AVN Media Network made it official early last week and announced the nominees for this year’s GAYVN Awards. Lucas Entertainment led with 15 nominations, the majority going to its
Inside Israel and
Wall Street. Raging Stallion Studios followed with 14 nominations, mainly for its
Focus/Refocus. “We had an impressive number of pre-nominations this year from across the spectrum,” AVN COO
Janet Gibson says. “The nominating committee was tireless in its efforts to whittle the list down to a manageable size, but…difficult decisions had to be made.” (Full disclosure:
Vince is serving as a GAYVN judge.) Gibson added that two categories were dropped this year and bareback movies would not be eligible for consideration, though they might be added next year. Later in the week, AVN made more news with the addition of four new categories that will be decided by fans: Best Top, Best Bottom, Best Versatile (that about covers it) and Overall Fan Favorite (let the Twitter campaigns begin!). To vote for your man,
click here. The 12th Annual GAYVN Awards will take place on Friday, September 24, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. They will be hosted by comedian
Alec Mapa and be presented by NakedSword the same weekend as the Folsom Street Fair. For a complete list of nominees,
click here.…In porn star news, we have an update on former bondage star
Mikey Verdugo. It was just two years ago that
we told you about this Florida police officer who did a movie,
Rope Rituals, for kink director
Tom “Ropes” McGurk under the name
Jeremy Wess back in the mid-’90s. Verdugo went on to appear on as a contestant on HGTV’s
Design Star reality show. When Verdugo’s employer discovered his porn past, he was suspended and eventually dismissed from the police force. Now, Verdugo, 36, has been placed on one-year probation and will be able to keep his police certification. He is also suing over his dismissal and that case will come up in November. Soldier on, stud!…On a more upbeat note, Falcon star
Aden Jaric took to his Twitter to say that he’s moving on and will be shooting a scene for the first time with someone other than his ex,
Jordan Jaric. “I’ll be filming my first video [since] the breakup!” Jaric wrote. “Falcon Studios, of course!” So who’s the lucky bottom (or is that top!?) to appear with adorable Aden? None other than (over)
XXXposed star
Steven Daigle. The scene films this week.…And on a final note, porn party boy
Mason Wyler (
below) got serious last week by announcing on his blog that he is HIV-positive. “I have only myself to blame,” he writes. “I have HIV and it kind of sucks.” Wyler has appeared in numerous films for major studios, including Falcon, Titan and
Jet Set Men, in addition to Web work for
Suite 703 and Next Door Entertainment. Raging Stallion head
Chris Ward jumped in to support the beleaguered star with an offer to work for his studio. “Raging Stallion practices safe sex on all of its video shoots,” Ward says. “HIV status should not be an issue when shooting porn if the actors are using condoms and using common sense. [We] would love to shoot Mason Wyler in an upcoming movie. He is a great actor and I have always wanted to work with him.” Wyler has not responded to the offer or much of the controversy surrounding him after an industry blog war erupted last week. Nuff said.
5 comments:
Too much to say in a brief comment but I'll give it a shot:
1) Re: GAYVN noms: WOOT to RSS on its nominations! I haven't had an opportunity yet to congratulate them on their blog but I think I owe them a visit. I also have to root for my Bel Ami boys as well. I was so sure Taboo would get nominated but seeing that was mainly a bareback film, and they (meaning AVN) weren't acknowledging those this year, I was pretty bent. It was a beautifully made film. Lukas did an awesome job with it. With my fan girl feelings aside and trying to be objective, he really did take what he learned in front of the camera, and seemlessly transferred it to his art behind it. He truly has become a remarkable erotic artist, or eroticist, as I like to coin the term. And Vince is judging this year again. YAH!!!! Can I come along too? :)
2) Re: Wyler's HIV disclosure: *sigh* I feel terrible whenever I hear about this happening. I've been on the fence with the issue of condom-free films/scenes for quite a while. It seems though that I don't have nearly as strong opinion of them one way or the other, then some of the other porn genres out there, namely I'm against extreme fetish (but that's just me and my personal preference). Again, it comes down to preference and as long as there is consumer demand of condom-free material, it's going to continue to be produced. I feel too that if I was running a studio (and I think that would be PHAT as hell), I would like to think that I would put the safety of my actors first. I would make sure that everyone was aware of everyone's status going into a project and have everyone do the mandatory testing before a shoot. I would make very sure everyone in my 'house' was healthy and very importantly having a good time while they're working. Since film-making (and porn falls under the same ideology) is a creative endeavor, I want my actors to have some input on what THEY wanted to do. If it's hot as hell what they have in mind, that neither of them will get hurt (most important), and that people will like it, whether it be a condom-free scene or not, I'll tell them as long as they are honest with one another and with me about their status, then I'll tell them 'hey, go for it' and they would have my blessing. I know there are studios that are close knit like that (that everyone knows everyone's history); that there's an atmosphere of trust and openness which is paramount to producing great art, and also staying safe. The reason this is such a problem is not scenes being condom-free, but there needs to be a climate, a culture of openness in regards to one's status. We still live in a world where there is still a stigma attached to someone with HIV/AIDS. We've made some progress, but more needs to be done. As long as we continue to live in a culture of fear, then the stigmatizing of those with HIV will continue. To ban condom-free films is not the way to go, and this gets into a whole different issue that I don't think I should get into at the moment. ;) What happened to Wyler was tragic but it sounds like RSS has made a great offer and have opened a door for him. Now he just has to make the decision to walk through it. I hope he accepts Chris' offer and does just that. :)
