Gay-for-pay

A man who identifies as straight but has sex with men for money, above all as a performer in gay porn.

Gay-for-pay describes a man who says he is straight but has sex with men for money, above all on camera in gay porn. Off set he has a girlfriend, or says he does; on set he tops, bottoms, kisses or doesn't, and goes home with a check. The label sticks to the performer, but it is really about the deal: the sex is the job, the identity stays "straight".

It is not the same as being on the down low, where a man has sex with men in secret for its own sake, and it is not the same as trade, the straight-acting man gay men have chased for generations. Gay-for-pay is trade with an invoice.

Where it comes from

The phrase is older than the porn genre. Green's Dictionary of Slang finds it in 1971, in the magazine Sexology, describing male hustlers "whom the police describe as 'gay-for-pay punks'". Green's defines it both ways: a man who does not have sex with men, or won't admit to it, but provides sex for money, and a straight actor who plays gay roles or appears in gay porn. By 1994 The Advocate was applying it to straight Hollywood actors in gay roles. The reverse also exists, "straight for pay", for gay men who perform with women.

The sociologist Jeffrey Escoffier wrote the classic academic study of the phenomenon, "Gay-for-Pay: Straight Men and the Making of Gay Pornography" (2003). Looking back on it, he describes his subjects as "the professedly heterosexual men who engage in sex with men in gay porn," and says sexual script theory helped him explain how men on a set can perform outside their own desires.

In porn

For the studios, gay-for-pay is a selling point. A big part of gay porn sells the fantasy of the straight guy who goes along with it, which is why there are whole genres built around it: straight bait, the bait bus, frat porn, military porn and the endless "first time" casting couch. The tagline does half the work, and nobody can check what the performer does on his day off.

Viewers know this, and the doubt is part of the game. Some fans love the hint of reluctance; others roll their eyes at the twentieth "straight" man who looks suspiciously comfortable. Performers have their own reasons for the label: some really are straight, some are bi, and fans always suspect a few are gay men who think "straight" pays better or protects them from family and future employers. In the age of OnlyFans, the same tension simply moved from the studio to the creator's own page.

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