Our Exclusive Interview With Jake Jaxson, The Jake Jaxson Of Gay Porn

While preparing for my interview with CockyBoys director and owner Jake Jaxson, I found a lot of articles which were quick to label him in a variety of ways. Salon.com called him "The Walt Whitman of Gay Porn," New York Magazine twice referred to him as the Papa Bear in his relationship with Benny Morecock & RJ Sebastian, and even a former association with political activist Glenn Greenwald led to his real name being released as part of the Edward Snowden information leaks. Yet through it all, seeking to label him in all of these different ways has somewhat obscured what he's been able to achieve on his own, under his chosen name. So rather than call him the Stanley Kubrick of Gay Porn or the Derek Jarman of Gay Porn, as I was tempted to do, after chatting with Jake for this piece, I decided that the highest compliment I can pay him would be to call him the Jake Jaxson of Gay Porn. 

Vincent Thrice: I have to say, first of all, that I appreciate what you do because I think you show that porn doesn’t have to be one thing, which is a lot of what I sort of imagined of porn in general, is that it was just this one thing. And what I think you’re doing is showing that sex can be artistic and I appreciate that.

Jake Jaxson: Well, likewise I appreciate you acknowledging that. I think people’s perception of porn, or as some people now like to say “adult entertainment,” is that it was disposable. It was something that you got and hid under your bed or didn’t have it out, and even now people will watch it on their computer and they’re just done with it. Because it was disposable for so long, I found that the people who were making it would not put as much energy into making it. There’s that funny Woody Allen quote where they asked him what the difference was between erotica and porn, and he said, “the lighting” (both laugh). And he was exactly right. 

So what I did was I began to look around at all the resources I had, camera equipment and such, and I got really, really creative guys that everyone thinks are dingbats who can only have sex, but I think that they’re completely different. So I decided to try it a little differently. Now the thing with me is that I really do care for my performers, and I don’t want this to be disposable. I want this to be something that people wanna watch more than once, so let’s package it in such a way that they want to keep it. So if the porn isn’t disposable, the performer isn’t disposable, and I feel that if we can—and I’m still trying to figure it out—but if we can unlock that, I feel that what we’ll start creating is entertainment that is highly sexual, and not necessarily classified as porn. 

Now, I’m not trying to run away from being a pornographer, I’m very happy with the space I’m working in. 

VT: That’s great, and I think you’re certainly one of the most successful at it and that, to me, as someone with a film and theatre background, it enhances the experience because it’s more meaningful I guess.

JJ: Well thank you, and that’s kind of where I’m coming from. RJ (Sebastian) was in the entertainment business, my editors come from film backgrounds, I’m really looking for, in the people that I work with, people who come at it first as an entertainment experience. Now, it takes a lot, lot longer than what most studios are used to, or even capable of, but we’re able to do it because I really do everything. Between RJ and I, we shoot it, light it, costuming, art direction, we do everything. So that allows us the ability to work in a way that most people who would have to hire crews for all that stuff just can’t. 

And because there are no rules in the porn space, if I were trying to make it as a film, what I was doing probably wouldn’t live up to the rules that are set out in mainstream film, which is not to say that I’m not eventually trying to get into that space, but I do have an obligation to my audience to be excited. So it allows me to have fun in a way that if I were just making a film to go to a film festival, I wouldn’t be able to do. It allows me to play with my Kubrick obsession and because I’m able to do that, it comes across as a bit more unexpected. 

VT: I’m going to jump ahead here a bit, but in the Salon.com piece, they intimate that the sex in your films doesn’t embody your philosophy, which I think refers to something they quoted you on earlier in the piece. The quote was that you wanted to “help remove the stigma attached to the young men who choose to creatively express themselves through their bodies, mind, and sexuality.” How hard is it to convey that through sex alone? It’s obviously there in the non-sexual content, but how do you actively seek to infuse the sex scenes with that same philosophy?

JJ: Well, you know my philosophy about sex is, I grew up in a very religious, Southern upbringing and sex was bad. It was not good, it was not something that you talked about. Pornography was absolutely unacceptable. Masturbating was a sin because you wasted your seed, and my mom never said that, but that was the implication. And gay sex was not even on my family’s radar. So within the last five or six years, there were still guilty feelings attached to porn and sex, this feeling of, I shouldn’t be doing this, you know, there was a guilt aspect to it. 

