DALLAS - This time the report about violence in the adult industry was not a publicity stunt: Gay adult performer Mason Wyler was raped, beaten and held at gunpoint at his home in late September. GAYVN.com confirmed that an incident report was filed with the Dallas Police Department.
The seeds of the assault were sown several months ago, Wyler said, when he corresponded with a fan online. The fan told Wyler he was a captain in the U.S. Army, he lived in Kansas and he was about to ship out to Iraq. The fan asked Wyler if the two of them could meet while the fan was in Dallas visiting family before he went overseas. Wyler, 24, said yes and the two men spoke online several times after that, but they never met. Wyler assumed the alleged captain had changed his mind about meeting or had run out of time before he was deployed.
Then, in late September, Wyler left his wallet on a table in a Dallas club.
"I always wear tight jeans, so I take my wallet and keys out of my pocket and lay them on the table when I sit down," he told GAYVN.com. "The next day when I realized I'd left my wallet, I called the bar, but they didn't have it."
Wyler went online later that day to chat with fans and friends, and an instant message popped up on his screen. "Remember me?" the messager asked.
It was the alleged Army captain, who sent Wyler pictures to help him remember and then said he thought he had found Wyler's wallet and wanted to return it, asking, "Can we hang out?"
Wyler, who is in a committed relationship, said he didn't feel comfortable meeting the man at a club. However, when the fan showed up at his apartment complex with the wallet and helped Wyler's boyfriend carry groceries from the car, the pair let him in the house.
The meeting started off pleasantly enough, Wyler recalled.
"The guy was hotter than his pictures," he told GAYVN.com. "Real big and muscular. Me being who I am, I felt him up and then kissed him. He kissed me back. Then his shirt came off; then my shirt came off...."
The assailant-to-be told Wyler he was into muscle worship, and that suited Wyler just fine. When he wanted to move into edge play, Wyler said he figured "Why not?" He let the alleged captain bind his wrists, then blindfold him and later tie his ankles.
"That freaked my boyfriend out," Wyler said. "But I was like, you know, he's going to Iraq and we're being safe."
Wyler's assessment of safe changed the moment the man pulled out a gag.
"I've always been afraid of that," he told GAYVN.com. "I don't breathe well through my nose, so I breathe through my mouth a lot. When he wanted to gag me, I decided it was time to stop."
The captain, however, wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and when Wyler's boyfriend tried to run for help, he brandished a gun to enforce his will.
Wyler said the gunman repeatedly raped both him and his boyfriend over the next five hours. He beat them. He sodomized them with foreign objects and injected them with what may have been drugs.
"I thought it was a piss enema at first," Wyler said, "but because of the way I felt afterward, I don't know."
Wyler said things became a bit confused after that. He remembers loosening the restraints on his wrists and finding the assailant's gun within reach. He said he tried to fire it in the direction of his attacker's voice, but the weapon either wasn't loaded or was only partially loaded. Nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. The effort earned him more physical and verbal abuse. At some point, Wyler heard the assailant use a phone to invite others over to participate, but he can't say for sure whether any arrived or how many others may have participated.
"Eventually, I got so exhausted from fighting him and the drugs, I didn't even care anymore," he said. "I thought we were going to die."
Wyler isn't sure how he managed to get out of the apartment and go next door seeking help. He thinks the assault must have been over by the time he sought assistance from his next-door neighbor, who he believes is straight and a cop.
"Initially, that's what I thought would save us," he told GAYVN.com. "I knew he was home and the walls and floors are so incredibly thin, I didn't see how he could not hear what was going on. Of course, I had this mask thing [made of tape] over my head, so I couldn't scream."
If the neighbor heard, he ignored the ruckus.
After being questioned by police - whom Wyler said accused him of bringing the assault on himself by making his living the way he does - Wyler and his boyfriend were taken to Parkland Hospital. It was just another indignity that the hospital Dallas County trusts to take care of indigents and crime victims charged him $100 for a rape kit and to examine his injuries.
Also of concern to him is that the police confiscated a cell phone, a digital camera and a computer from his residence, and he's been told he may not get those items back once they're entered as potential evidence. Ironically, the police did not confiscate an item left behind by the attacker: a wallet containing business cards, a hotel key card and cash, but no ID.
Of more concern is that he still doesn't have the results from the sexually transmitted diseases test or the foreign substances test administered at the hospital. He doesn't know what drugs he was given, if any, and he doesn't know his health status.
To make matters worse, after Wyler posted about the attack on his blog, industry insiders and fans began to accuse him of dreaming up a publicity stunt to get attention. He said he also has received threatening emails addressed to his real name at the email address listed on his MySpace page.
"My boyfriend is terrified that someone knows who we really are and where we live," he told GAYVN.com. "He was just destroyed by this."
In fact, the boyfriend is so fearful that the men have moved to an undisclosed location and are maintaining a low profile and hoping not to be recognized. Wyler said he changed the details of the assault when he posted them to his blog in order to allay his boyfriend's fears, but that hasn't made the boyfriend feel more at ease.
Changing the details also encouraged people in the industry to accuse him of making the whole thing up - especially since he posted a violent rape fantasy on the blog early this year. He said that after reconsidering the tone of the post, he removed it in May.
"I can understand why people would think I had it coming to me and I deserved it," he said. "But I don't want people thinking I did this for attention. I love attention, but I didn't do this for attention. This was real."
Wyler said he's coping with the assault better than he imagined. He has not become leery of sex or of most people, although he said he is much more cautious about where he goes, who he talks to and how he expresses himself these days.
"Even some of my darker fantasies have survived," he said, "but I know I would never do those things in real life."
It's funny, he said, that he should be told he deserved the assault because he's a porn star.
"I am so not what people think of as a porn star," he said. "I've never done drugs, never been to a gay event, never been to a pride event, never even been to a circuit party. I'm a big [World of Warcraft] player; a geek."
In fact, he said, the only thing he has in common with the rest of the gay community is that he likes to have sex with other men.
Nothing about September's unfortunate event has scared him away from the adult industry, he said. Not even being stalked on the set of a movie last summer could do that.
But he does want his story to stand as a warning to others in the industry.
"Be aware that looks can be deceiving," he said. "[My attacker] didn't look like a rapist. What does a rapist look like? Just be careful."
GayVN
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