Hugs,
~Betsy
Too much to say in a brief comment but I'll give it a shot:
1) Re: GAYVN noms: WOOT to RSS on its nominations! I haven't had an opportunity yet to congratulate them on their blog but I think I owe them a visit. I also have to root for my Bel Ami boys as well. I was so sure Taboo would get nominated but seeing that was mainly a bareback film, and they (meaning AVN) weren't acknowledging those this year, I was pretty bent. It was a beautifully made film. Lukas did an awesome job with it. With my fan girl feelings aside and trying to be objective, he really did take what he learned in front of the camera, and seemlessly transferred it to his art behind it. He truly has become a remarkable erotic artist, or eroticist, as I like to coin the term. And Vince is judging this year again. YAH!!!! Can I come along too? :)
Hugs,
~Betsy
(Con't from previous)
2) Re: Wyler's HIV disclosure: *sigh* I feel terrible whenever I hear about this happening. I've been on the fence with the issue of condom-free films/scenes for quite a while. It seems though that I don't have nearly as strong opinion of them one way or the other, then some of the other porn genres out there, namely I'm against extreme fetish (but that's just me and my personal preference). Again, it comes down to preference and as long as there is consumer demand of condom-free material, it's going to continue to be produced. I feel too that if I was running a studio (and I think that would be PHAT as hell), I would like to think that I would put the safety of my actors first. I would make sure that everyone was aware of everyone's status going into a project and have everyone do the mandatory testing before a shoot. I would make very sure everyone in my 'house' was healthy and very importantly having a good time while they're working. Since film-making (and porn falls under the same ideology) is a creative endeavor, I want my actors to have some input on what THEY wanted to do. If it's hot as hell what they have in mind, that neither of them will get hurt (most important), and that people will like it, whether it be a condom-free scene or not, I'll tell them as long as they are honest with one another and with me about their status, then I'll tell them 'hey, go for it' and they would have my blessing. I know there are studios that are close knit like that (that everyone knows everyone's history); that there's an atmosphere of trust and openness which is paramount to producing great art, and also staying safe. The reason this is such a problem is not scenes being condom-free, but there needs to be a climate, a culture of openness in regards to one's status. We still live in a world where there is still a stigma attached to someone with HIV/AIDS. We've made some progress, but more needs to be done. As long as we continue to live in a culture of fear, then the stigmatizing of those with HIV will continue. To ban condom-free films is not the way to go, and this gets into a whole different issue that I don't think I should get into at the moment. ;) What happened to Wyler was tragic but it sounds like RSS has made a great offer and have opened a door for him. Now he just has to make the decision to walk through it. I hope he accepts Chris' offer and does just that. :)
Hugs,
~Betsy
(Con't from previous)
2) Re: Wyler's HIV disclosure: *sigh* I feel terrible whenever I hear about this happening. I've been on the fence with the issue of condom-free films/scenes for quite a while. It seems though that I don't have nearly as strong opinion of them one way or the other, then some of the other porn genres out there, namely I'm against extreme fetish (but that's just me and my personal preference). Again, it comes down to preference and as long as there is consumer demand of condom-free material, it's going to continue to be produced. I feel too that if I was running a studio (and I think that would be PHAT as hell), I would like to think that I would put the safety of my actors first. I would make sure that everyone was aware of everyone's status going into a project and have everyone do the mandatory testing before a shoot. I would make very sure everyone in my 'house' was healthy and very importantly having a good time while they're working.
Hugs,
~Betsy
(Part 3...guess I talk too long *wink)
Since film-making (and porn falls under the same ideology) is a creative endeavor, I want my actors to have some input on what THEY wanted to do. If it's hot as hell what they have in mind, that neither of them will get hurt (most important), and that people will like it, whether it be a condom-free scene or not, I'll tell them as long as they are honest with one another and with me about their status, then I'll tell them 'hey, go for it' and they would have my blessing. I know there are studios that are close knit like that (that everyone knows everyone's history); that there's an atmosphere of trust and openness which is paramount to producing great art, and also staying safe. The reason this is such a problem is not scenes being condom-free, but there needs to be a climate, a culture of openness in regards to one's status. We still live in a world where there is still a stigma attached to someone with HIV/AIDS. We've made some progress, but more needs to be done. As long as we continue to live in a culture of fear, then the stigmatizing of those with HIV will continue. To ban condom-free films is not the way to go, and this gets into a whole different issue that I don't think I should get into at the moment. ;) What happened to Wyler was tragic but it sounds like RSS has made a great offer and have opened a door for him. Now he just has to make the decision to walk through it. I hope he accepts Chris' offer and does just that. :)
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