CockyBoys Hits The Big Time: An Article In Cosmo

CYBERSPACEMorality in Media The National Center On Sexual Exploitation has had Cosmopolitan magazine on its "Dirty Dozen" list for a few years now, owing to the magazine's willingness to deal with all aspects of its readers' lives, including sex—and they've proved it once again by posting an article on gay porn collective CockyBoys on the mag's website.

Titled "Call Us 'One Erection'," a play on the popular boy band One Direction, and subtitled, "Why Straight Twentysomething Women Are Obsessed With These Gay Porn Stars," reporter Cheryl Wischhover chronicles a few days in the lives of this "troupe of gay porn stars" whose subscribers are, perhaps not too surprisingly, about 30 percent women under 30.

Founded by director Jake Jaxson and life/business partners RJ Sebastian and Benny Morecock in 2010, the CockyBoys "troupe" consists of about 30 "exclusive" performers (though only six to eight are active at any one time), and they and dozens of others "do their thing" at Jaxson's "Cocky Compound," a country estate in upstate New York, and also hold "meet and greets" for their fans at events like CockyCon 2016, which will take place in Chicago on May 27-29.

But, "These guys aren't 'just holes'—they send each other lovey messages online and are friends in real life," Wischhover reports. "Levi Karter, 22, a budding director, is the brooding one on-screen. Liam Riley, 22, a former competitive cheerleader, started doing gay porn at the behest of a crush and caused a minor scandal. [Tayte] Hanson, 26, a dancer and personal trainer, calls himself 'the slut of the group.' 'I'm openly fluid, meaning I like men and I like women.' So...? 'Have I had sex with a female fan? The answer is yes.' George Alvin, 23, who appears in a documentary series called Meet the Morecocks, recently retired as a CockyBoy known as Max Ryder and reinvented himself as an actor/stylist."

And the fact is, a whole lot of women just go nuts over these young studs. In fact, according to recent statistics gathered by PornHub, "18- to 24-year-old women are 24 percent more likely to watch gay male porn than other age groups. Gay male porn is the second most-viewed category by women on the site—'lesbian' is the first by a small margin—and women make up about 37 percent of Pornhub's gay male porn viewers."

Why?, one might ask. According to Dr. Lucy Neville of Middlesex University in London, "If a man has an erection and he ejaculates, that shows he's having a good time," but the 500 women she surveyed told her, "when I watch heterosexual porn, I can't be sure the woman is having an orgasm."

"Women definitely have a preference for gay porn where the men look like they are into each other, where they are smiling and laughing and touching each other, which is probably why the CockyBoys have been so successful [with women]," Dr. Neville told Wischhover.

And some of these women are really into their favorite CockyBoys. Longtime science-fiction fans can recall the days before the internet, when online fan clubs used bulletin board systems (BBSs) to communicate with each other—and some of the most popular boards were the ones where women posted their gay male fantasies about the characters from the original Star Trek, imagining Kirk hooking up with Spock or even McCoy, even knowing that none of them are gay in real life. Well, now the internet has several sites devoted to women's fantasies about their favorite CockyBoys hooking up with each other—and some have even gone so far as to bad-mouth other CockyBoys if they appear to be "interfering" in the sometimes real, sometimes imagined CockyBoy romances.

The full article can be read here.

Sadly, however, many Cockyboys fans weren't happy with the article—and they were ready to tell Jaxson about it.

"While the recent Cosmopolitan story was clearly tailored and targeted to their demographic of 'twenty something' women, it sadly did not fully represent the beautiful diversity of our community of fans, regardless of age and/or sexual orientation," Jaxson, Sebastian and four others posted on Jaxson's Facebook page. "Yesterday, I was saddened to learn that many people we love and respect were hurt and offended by this story. For that, I am sorry."

Jaxson noted that the genesis of the current Cosmo article was an interview the magazine did with female gay director mr. Pam; the editors were so happy with how that turned out that Wischhover "reached out" to Jaxson to propose doing a larger story on CockyBoys.

"After speaking to the writer, I felt comfortable that her intention was to create a sex positive piece that would celebrate not only our work and performers, but the very special dynamic, support, and love created by our community of fans," Jaxson et al wrote. "In all of my discussions with her and in my judgment, I believed she was approaching this respectfully and this would be a story that would celebrate sexual freedom and not exclude or divide.

"However, after a closer review of the story and in speaking to some of those who felt hurt, I realized the story has marginalized many and offended some of our most committed members and advocates."

The problem? "I can say with absolute certainty that neither myself nor any of the performers interviewed have ever said, suggested, or implied that any one segment of our fandom is or has ever replaced another. This is NOT WHO WE ARE and certainly not how we think, act, or behave ... ever! In fact, the concept of 'replaceable' is so repugnant to me that a huge part of both my personal and professional mission has always been to create, grow, and expand—in love and in life—through mutual respect and commitment."

The full Facebook comment can be read here.

But from an outsider's point of view, despite the objections raised by some of CockyBoys' fans, the Cosmo piece is bound to provide a fascinating look into a segment of gay male porn and gay society that many women (and men) may want to check out more deeply.