The Marxist, Intellectual, Artistic Colby Keller: The Fleshbot Interview

Colby Keller has always marched to the beat of his own drum. He's never been one to stick to the tried and true. Whenever things seem to be getting stagnant, he'll up and move on to the next thing, and for Colby, the next thing is something that's really never been attempted before. Colby has given away all of his possessions, including his Instagram account, and has turned to Indiegogo to raise funds for a new project he's dubbed Big Shoe Adventure 1: Colby Does America And Canada Too. It was a bold move, and we'll know in two weeks how well it paid off. I chatted with Colby this week, and we covered everything from bareback porn, to his views on gay parents, and of course, the Big Shoe Adventure and what he has to say to his critics.

Vincent Thrice: I read that you were outed by your parents at 15, at least in as much as they discovered that you were gay before you told them yourself. How long do you think you would have lived with the secret, at least in regard to your parents? 

Colby Keller: It’s really hard to say. I think in some way, I had always been sort of flagrant about… well, they found out because I had a big box of gay porn, and I was pretty flagrant in my attempts to acquire it, and where I would leave it. So I think it was a really passive aggressive way of coming out, so you know, I don’t know how long that would have lasted before I came out. I came out when I was fifteen, but I didn’t even so much as kiss a boy until I was 19, and I was with that boy for ten years, and for the first part of that we were in a very monogamous relationship. So I don’t know, it’s hard to say.

VT: Okay. I was just curious because everyone has a different story and it was intriguing to me that you were outed, so to speak, more than you outed yourself. Who knows how long it would have gone on?

CK: It was very much something where, at 15, I didn’t even really know what coming out meant because, like I said, I hadn’t had sex yet. It did feel like a strange thing to come out, it wasn’t like, “I’ve fallen in love with a boy,” it was a very different set of circumstances and a different necessity. I think that it was kind of my way of doing it, at least what I was capable of at that point in time. It was a very traumatic experience because my mother’s an evangelical Christian, and she got very, very angry and said that she wanted to kill me essentially. 

VT: Oh, nice.

CK: Well, but my father was very much the opposite. They got into a big fight because he was being very supportive and she was not, so it was… traumatic (both laugh). 

VT: Oh, I can imagine. It’s nice though that, at least your dad was supportive. 

CK: Yeah, he was my protector, he was very supportive. It’s a little strange because to make me feel better he was telling me stories about my brother, and he’d say, “It’s okay, your brother gets blow jobs while he’s driving” (both laugh). So I’m thinking, the equivalent for you of being gay is giving a blow job while driving (both laugh), “you might get into a car crash, or you might have a good time!” (Both laugh).

VT: How do you feel personally about the sort of demonization of bareback porn that’s become really prevalent in the last few years?

CK: It’s interesting because I definitely feel that there is that, but then there’s also, obviously, a lot of people that watch it, and I include myself in that group. You know, my problem with bareback porn is… that I don’t have a problem with it, actually. My concern is for the models that are participating in it, particularly now when there are prophylaxis measures like Truvada, which these models could very easily be on, that would protect them from HIV, and some will tell you that it’s better than condoms in terms of its ability to protect you. 

It sounds so pie in the sky because of the culture we live in, but if there was a union or if the porn companies came together and got their models on a health insurance plan where it covered Truvada it would protect those people, and that’s something I would really like to see happen, but it’s also something that I don’t think will ever happen. And that to me is the tragedy of it. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with having sex without a condom, orgasms are beautiful, profound things, and the results from those orgasms are a beautiful, profound thing. It just so happens that there are historical circumstances where this virus has attached itself to some people’s beliefs, and I don’t think it’s wrong to eroticize that. 

I think what’s problematic is that people that attack bareback porn aren’t realistically appreciating how our sexuality has changed, particularly with younger gay men, and I don’t think it’s a good way of trying to address safe sex practices today. 

VT: That’s an interesting thought, I hadn’t really put it in that context before, I like that. 

CK: It’s always a weird thing because, you know, it straight porn, they never use condoms and it’s this weird double standard where we can’t even eroticize it, but the thing is that it’s a world of fantasy. I suppose the fear is that people will try to duplicate that behavior in their own personal sex life, which is probably true, but if we could just have an open and honest conversation about what the risks are and what strategies we can all take to prevent the spread of disease, it’s a healthier conversation than just saying, “don’t do that thing that everyone’s going to do anyway!” (Both laugh). 

VT: I know that you went to school to study art, correct?

