Little advice on a model being "found out"

Hey all-
I got a message today from one of my models asking to hold back one of the scenes he was in because he was recognized by one of his co-workers. This is a new situation for me and wanted to run it by y'all to see if there was any advice on how to handle this. Of course, I could be a total hard ass and stick to my guns since he signed a model release and all that. The nice-guy side of me doesn't want this guy's career to potentially go south over one scene. It was a gay-4-pay scene that he's worried about... and his particular job has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, if you catch my drift.
Thanks...
Jason

That is a tough one. He was foolish to do it. Unfortunately you are now in the position of holding his future in your hands.

If he were willing to return the money as well as all production costs associated with the shoot, then I would let him have it back. If he doesn't have the money, then he needs to sell his car or do whatever he has to do to pull the cash together. Worse case, he has to give you all the model payment cash back now, and sign a note for the rest of the costs with payments due and payable every pay period.

The price for this should be steep. He needs to learn a lesson about acting without thinking things through. it should cost him a lot financially and you should be 'made whole' by the repayment.

However he should not have his future wrecked 'for the sake of porn'. But there must be a real penalty for the trouble he is causing. If he doesn't chose to cough up the cash by pawning most everything he owns, then it just isn't that important to him and it is time to use the content as you originally intended.

I don't understand why models don't just deny that it is them.

Especially when a boss brings it up. Something as simple as denying it and saying that they don't feel comfortable talking about things of sexual nature at work should end the allegations pretty quick since there is a subtle sexual harassment lawsuit threat in there.

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Originally Posted by Alex_Manifest_M

That is a tough one. He was foolish to do it. Unfortunately you are now in the position of holding his future in your hands.

If he were willing to return the money as well as all production costs associated with the shoot, then I would let him have it back. If he doesn't have the money, then he needs to sell his car or do whatever he has to do to pull the cash together. Worse case, he has to give you all the model payment cash back now, and sign a note for the rest of the costs with payments due and payable every pay period.

The price for this should be steep. He needs to learn a lesson about acting without thinking things through. it should cost him a lot financially and you should be 'made whole' by the repayment.

However he should not have his future wrecked 'for the sake of porn'. But there must be a real penalty for the trouble he is causing. If he doesn't chose to cough up the cash by pawning most everything he owns, then it just isn't that important to him and it is time to use the content as you originally intended.

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Logical and sound advice!

Had his fun, got paid for it and now he's worried. I call bullshit, sounds like blowers remorse.

Make him pay!

make him pay for all production costs and your time and a little extra as a reminder not to do it again

Our site has been online for 10 years now and we shoot young guys (18 - 21)...over the years I have received requests (many of them) from former models requesting that there shoots be removed from the site.

Some have gotten married and the girlfriend/wife requests that his shoot be taken off. Others have gotten jobs and fear that they will lose them (one model became an elementary school teacher).

I always listen to the story and normally I will comply with that request (they pay the production cost back).

In this case, the model knew that he was doing something that might come back to bit him in the ass...why would he do a gay for pay shoot knowing that?

Any way, I would have him pay the production cost back and then forget about him.

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Originally Posted by Alex_Manifest_M

That is a tough one. He was foolish to do it. Unfortunately you are now in the position of holding his future in your hands.

If he were willing to return the money as well as all production costs associated with the shoot, then I would let him have it back. If he doesn't have the money, then he needs to sell his car or do whatever he has to do to pull the cash together. Worse case, he has to give you all the model payment cash back now, and sign a note for the rest of the costs with payments due and payable every pay period.

The price for this should be steep. He needs to learn a lesson about acting without thinking things through. it should cost him a lot financially and you should be 'made whole' by the repayment.

However he should not have his future wrecked 'for the sake of porn'. But there must be a real penalty for the trouble he is causing. If he doesn't chose to cough up the cash by pawning most everything he owns, then it just isn't that important to him and it is time to use the content as you originally intended.

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I agree, well said.

In addition shooting active duty military can cause you many problems in the future. Dirk Flamingo is a good example of this. Since you're in San Diego by the base you might want to add a clause to your model release form where the model signs that they are NOT active military.

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Originally Posted by MiamiB

Any way, I would have him pay the production cost back and then forget about him.

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This is bound to happen once in awhile. Like Lee suggests, have him repay you his fee and production costs and put it behind you.

Sorry, but he got paid, knew what we was getting in to and now he wants it taken back.

We tell everyone that you can't keep porn private. It's not possible. Your mother WILL see it. No way around that.

If they still want to do it, once it's done, it's done.

I can see you agreeing to hold it back for 2 years or something if you were really nice. But if you'd followed what I said in sentence two, it's his problem.

People really need to understand that this is a business, it's not free money.

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Originally Posted by Jasun

Sorry, but he got paid, knew what we was getting in to and now he wants it taken back.

We tell everyone that you can't keep porn private. It's not possible. Your mother WILL see it. No way around that.

If they still want to do it, once it's done, it's done.

I can see you agreeing to hold it back for 2 years or something if you were really nice. But if you'd followed what I said in sentence two, it's his problem.