And there came a point where I started to work with the performers, and a lot of young men were coming to this with a completely different mindset about sex. Sex was no big deal. And it wasn’t like they were promiscuous, it was just like, what’s the big deal? So I began to wrap my head around this, and think, why am I holding on to this? Why am I attaching myself to the way my parents were? Once I gave that up, I began to embrace the idea that sex and sexual acts and sexuality in general is not something that people should be ashamed of or guilty about or hide. So once I opened myself up to that, I began to really not only enjoy my sexual being and what I was thinking and doing, but as I was shooting I began to think that this is not that different from a really good meal or a roller coaster ride. I didn’t even want to refer to it as a guilty pleasure because it is a part of our life, it is who we are, it is something that should be celebrated. 

So to that degree, the sex in our work is a celebration. It’s meant to be beautiful, that’s why we shoot it the way we shoot it. In a certain way, it’s romanticized, but it’s completely acceptable, how I shoot, how I pair the boys together. All of these things are all taken into account, and what we shoot is meant to be a pleasurable experience, not only for the performers and de-stigmatizing them, but also for the people watching it and enjoying pornography to feel like they don’t have to be stigmatized either. They can watch it without feeling guilty about cheating on their boyfriend, or their girlfriend, we have a lot of female fans who have come to us and said, “this has helped my sex life with my husband because I feel like I can engage with him in a way that I’ve never really seen before.” 

VT: To keep going in that same direction, it seems as if you hear about females really loving your content, more so than any other studio. Why do you think that is? Obviously it ties into what we were just talking about with viewing sex as a celebration and not something to feel guilty about, but I certainly hear about it more, that there’s more females watching your content than other studios.

JJ: There’s a few reasons for that. Prior to taking over the company four years ago, I was a distributor and there was a shift in the early 2000s where many gay adult companies, and straight ones as well, were being bought by these big conglomerates, and all of these sort of mom and pop shops were closing and there were more megastores. And what they found was that more couples were shopping together and they started rearranging stores to be more female friendly. What started to happen, and I talked to many of them, and they like our content because it’s authentic, and they feel like there’s a sense that there is genuine passion. They like gay content, and like I said, I’ve spoken to many of them about it, and the one thing they complain about with straight porn is, “that’s not what women sound like when they’re having sex,” or “it’s not real.” 

And if you look at it, most straight pornography is being created for men, it’s their fantasy. So it just became sort of natural that women wanted to see men engaged with each other, and kissing, and what they like about our content specifically is that engagement, that connection, it’s not just two guys doing it. There’s a romantic aspect to it. And the other thing is that I rarely, almost never, will put two performers together that do not want to be together. It actually makes it, sometimes, more difficult to shoot because it’s not like in a lot of other scenarios where you’re just hired and paired with someone. For us it’s like, hey did you like him? What do you think? And with both performers, it has to be an emphatic yes, otherwise I won’t shoot it. 

VT: Well, that makes a lot of sense, and I find that the gay porn world really takes that into consideration more than the straight porn world. A number of different performers and creative people that I’ve talked to, that seems to be the prevalent attitude is that there is this period where you have to become comfortable with another performer before shooting. 

JJ: I think that part of it is within gay porn, you can tell their level of arousal. You can’t fake that, you know? You can’t fake a hard-on (both laugh). I mean, certainly you can take things for that, but even then it’s something I’m not 100% on, I want people to be aroused by their partner. There have been cases where I’ve pitched someone to a performer, and they’re like, yeah, I don’t know? So I’ll have to say, are you kidding me? That would be so hot! You’re little and he’s big, or he’s a really nice guy, very handsome, and the performer will want to talk to him, and they’ll talk and start flirting with one another, and they’ll come back to me and say, yes!

So I’m always looking at creating an experience in how I pair people up so it’s unexpected, and I find that to be the most arousing thing. And I’m not looking at it from the perspective of this will sell or our audience will really like it, I’m coming at it from a point of view of trying to connect to that feeling that we get that makes sex exciting for us. For some people it’s the forbidden, or it’s the hunt, there’s always something that is part of the sexual experience that is so much more enjoyable than climaxing. So that is also for me the money shot more so than the money shot. It’s always trying to create that unexpected journey that we’re all looking for. 

VT: Who inspires you, past or present, whether it’s within the industry or outside the industry?

JJ: Within the industry, there are many people that I watched as a consumer first, even before meeting them or knowing them. George Duroy with Bel Ami, who is a friend that I’ve had the pleasure of working and collaborating with. He was one of the first that came into the industry and saw that we can bring a different level of taste to what we’re shooting, not everything has got to be “in the dungeon” (both laugh). He brought a level of refinement and quality that I strive for, and he is very concerned about the audience and wants to deliver them the best. For so long, the adult industry had a bad wrap for selling things to people that were deceptive like, here’s the box cover and it’s got an 18-inch dick on it! (both laugh), it was this bait and switch kind of approach, and that was never what he was about. Chi Chi LaRue also, as far as creating big, epic, fun, outside the box, innovative work. 