CK: Yes, I did, I went to MICA

VT: Okay cool. I know that you don’t do this a whole lot, but I know that you try to merge the art world with the sex world at least a little bit, and if you could only make a living doing one or the other, which would you choose? 

CK: I don’t actually see it that way. In my art practice, I try very hard to think about the labor that I practice and my relationship to having and income and feeding myself, and taking the time to embrace what that is in my art practice. So I don’t actually see the two of them as being separated. When you say, “make a living from art,” I think I do that, but I try to think of my porn as part of that practice. So yeah, I don’t think there’s a way to answer that question (laughs).

VT: No, that’s fine, I agree and I much prefer that answer to a definitive one over the other. I recently spoke with Damien Moreau, and he turned me on to Pink Narcissus. As someone with feet in both the art and porn worlds, was that an influential film for you? 

CK: Yeah, I mean, it’s a beautiful film. It’s interesting though that you ask that, because I don’t know how much I think about film, I mean, I watch a lot of film, but I don’t know how much I think of it as being influential to my own practice. I tend to think more along the lines of visual arts, because that’s the kind of intellectual culture I come from, and in social sciences too, because I got my undergraduate degree in anthropology, so those tend to be the things that I draw from. But it is a beautiful film, and I’m starting this new project where hopefully I can make some porn and things that might be more, might not be more than what they are, and a lot of projects like Pink Narcissus are good jumping off point to do some things that are really interesting. 

VT: That’s actually a good segue into my next question which is just to tell us about your Big Shoe Adventure, what was the genesis for the idea, and how did you settle upon the amount of money you determined it would cost to fund?

CK: Those are all really good questions. I started the project as actually two art projects that I was completing at the end of May. One kind of dealt with the reality of getting kicked out of my apartment that I’d lived in for ten years in Baltimore. You know, I don’t make a lot of money, I have very little money and I had a lot of stuff, including this amazing library, and most of those books I got from fans. It was really traumatic and I decided that there’s a negative response and I could use in that moment, or I could think of it in a really positive way, and get rid of everything that I own and give everything away to other people, and try to make art with other people through that process, and start over.

So I did that, and I got rid of every single thing that I own. When I began the project I was actually completely naked for a day because I didn’t own a single thing (both laugh). So I kind of rebooted after that and this van project is kind of a way to, and there’s some projects in the future that I’d like to address, and the van project is a bridge between “Everything But Lenin” which is the piece where I gave everything away, and some of the future projects that I’d like to tackle. So you know, in a really kind of simple way make porn, which is what I do, but to begin to think of it as more of an intentional art practice, plus I get to go around the country, because I love to travel, and meet new people, and collaborate, and work with artists, and work with some hot dudes, hopefully (both laugh), and have some fun.

The amount was really tricky because I don’t… obviously I don’t think that $35,000 is going to get me to all fifty states, but I also don’t know what I’m capable of raising, so it was kind of getting me the minimum of what I need, because I don’t have anything. I don’t have a computer, I don’t have a car, I don’t have any of the tools that I would need to make this project work, so it’s basically my first capital investment just to restart my life and this project, and try to make some fun videos with people. 

But I don’t know, I don’t know if I’ll hit the target. Hopefully I will, hopefully I’ll go over it, and at some point if I need to finish the project, hopefully I’ll be able to think about other funding sources, because, you know, gas is really expensive, and I don’t think $35,000 is enough to do all fifty states, it’s less than a thousand dollars a state (laughs). 

VT: Our article we ran about your Indiegogo campaign garnered some really positive comments, but a few ran towards “why doesn’t he just film a bunch of scenes to get the money he needs to fund this?” How would you respond to those critics? 

CK: People have a very unrealistic idea about how much money we make as performers. Most porn performers, at least in the gay world, make their money from escorting, and I’ve never escorted, so actually I’m probably the lowest paid performer in the business (both laugh), at least in terms of what my overall income is, I make very little money, and I tell this to people all the time I actually make less money than when I started ten years ago, by a significant margin. So I don’t make a lot of money (both laugh), and I kind of live by the skin of my teeth. 

And for me, porn is nice because I can do a couple of jobs once every couple of months, which gives me enough money to pay my rent and put a little food in my mouth, and that’s nice because it also gives me time to make art. But there’s no way to save money, there’s no way to pay off debts, none of that is possible with the income that I bring in. So I need to crowdsource it, and you know, I like collaborating with other people in lots of different ways, and this is a way to engage that idea as well. 

