ODJINUD

In Czech Republic, Gay Porn Pays the Bills

29. 3. 2010

For less than 5 thousand Czech crowns, thousands of Czech heterosexual teenagers are accepting to risk their lives with unprotected sex and to ruin their futures with images that may haunt them later.

In a special report for GlobalPost, Iva Skoch delved into the gay porn mecca, where a multitude of factors have made Prague the world's capital in gay porn, especially a willingness to have sex without a condom (bareback) for a few bucks.

In the Czech Republic, some 50 gay studios are currently working around the clock making gay porn.

Veteran gay porn director William Higgins explains why he uses ''more masculine'' heterosexual men and also why he thinks Czech men are more willing and more available than in other countries in the report.

The news documentary says Higgins produces pornography for 1/3 the cost that it would in the United States. Actors get about only 3 thousand Czech crowns to have unsafe anal sex on camera.

The piece also shows the boys are given Viagra or worse: injections of Caverject, a substance which produces an immediate erection.

Many of the "actors" are actual local police officers, firemen, nurses, and college students, who are given assurances that the videos they star on will not be distributed inside the Czech Republic. Of course they do not realize that soon their images end up on the world wide web, then even their friends and family may accidentally find them having homosexual intercourse, without condoms, for amounts they often spend within a few hours.

Liink to CBS News: HERE

GAY PORN IN CZECH REPUBLIC

The average gay porn actor from American movies until the early 1990s was a mix of obvious prostitutes, looking for some couple of hundred dollars for the next drug fix, who were obviously not enjoying the acts, often even showing their disgust about what they were doing. Or they were heavilly artificially tanned gays, whose constant use of steroids to become muscular led to slabby hard-ons, which turned off most consumers, who though had not much of an option but to get what was available in the market for their sexual fantasies. And they were mostly in their lates 20s or early 30s.

But then came George Duroy, the artistic name of a former director of television comedies in Slovakia, during communism. After the revolution, he went to study filmmaking in one of the best schools in the world, UCLA. Because he needed more money than he imagined to survive in California, and he found out how much gay porn magazines like Playguy and Jock paid for photographs of good looking naked men, Duroy bet on an idea he was not even sure would be of any success. He put an ad in a newspaper in what was still Czechoslovakia, where he announced he was looking for "male models for erotic photography" .

He thought he might get one or two guys -- "It was such a curiosity that when I walked into bars and restaurants I would find the ad pasted up on the walls! At this time I had a telephone in my mother's house and -- poor lady! -- it rang non-stop", he exclaims.

When he showed the results of the hundreds of pictures taken of the huge number of models to Joachim Frederick, from Freshmen magazine in 1992, he begged him to take more -- as many as he wanted, because he had never seen such high quality pictures before and would buy them all. Soon he found out he could film them as well -- a much more lucrative business.

He started a trend that would change gay erotica. Names like Martin Valko, Dano Šulik, Kamil Kraus, Erik Kovač, Tomáš Belko, Lukas Ridgestone and Johan Paulik became well known all over the world, from his gay porn pieces.

The name Bel Ami comes from the title of a classic book from 1885 by Guy de Maupassant, about a fictitious journalist -- the unscrupulous Georges Duroy -- and his use of sex to go up the social ladder.

The former ČSTV director took the "s" from the character's name and started to use it as his nickname, not to be recognized by his former colleagues and the general public.

Bel Ami has so-called talent hunters in more than 10 countries, but they say that the easiest to recruit is, by far, the Czech Republic. Why is it so easy here to convince a heterosexual young male to engage in sex with another man?

While in most cases, in other countries, those who venture in this kind of business are youngsters desperate for cash, in ČR they are more than often middle class young men who study at universities.

It is believed by some experts that a combination of cultural factors make Czechs such an easy prey. First, the secular upbringing, where religion plays no role or at least is not very strongly enforced at home -- while elsewhere the boy would make a decision that takes into account the feeling that engaging in a homosexual act is inherently bad -- a sin, disgusted by God --, or at least morally wrong, in ČR that factor has very little or no weight. There is a general amorality, especially among the youth. Being a nation of pragmatists, the main consideration is the money. And the lack of a culture of "machismo" also plays a role.

Czech men are not expected to be strong and above human and the military-like upbringing of kids in this country, with mothers and teachers suppressing their children's egos, free decision-making processes and independence, affects their behavior later on, making them less inclined to become macho-types, less confrontational, less daring, less active. Thus, when having to decide about having sex with another man, the main consideration is practical: the money.

I asked Marek P., a 21-year-old Economics student from Ostrava why he accepted the 6 thousand crown offer from Bel Ami to masturbate in front of a camera. Without changing his facial expression and in a calm voice answered that "6 grand in one hour? Isn't that a great deal? They paid me to have an orgasm, what else can I say? Generally I am the one who has to pay to have one", he joked. I wanted to know if he did not fear that in the future someone could find out and thus damage his image, but he does not, because "to see me they would have to be in another country and have a membership of belamionline.com. Well, if they have a membership, they are gay, so it will not be my mother or friends..."

Another Bel Ami model, who is studying civil engineering school in Prague and made already seven films, justifies that he sees nothing wrong in this kind of work, rather the contrary: "while shooting a scene, I always keep in mind that I am not hurting anyone, but actually giving pleasure to so many millions of gays out there, who, like I love to see naked women and straight porn, also have the right for their fun". He thinks of himself as someone who "plays the fantasies of other types of human beings, ones who like the same gender for sexual satisfaction and there is nothing wrong about it".

Because of the success of Bel Ami and the iconic status that Czech guys achieved among all over the world, many followed suit and came to Prague explore the niche.

Besides being the gay porn capital of the world, this apparent easiness in taking heterosexual young males to bed with other men makes of Prague also one the top world destinations for those looking for male prostitution.

Derek and Simon, two Scottish gays who even rented an apartment in Prague to be able to come visit at least once a month, thanks to the cheap flights from Britain, told me that while in Glasgow the male prostitutes are expensive, dangerous and are not too open to certain sexual practices, Czech guys are pretty much willing to do whatever is asked of them for less than 50 pounds."

It is estimated that the Czech gay porn industry makes somewhere between 10 to 20 million euros per year.

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