Reality Bites: When Gay Porn Clichés Fail To Translate

Let's face it:  reality isn't all that great, and our lives would be much the better if porn logic was factual.  All filmic genres have their hoary, comforting cliches that bear no relation to waking substantiality.  Romantic comedies would have us believe that the key to finding love is being mistaken for someone that you're not.  Cats never fly across darkened rooms with piercing shrieks like they do in horror movies. Computers are nowhere near as magical as thrillers purport them to be.

Porn is no different, and all of us would be making a huge mistake if we habitually tried to apply its tenets to our daily wanderings.   In gay fuck flicks, all men are gay by default because women effectively don't exist.  The word "no" is never an issue because all men are sexually available 'round the clock.  Sex in general has zero consequences or any emotional entanglements.  It's awesome but completely unsustainable in this mortal coil. I suspect that all of us have tried -- and failed -- to approximate a porn scenario in our daily lives at one time or another, so here's a checklist to help you avoid common rookie mistakes in our pop culture of porn creep:

"Dude, I totally have a girlfriend, buuuuuut...."

Ah, the elusive phantom girlfriend.  Where the hell is she all the time?  Is she terribly overworked?  Taking care of a sick relative?  Studying to become a dental hygienist?  The fuck if I know, but I've yet to meet the living, breathing guy with a frustrated rod who'll take another man's mouth as a conselation prize when Kyrie, Kammie, or Kelly takes a powder on him.

In gay porn, ostensibly straight men can go gay on a dime with about as much coaxing as it takes to convince them to order pizza, but real life is a different matter all together.   Yes, there are straight guys for whom an orifice is an orifice, but they're nowhere near as prevalent and readily available as porn purports.  Gay and straight men don't run in such close fraternal proximity either, and a black eye can be a real disincentive for putting the make on a high-and-dry piece whose chickadee stays in to wash her hair.  Bitch.

"But officer, isn't there anything I can do?"

In gay porn, all cops are sneering, morally corrupt hogs with rage erections and power-control complexes.  No exceptions.  They're also always molten hot and on the prowl for vulnerable holes they can take advantage of. 

Now, Mundy Land is rife with police corruption and terrible drivers willing to polish traffic cops' rods in order to avoid getting tickets, but the hitch is this:  the two parties hardly ever get on the same page at the perfect ratio.  Either the deputy is accosting some poor, unwilling citizen because he can get away with it, or the civilian puts the make on an officer who just isn't into it.  Any way you slice it, awkward is the watchword, so if you're intent on shoving your face into your arresting officer's groin, make sure the sentiment is reciprocal.

"How else may I serve you, sir?"

Houseboys, man-servants, lackeys, concierges, and yes-men  -- they're sort of the servile Igors of gay porn.  Just as gay life is highly socially stratified and obsessed with meaningless comfort, so too is gay porn all about glitzy opulence and the sway it allows you in compelling someone else with less than you to put out on command.  The line between white collar and blue collar character tropes in the medium is quite distinct  -- you've got your playboys, big-spenders, and high-powered types on one end of the spectrum, and then your hustlers, roughnecks, and literal workin' stiffs on the other. 

In truth, rich guys want to score with even richer guys, and barring that, they turn to live-in whores rather than having to contend with a hardscrabble guy who has good sense and actual perspective.  It's only natural that a fantasy world that finds its very existence predicated on the exchange of cash for sex would depict the exploitation of the wage earner by pampered A-Listers.  In actuality, Less Than Zero trust fund casualties are unbearable to take even with your underwear stuffed in their mouths -- nobody's world view should be akin to a Duran Duran lyric -- so if you're the stable boy in this equation, you're really better off just going ass-up for the gardener.  Or at least the pool man.

"It's just, I'm a little short this month."

Look, we all want to exchange sex as payment for all manner of materials, goods, and services.  That's a given.  I'm talking rent, health insurance, gum at a newsstand, weapons, gym memberships, Rice-A-Roni -- you name it.  I'd go so far as to claim that if we could have a sex-based barter economy, very few Americans would lament the loss of our corrupt modern money system.  The trouble is that sex is nowhere near as fungible in place of actual legal tender as gay porn makes it seem. 

Auto repair is a perfect example.  How many mechanics actually take physical currency for their labor in blue movies?  Nobody ever has to worry about basic expenses or maintaining a place to live within the confines of the medium, so these guys just bone their clients full-time.  I guess that their garages are just thinly-veiled, glorified sex dens.  Sadly, verity demands that mechanics have to work hard for the money, meaning their literal dipsticks are fully engaged while their figurative ones remain firmly in their pants.  Depressing, I know.

"I think see the problem:  I just have to plug it into the right socket."

Repairmen.  Handymen.  Contractors.  The ubiquitous cable guy.  Call 'em what you like -- they're all human sex machines.  Is there any more eroticized profession in gay porn than men who work with tools?  Suffice to say, whenever a dude with a tool belt and/or a uniform enters the room, it triggers instant non-diegetic bow-chick-a-bow-wow music.  In gay porn, if a tradesmen visits a home, he's gonna get laid.  There's just no question.  The sex gods decree it.  In actuality, however, a hot repairman is not a given.  In the movies, you get Colby Jansen or Devin Draz remarking how tightly they've gonna have to screw it in; in the cold light of day, you get Larry The Cable Guy abusing cut-off flannel. 

Now, on the rare occasion that a babe-like stranger pays you a house call, it's best not to assume that he's an ambulatory dick on two legs.  I once had a surprisingly hot blond cable installer in my midst, and I found myself hankering to ask him if he wanted a blowjob just to see if I could indeed cajole him into it for the sheer novelty of it.  In the end, my inborn fear of social mortification won out -- what if he grimaced and said "Eeeeeeeeeeeeew!" or the company he works for has some kind of database that they enter known sex cranks into? -- and my world is just that much smaller because of it.