VT: Okay, I think that’s fair. PQ Magazine called you a “Gay Porn Intellectual.” I know you’re not one for labels, but how do you feel about that perception of you?

CK: I would say that we’re all intellectuals, you know? I’m a Marxist and in the same way that we can all be artists, we can all be intellectuals, and that word shouldn’t be reserved for certain people, and it’s important to erase that idea, so yeah, I’ll agree with it (both laugh).

VT: You said in an interview with Butt that it’s irresponsible for gay men to have/adopt children, and that gay men would be better off owning dogs. I know it was an interview, and comments can be taken out of context, but don’t you find that to be a hasty generalization?

CK: A hasty generalization? I think it was taken out of context, but I think that… look, I used to be a nanny, so I love children, and I don’t think that there’s any problem with gay men or gay women raising children at all, it can be a very beautiful thing. I just think that there are a lot of gay men who don’t seriously consider what raising another human being is about, and think of it in terms of they want little clones of themselves, or they want these little fashionable things, you know, they see that other people have babies so they want one too. And when you’re a gay man, it’s not like you’re going to accidentally get someone pregnant, so there’s an extra level of concern that you should have before you decide to devote yourself to another human life, and that’s my point with that. 

And you know, I think that if you can adopt that’s a much better strategy, but it’s difficult, which is why I think most people go down the surrogacy road because it’s difficult to adopt. But, you know, I can’t say that I wasn’t being a little intentionally controversial there, only because I do see a lot of gay men who say that they want children, but they really don’t, and I say this as someone who’s been a caretaker, and it’s a lot of work, I mean, you guys don’t really even know how much work it is and what it’s going to do to change your life. Forget the gym, you’re gonna be cleaning up vomit! (Both laugh). Kids take a lot of care, and a lot of love, and a lot of money, and if you want to do it the right way, you need to consider all that before you just sort of casually decide to do that. I think that human life is a very delicate thing, and there are a lot of fucked up people in the world (both laugh). To be a good parent, you’ve got to really work hard at it.

VT: Yeah, absolutely, I figured that that was what you meant, at least as far as people that might look at children as an accessory or something that’s trendy or cool to do for a couple of months as opposed to an eighteen year-plus investment.

CK: Yeah, exactly. And it’s partly too, like, if you want to have a dog, that’s a step in the right direction. I know gay men that tell me that they want to have a kid, this one guy in particular, and he had a dog and he couldn’t even take care of it, he had to give the dog away after a month, and I’m like, there’s no way you could have a kid, you know (both laugh). You have to come to terms with who you are, you know, and not everyone is meant to have children. I don’t personally believe that I’m meant to have kids, I mean, I do very well with taking care of other people’s kids, but I’m not at the stage to have one and care for one long term. 

VT: Yeah, there’s that rehab thing where you get a plant and if you can keep the plant alive for a year, then you can get a pet, and if you keep that alive for a year, then you think about getting into a relationship. So yeah, it’s probably not a bad track to take. 

CK: Yeah, I agree with that, but in general terms, gay men and gay women can be beautiful, wonderful parents. I have nothing against kids, obviously, I’ve been a caretaker, so I love kids. 

VT: Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure that your position on that was clarified. 

CK: Oh, well thank you very much (laughs)

VT: (Laughing) Yeah, my pleasure. So, changing gears a bit, what do you think is the hottest scene that you’ve done, or maybe top three if you can’t pick just one?

CK: Oh man, hottest scene… man… There’s been some really hot boys that I’ve been with. Anthony Romero (CockyBoys), that was a really good scene.

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Jarec Wentworth (Randy Blue), I actually requested to do Jarec, and I was supposed to do another scene with him, but it didn’t work out.

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Duncan Black (Men.com) is really hot, I had a really good connection with him.

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Levi Michaels (CockyBoys) was also really good.

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Yeah, I don’t know, I feel like there were a lot of good scenes actually (both laugh). Particularly lately, I’ve been having a lot of really good sex on camera and it feels real. 

VT: Awesome, good deal. So my last question is if there’s anything else you’d like your fans to know?

CK: Yes! I gave away my Instagram as part of my project “Everything But Lenin,” and a beautiful friend of mine named Dena took over my Instagram. (A woman’s voice says, “hi!”) She’s sitting next to me right now and Instagram actually deleted the account, but if you would like to follow Dena you can follow her at…

Dena: I Am Dolby Keller!

CK: Yeah @iamdolbykeller, I would definitely like my fans to know that. 

VT: Fantastic, thank you so much for your time today, I really appreciate it.

CK: Yeah, no, thank you!