, incidentally, do not use pen names) also say they use the site as a means to a somewhat more evolved end.

“I’m hopeful that we can dispel myths about the industry and take some of the shame out of enjoying porn,” Stabile states. “I think of the site as more beneficial to us – forcing us to articulate our own notions of ‘hot.’ Porn has changed my life, and the blog has been a big part of that.”

As to what drives Shamama and Stabile to keep on, er, “plugging,” both men claim their own rabid fascination with triple-X cinema is the chief culprit.

“It’s like this big, open secret in our society,” Shamama notes of porn. “Almost everyone watches it, yet no one wants to really talk about it. I think we were both taken by this paradox early on.”

Stabile chimes in, “Porn is brutally honest on both sides of the screen. It’s intense and visceral. And despite the popular consumer misconception that it’s all smoke and mirrors, the productions are far truer than what’s found in mainstream Hollywood. Almost by nature, nothing is hidden in porn; everything is brought to the surface.”

As to what’s, um, coming in the months ahead, Stabile will only say, “This is only the beginning, both for the blog and the industry. We can’t wait to see what happens next.”

In the meantime, Shamama says, he’s more than happy right where he is.

“There’s that cheesy cliché about doing what you love not being work, and I guess in my case the hardest thing for me to do was to realize how much I loved porn. I’ve been consuming it – and consumed with it – for as long as I could remember. It just took some time to realize that it was something I could make a living off of. That realization has been one of the most fortuitous of my life.”

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