In front of a handheld camera, an attractive young couple cuddles on a bed. There’s an air of nervousness between the guy and the girl; they look both excited and anxious for what they’re about to do. Already, something feels different about this scene. The cameraman asks the guy to flex his arms, and he shows off his muscles with fratty amusement. The lens zooms in closer, capturing the details of the guy’s biceps and panning over his hairless chest. He may be about to fuck the girl he’s with, but he’s the one on display: the Hot Guy selected from hundreds of applicants to star as the lead in a HotGuysFuck production.
As straight-sex porn catered to gay men, HotGuysFuck (warning: NSFW) straddles a unique position in adult entertainment. Rather than emphasizing female genitalia like in most mainstream porn productions, HGF focuses “on the guys’ muscles, ass, dick and face each time he fucks in our straight-sex videos,” according to the company’s Pornhub page (NSFW, obviously).
But HGF, which uses exclusively amateur talent, has garnered an appeal beyond its core gay audience. It receives 200 to 300 applications a day from straight men hoping to shoot a scene, according to the company. Only about three of those are accepted, and only one will go on to fuck on film.
I recently spoke to Landon (just Landon), the co-owner of HotGuysFuck and its parent company, Blurred Media, about how his 13 years in the adult industry have informed HGF and what it means to shoot “real” straight porn for viewers beyond the straight male demographic.
So who watches HotGuysFuck?
Based on our customer support and Google Analytics, our demographic is everybody. All over the place. I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t watch. We have all walks of life watching our content. An 18-year-old girl, a 75-year-old man and everything in between.
Can you walk me through the process for a HGF film?
For sex, it’s literally as simple as press play and start. There are no rules. [Consent issues and boundaries are] sorted out prior to the shoot. We discuss do’s and don’ts. For example, the girl would say, “Absolutely nothing in my butt.” The guy would say, “Don’t scratch me.” [Then] the couples get to talk, get to know each other.
An hour or two later, we point the camera at them and start. There’s nothing else really to it. Start and stop. It’s pretty real. So it’s not like we’re cutting every few seconds and moving a tripod. It’s literally a handheld camera. We’re shooting the content as it is.
One of the things I can’t talk about is recruiting. That’s off-limits. [And] it’s not much. It’s kind of a trade secret. The most important things for us are the guys and the girls.
How do you ease people into shooting? What’s the process of getting them comfortable with a stranger and then, you know, maybe shooting their first scene?
We don’t. I don’t think we should. We actually prefer not to get them so comfortable. We don’t want to alter the way that they act, the way they may be. [It’s like] going to the bar or club, [seeing] somebody and [having] that initial, first attraction and then, maybe without words… I’m going to have amazing sex with that person.
Tell me a little bit about the idea that HGF is straight porn for a gay audience. How do you create that kind of gaze? What is straight porn for gay people?
The original idea was, straight porn, so to speak, that kind of catered to gay men. I think it’s constantly evolving. It started that way, but it kind of evolved as more and more people became open to this new sort of style. Our background has been primarily in the gay industry. We have a particular-looking guy who does well in the gay industry, and all we did was bring that over to the straight side.
Originally, the footage was totally focused on the guy. We started pulling out a little bit and showing them as a couple. That’s when [the videos] started to change, and it was just by accident. This entire thing has pretty much been by accident.
What’s the particular type of guy you’re referring to?
Our absolute perfect type of guy? The Abercrombie & Fitch guy, but naked. So, 18 to 24, limited tattoos [or] none. Although trends are changing — they can have tattoos now. We don’t want grungy, nasty-appearing guys. It’s supposed to be much more clean-cut. Guys who are going to the gym regularly who want to explore and have fun. College students. We try to cater to what most people would find appealing from the college athletic look.
And they’re all amateurs?
Everybody is generally a “first time.” We actually deny porn stars. We get porn stars who hit us up, but we don’t film them. They’d need to be introduced. We’ve always been big advocates of fresh faces. You will probably not find any porn stars on our site unless they became porn stars thereafter.
Is that true for the women as well?
Yeah, most of the women are all first-timers. Although, we’ve been seeing more of the women move to being porn stars, where the guys seem to be just kind of having fun.
Do you think there’s more freedom for young men to play around in the industry?
Yeah. I think HotGuysFuck has become a bucket list. People literally have been waiting until they’re 18 years old to hit us up and fuck on camera. I think everybody, at one point in their life, has wondered what [they] would look like [in adult content]. More than the money, it’s the experience they’re getting out of it. The girls, maybe it’s a little more for the money. But I think the guys would do it for free.
You know, it’s just kind of taboo, adult content. You hear these stories about this-and-that and scary porn sites and what happened to the models. And I think because we [at HotGuysFuck] put so much of the content out there and it is real and you can tell it’s real, we get the [performers] who are more experimental. It’s like, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to do it!”
Why do you think that’s a turn-on for viewers?
I can tell you, being in the industry for 13 years, I can’t watch most porn. I know how fake it is. When you watch our stuff, you know it’s real. You know what most companies would take out. When guys can’t get hard or [get] performance anxiety, we keep it in. We want people to see the real shit.
But this kind of realism — guys who can’t get it up — isn’t exactly what people think is sexy.
Those videos ended up being very, very, very popular because of the guys who failed. I look at the failures, whenever it happens, as, like, hell yeah. I’m actually happy about that. It’s a breath of fresh air: Hey, sometimes your guys can’t get hard! Sometimes they’re virgins. We’ve probably filmed half a dozen virgins. You get to watch [them lose their virginity].
Do you think this offers a healthier alternative to the way people’s view of sex is shaped by porn?
You’ve probably had sexual experiences yourself where you’re like, “Ah, it wasn’t as good as porn.” But when people see our stuff, they’re like, “I can relate to this.” People know that other [more professional adult content] is great and wonderful, it looks incredible, but they can’t really relate.
What other genres have you worked in?
The beginning of my career? Definitely gay.
How did that background inform HGF?
What’s my most valuable asset from an adult gay background? Which guys sell. I’ve got the type of guy that sells well.
Why do you think that’s a thing in gay porn? The appeal of the straight man?
People are becoming more open in general. We shoot gay, straight and bi content, and more people are like, “You know, I’ll try the bi scene. I’m kind of up for that.” Maybe [straight guys] are bored, maybe they want to try different things. There’s more gender-bending happening [too].
HotGuysFuck — and, more importantly, [Blurred Media’s latest venture] BiGuysFuck — are actually going to become more relevant. On Instagram, people are basically naked online. As the younger generation keeps pushing these boundaries, HotGuysFuck and BiGuysFuck will only get more and more popular because people will be open to it.
Magdalene Taylor
Magdalene Taylor is a staff writer at MEL. She covers internet culture, sex and the online adult industry. She lives in Brooklyn but is from God's Country, Western Massachusetts.