But outside of it, as an artist, or trying to be an artist, Andy Warhol is—I think I read the Andy Warhol Diaries fifteen times in high school and college—how do you create something, not knowing what the rules are and outside of convention. I love Kubrick films and Bergman, it goes on and on.

VT: Okay, I was gonna ask if Derek Jarman was an influence on you at all because I tend to see, I don’t want to say parallels, but there is some influence, particularly in Answered Prayers.

JJ: Oh yes, without a doubt. Derek Jarman, Peter Greenaway, I studied at the British Film Institute for three years, and I was really drawn by Peter Greenaway. I feel like a really frustrated painter that doesn’t know how to paint, so Peter Greenaway for me was overwhelming. That’s kind of what Answered Prayers is really becoming for me, it touches on a lot of these images that are in my mind and the same thing with Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Sometimes you watch that film and just wonder, is this a shot of a painting? The camera is just fixed on a masterpiece painting. It’s stunning and at the same time so incredibly depressing (both laugh). But the thing that always pulls me out of that is, I’m not Kubrick. I am who I am, and I have my own mind and my own limitations, and I love the space that I’m in and I can keep creating and not have to go to someone and ask them to fund me. 

But thank you for saying that, because I love Derek Jarman, so just to even bring that up means a lot, thank you. 

VT: I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t thought it, so there you go. In that Salon.com piece, they referred to you as "The Walt Whitman of Gay Porn.” How do you feel about that comparison as opposed to someone like Peter DeRome or Andy Warhol, someone that actually worked in your same industry?

JJ: I think in that particular case, I was in that moment of connection to Whitman poetry. I didn’t really set out to try to be a poet in that aspect, but of course I was incredibly flattered. Who wouldn’t want to be compared to Whitman? But at the end of the day, I’m not anywhere near to what his talent was. We went to Paris and did a book signing there and we go to this beautiful bookstore, it was a dream come true because in the window was a sign that said, in French, Jake Jaxson: The Walt Whitman of Gay Porn, and I was like, okay I’ll take it (both laugh). 

To a certain degree, you know, we did a piece called “Boys to Adore Galore,” and in it I basically was telling the story about how Andy Warhol bought a porno theater, and with Joe Dallesandro and Jim Carroll, ran this theater, and it was called “Poetry in Motion,” that was the name of the company that bought the space. He was prosecuted for making a pornographic film, and he loved shooting naked men, in fact if you look at his “Sex Parts” series, there’s no doubt about it, it is about as pornographic as you can get. When he was criticized for it, you know, Bob Colacello who ran Interview Magazine at the time told him that he couldn’t have pictures of naked men up all over the office, and Andy said, Oh Bob, just tell the clients they’re landscapes (both laugh). I just thought that was so funny because, in an instant, someone can wave their hand and say that’s a landscape, and in the space that we work in, if we can find more ways to blur the lines, so much the better. So if that’s something I can be a part of in any way, along with these other creators, then I welcome it. 

VT: One of the biggest stories recently was Jake Bass’ tweet that he wasn’t going to be a CockyBoy anymore, but hours later you tweeted a link to an interview he did. Is your relationship with him still a good one?

JJ: Of course, yeah. I think what he tweeted was “I’m no longer working at Cockyboys,” and the reality is he is. What he’s interested in doing is possibly shooting at other studios, and this was his way of putting it out there. We’re still working on Meet the MoreCocks, and we’re doing some cam shows together, but he can bring these offers to me and I’ll tell him if I think it’s a good move for him or not. The relationship that I have with Jake is, I want him to succeed at anything he does in his life. I’ve worked with him for almost four years now. I want him to be whatever he can be in the adult space or outside the adult space, and he has a lot of things happening outside of the adult space. That WeTheUrban fashion spread was one of the things I’m most proud about this year because it shows the viability that these performers have as personalities. It isn’t, like, you’re ruined or stigmatized, there’s so much more to them.