People really need to understand that this is a business, it's not free money.

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I couldn't agree more Jasun.

Several years ago a professional skier did a jack off video for us. He later asked us not to use it as he was afraid he'd get recognized. I'd never heard of him so I googled him, and sure enough, he was all over the place on sking websites and magazines. I actually didn't use it mainly because it was a shit video and it had not been released yet. So I really didn't care either way.

I'm certainly not in the business to ruin someone's career. Normally, I guess I'm a bit of a hard ass when it comes to this. These guys make a decision as an adult to do this this type of work. They need to act like an adult and deal with it. If they were not mature enough to realize future ramifications when signing on the dotted line, then I say it's a lesson learned.

We've been asked several other times for content to be taken down. They've only ever offered us the amount of the payment they received for the work. I never hear from them again after I explain that due to production costs, lost of recurring revenue, DVD & VOD income, etc., the amount could possibly be 50 times or more what was originally paid to them.

Thanks for all the feedback on this. I need to talk with the guy to see how serious the situation is-- I mean, if the recognizer is threatening to turn him in, that's one thing, but if he's just afraid of facing a few homophobic comments then that's a whole different story. I'm pretty sure it's the latter case because he wasn't concerned about the other (solo, b/g) scenes he's done.
If I do opt to "re-call" the scene, I'm gonna tell him he'd have to reimburse dvd replication costs, distribution, post-production, etc in addition to his fee which would end up in the thousands. That would probably take care of the issue and learn him a lesson.
I do feel a little bad for the guy, but I agree that he went into this knowing the potential outcome. And in reality, he came to *me* desperate for work! The only other time this has happened, the guy is a semi-pro MMA/cage fighter and just wanted his picture taken off the site, and didn't care about the video (for some reason...) In that case, I just went along and took it down. No biggie.

I guess ultimately it depends on how you want to deal with it, you could play hard ball and tell the guy that he signed a release and was paid and therefore has to live with the consequences of his actions, or you could tell him that he could pay you back his fee and all production costs associated with the shoot.

Of course this is a business and you dont want to end up out of pocket for the shoot but, at the same time, do you really want to be the one responsible for fucking this guys career up for the rest of his life for the sake of a 20 minute porn shoot?

If you havent published the content yet, you arent really losing anything except a few hundred bucks and you gained some experience to help you make sure future military models are fully aware of what they are doing before getting their rocks off.

Personally, depending on the guy, if he was pleasant to work with, didnt have an attitude, might know some other guys who were interested in working with you etc, id be inclinded just to delete the shoot and put it down to one of those 'lesson learned' experiences and move on.

Would you rather have a guy going all over town telling potential future models that you 'fucked him over' or have him going around town telling his buddies how he did porn but you were professional enough to follow his wishes when he realized he made a mistake.

Sometimes a little good will can go a long way and word of mouth from this guy could do you a lot more harm financially than what you could make from the shoot itself.

Regards,

Lee

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Originally Posted by Lee

or have him going around town telling his buddies how he did porn but you were professional enough to follow his wishes when he realized he made a mistake.

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Except then you'll get a whole bunch of military guys coming in to do gay porn shoots, taking the money and then calling up to give you some sob story about why you can't post it now that they've cashed the check.

Honestly.. not a great idea.

At Fratmen we did all we could to protect our two outed models who were national wrestling champions (at great loss to us, actually) and that was after we'd told them that there was no way to stop people from knowing they did porn.

Sometimes with stupid people you just have to let nature take its course.

Which is why i said it was a learning curve, hopefully the NEXT time this ever happened there would a clause in the model release saying that they couldnt retract the content once it had been shot and that if they wanted to retract it, they had to pay up.... A model release is a contract, therefore pretty much anything can be written in to that contract to protect both the model AND the producers interests.

This is the first time this happened for the guy, learn from it and put the experience to good use for the future.

I know id rather have someone going around town saying that i looked after their interests, than someone going around making it much harder for me to attract future models.

Regards,

Lee

Up front he should have been made aware that participation in the video was grounds for separation from the Navy/Marines. If you did not make this very clear to him, I would say you should trash the scene and destroy all materials he is in. If you made him aware then it is on him.

To be a nice person you may want to hold distribution until he gets out. Which, if he is doing gay porn, maybe sooner than HE thinks. All our men were active duty at the time of production but we held distribution on several of them because they asked us to.

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Originally Posted by MarineMeat.com

Up front he should have been made aware that participation in the video was grounds for separation from the Navy/Marines. If you did not make this very clear to him, I would say you should trash the scene and destroy all materials he is in. If you made him aware then it is on him.

To be a nice person you may want to hold distribution until he gets out. Which, if he is doing gay porn, maybe sooner than HE thinks. All our men were active duty at the time of production but we held distribution on several of them because they asked us to.

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I disagree that he should have been advised of this. While it might be a nice thing to do, it's really the models responsibility to know. A producer can't be expected to advise every model of every situation that may come about because of his shooting a porn video.

Sounds like this model was a complete moron.

