Well This Is Horrifying: Gay-For-Pay Actor Shoots Up For Photo Essay

June 28, 2010
CALAMITOUS

Treasure Island Media's Paul Morris posted these nude photos of a young gay-for-pay actor shooting up (what we assume is) heroin last week. It's kind of like an episode of "Intervention," but with more cock and less, you know, intervening.

Our friends over at The Sword found this photo shoot on Morris' Flickr where commenter reactions vacillated between general shock and praise for the "brutal honesty" of the subject matter. We're not big on passing judgment here at Fleshbot, but we think we're going to align ourselves firmly with the former of those sentiments.

Is this a documentary-style examination of the intersecting worlds of addiction and sex work, or are we just looking at the exploitation of a young addict? Morris himself seems to be ambivalent on the matter. His writing alternately stresses the boy's normalcy and charm ("He's warm, open, friendly, well-spoken and polite.") and then sensationalizes his addiction ("The focus of the fixing junkie is absolute.") For a so-called photo essay Morris does little ruminating on the subject and reaches few conclusions beyond information gleaned from casual conversation. What's more, he does little to disguise his own disgust for the subject of his photos:

He's straight, has a girlfriend. They live in a single room in a rundown hotel. He's calls himself a "porn actor" and does gay-for-pay work. Since I almost never work with anyone who isn't passionate about the sex they're having, I doubt that we'll ever work together.

Is this statement an indictment against all gay-for-pay pornstars, or is he making a more pointed reference to the effects of heroin abuse? We can't tell what he's thinking, and Morris doesn't really seem to be trying to make any sort of statement with these photos. Despite the striking effect of taking a cute boy posing like a Sean Cody model and sticking a needle in his arm, the photos themselves aren't really anything special. They manage to convey nothing of the complicated and depressing shit this kid's life has surely turned to ("He's 21, has been in and out of jail and rehab."), and instead make him look like he's a hot young model doing an editorial for Heroin Today or something. One has to wonder, how much did Morris pay this kid to pose for these photos? And how much is the price of a hit?