Max Ryder was very, very clear when he started working with us that he was here for two years, and we worked very hard to work with him in that way, and he transitioned to go on to Paper Magazine. When they hired him, he told them he still had some scenes coming out, and Mickey Boardman, who’s the editorial director, was just like, are you kidding me? We want Max Ryder, this is why we hired you, you’re interesting (both laugh). So it wasn’t like, you’re not viable or this is the end of your life, and for someone like Jake, I see him like Tony Ward was for Bruce LaBruce, which at the time was scandalous, and now I think he’s a cultural icon, and I want the same thing for Jake. So I will do anything I can to help him with that. 

Now, as a studio, we have a lot of performers that work for us exclusively, and I offer all of my performers contracts that allow me to develop them, and work with them, and allow them to trust me. So maybe he’ll work at other studios and maybe he’ll come back and be a CockyBoy, but at the same time I will say this, if it wasn’t for him and Max and Levi, I don’t think I would be where I’m at because they really did allow me to create from a blank canvas. They really enjoyed it, they trusted me, I trusted them. They didn’t quite understand what it would eventually become, you know, how big Project GogoBoy would become or big RoadStrip would be, but they do understand now what it is, but if they wouldn’t have literally held hands with me and we all jumped off the cliff together, I wouldn’t be where I’m at. So for that reason, I’ll always be grateful to Jake, and that’s why I want him to land wherever is best for him.

VT: Is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet that you’re dying to work with? 

JJ: In terms of performer?

VT: Yeah, either a performer or someone on the creative side.

JJ: You know, the funny thing is that at one point, I pitched to Men.com and Johnny Hazzard, I said, I want to shoot a super romantic epic love letter between Johnny and Jake Bass, because he’s known for getting the hell fucked out of him (both laugh), and I really wanted to create this vision of these two together, and they said no, they wouldn’t let me shoot him. So that was kind of my dream at the time. It’s interesting, performers for me, they kind of find us at just the right time, I find. The way we work is so organic sometimes that there’s a lot of guys that I think are beautiful and sexy and they really turn me on and excite me, but creatively I might be working on something that’s the opposite of what they are. It’s one of the reasons that I work with a lot of the same guys all the time, I have a little acting troupe almost, so I know what I have and who I have and I create projects based around personalities. 

I really admire Bruce LaBruce, he really is someone who really pushes the boundaries, so I would love to find a project to work with him on if that was ever in the cards, he’s someone that I would love to collaborate with. 

VT: Oh, that would be great, I would love to see that. So my last question is just if there’s anything else you’d like your fans to know?

JJ: Well, we’ve got Meet the MoreCocks coming up, and I am in the process of starting my next feature which I haven’t told anyone about, but you really have been so nice to me so I’ll tell you what it is. I basically grew up as a child of theatre, I was in every musical in high school, and community theatre, everything, and I have really been tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to blend a musical and gay adult pornography. I was right in and out of it, I thought I had figured it out, but I didn’t, and I recently ran across two performers who both come from strong musical theatre backgrounds, they have amazing, beautiful voices. So I just met with them and everything fell into place, we went and saw Hedwig, and so the next project that I’m starting is called Porn Again, which is going to be a gay musical porn parody. That will start later this year. 

One of the things that we always try to do is not make the same thing over and over. I’m always trying to go somewhere and create something that is a challenge and different, but is also exciting and fun, and it’s like, let’s put on a play! This is going to be a big challenge because I want to have it work as a piece of entertainment and as a musical experience, while at the same time being sexually exciting. So these two worlds, all I know is that they lend themselves to this. It will either be a disaster or it will be great, but that’s always a fun place to start from. 

VT: Right, well, I think I mentioned this, but my background is in theatre, and I remember that in a musical, the reason that they sing is that the emotions become too much for words alone to convey. I see porn in a very similar way, and I’m amazed it’s taken this long for someone to put the two together, so I’m really excited about this.

JJ: Right, and I was looking because I was sure that somebody had done this before, and I did some research, and there may be something. But there’s this whole misconception about, whatever, theatre queens, and sometimes I feel like there’s a conversation about masculinity and sex within gay porn, and that’s something that I’m also trying to always live in. If you look at the guys that we shoot with, from Max Ryder to Colby Keller, I don’t have a type. We did this talk at Vassar, and they asked me my personal taste in guys, and I said I am a buffet guy (both laugh). I want an all around the world buffet, I want a little Italian, a little Mexican, everything, and that is really how I come at it in terms of the people I work with, and more and more I’ve found that if someone is young and skinny and beautiful and effeminate, that person shouldn’t be disqualified and labeled a twink. He should be able to explore these different sides of himself.

So that’s the challenge, and that’s what I like, bringing in the unexpected, pushing myself and my team, and all of our performers to try and get there.