If he didn't know that this could get him in trouble with the military then he is too dumb to be in the military.

I would let it rip and say too bad so sad for him.

Most of these younger guys don't think ahead. I would not wreck someone's job over it AS LONG AS he were to repay the money and the bulk of it immediately. There has to be a penalty for wasting your time.

But really guys, how smart were you at 18 or even 23. Not very I bet. How many stupid things did you do? I did plenty.

Being young is not an excuse. Its called growing up and taking personal responsibility for your actions.

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Originally Posted by hotdudesnude

I would let it rip and say too bad so sad for him.

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wow. some of you guys have no heart at all. :shock:

The military aspect does put a different spin on it, but for him to get outted to his commanding officer, some one else in his unit pretty much has to admit they found him on a gay porn site. It's not like he was on the cover of the Advocate or something. He was in gay porn, for fuck sakes!

I could see how one could sympathize with him since the military does have some rather draconian policies vis-a-vis gays in uniform, but he knew he was doing something risky doing any sort of porn at all in the first place. That alone could get him stripped of his rank and ruin any chance he might have of going career.

My roommate has been seeing a guy that is active Army, and they are very discreet about it--both he and my roommate are definitely very macho looking guys to begin with but it's almost comical how 'not gay' they try to act in public. He is planning on going career and he takes that into consideration. That guy should have done the same. He shouldn't have even seriously considered doing porn of any flavor if he valued his career opportunities.

Sorry for the rant, but it's not like you tricked the guy into doing a porn flick.

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Originally Posted by Aiden

wow. some of you guys have no heart at all. :shock:

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I have a heart, a big one, but I have very little tolerance for dumb people.

Sure people make mistakes, but EVERYONE knows that gay porn and the military don't mix at all. This guy knew what he was doing, and it sounds to me like he has some kind of self destructive complex.

When you are in the military and you get time off they give you a list of places you cannot go that are in the area you are in at the time. This list includes all bars that are gay or even kinda gay. This guy knew he was doing something wrong in the eyes of the military by even pretending to be gay in a gay for pay video.

I just don't think this guy is taking his career seriously, which isn't just his problem, but also could potentially be a problem for his buddies in the trenches next to him should they see real combat.

I don't agree at all with the military policy dealing with homosexuality, but doing a gay porn film is not going to help that in any way.

I do think he needs to pay for it if he wants the "rights" to what he did.

Not only the costs of the shoot, but also the lost revenue that you would lose from not using that shoot. AKA: DVD and streaming sales!!

That will add up to a lot of $$

One other thing this "recognizer" that he says that saw him??
So what is this recognizer doing looking at gay porn.
I always say that it can go both ways.
Is watching gay pron less bad that being in one as the military goes??

wow some of you are harsh!

i say cut the guy a break he is obviously a stupid young kid there is no point punishing him for making a bad decision we have all made them

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Originally Posted by CamCruise

One other thing this "recognizer" that he says that saw him??
So what is this recognizer doing looking at gay porn.
I always say that it can go both ways.

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Wow. Lots of responses, and I appreciate you all weighing in.
To address a few comments... I do talk with the military guys about the risks involved, but that, in general, they are pretty low for getting found out by the upper-ups, considering there are much bigger, high-profile sites out there that work almost exclusively with military guys doing much naughtier no-no's. That said, they're all pretty much aware of the consequences. I don't consider them morons or self-destructive for getting involved, though. The money is very appealing considering how much these guys get paid for a normal work day.
I typically do say something to the effect that if they *are* recognized, from a solo or whatever, that they can always either deny that it's them (cough cough) or throw it back and ask what the guy was doing watching gay porn in the first place. Seems like that usually shuts the other person up pretty quickly, particularly in that "don't ask don't tell" arena.
Thanks again for all the responses.
Jason

Back in 2001 someone sent copies of all the images on our site to The Judge Advocate General, Pentagon and even the White House outing all our Marines. The scandal reached enormous proportions and wound up in every major newspaper worldwide as well as CNN http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/01/11/nude.marines/ and even Jay Leno mentioned it. Several of the Marines were arrested and prosecuted for Conduct Unbecoming. It was not a pretty picture for those men. Since then we have had a policy, no matter how anxious the Marine is to do our site, we want him to know he WILL be separated from the Corps and prosecuted by NCIS. http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid14282.asp

It is only fair if you will be making money off these men, many who have no real future but in the armed services, that what they are about to do will change their lives forever.

We had a female model a couple years back that requested us pulling her video/pics due to starting a family etc. I didn't like doing it but could empathize. We had her stuff up for 2 years at that point so pulled it down.

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Originally Posted by GayGravy-JJ

We had a female model a couple years back that requested us pulling her video/pics due to starting a family etc. I didn't like doing it but could empathize. We had her stuff up for 2 years at that point so pulled it down.

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By doing that aren't you kind of sending the message that there is something wrong with porn? That maybe there is something shameful about having a porn modeling past?

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Originally Posted by Seth

By doing that aren't you kind of sending the message that there is something wrong with porn? That maybe there is something shameful about having a porn modeling past?

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duhh lol