Specifically, I read Rapid’s transition to bareback in line with the concept of time, which has particular resonance with bareback. Yet, I also take the opportunity-writing several years after this critical moment in Rapid’s career (in 2018), and then at the time of revision and publication several years after that again (in 2021)-to reflect on the success of the campaign.
This process reveals a decidedly negative reception of Rapid, the promotion of bareback as event, and the quality of the bareback performance itself, all of which I read in accordance with what these narratives have to tell us about bareback at the time. My qualitative method-textual analysis in the cultural studies tradition (see Fürsich, 2009)-is used to interpret audience reaction to this debut (both the performance itself and the notion of a ‘star’ being used to promote a bareback launch event), drawing out key themes for discussion. How was Rapid’s immense popularity leveraged to help launch a new “rough sex” porn studio? Did this move help to revitalize Rapid’s fortunes, who aged 23 at the time of his bareback debut, was a twink performer nearing the end of his expected porn lifespan? And what insights into the mainstream integration of bareback and ageist restrictions normally placed on twink performers are to be gained from textual analysis of audience reactions to Rapid’s bareback debut? Audience reactions that, as I note briefly, also reveal certain class-based assessments of Rapid and his infamy at the time.
#TEEN ANIME PORN GAY SERIES#
3 Rapid’s success in 2018 appears to have been buoyed by his highly publicized bareback debut a few years earlier (in 2015, in a series known as Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback), which forms the focus of this article and raises questions that are still relevant at time of revision and publication (in June/July 2021). 1 He was also named as the second most searched for gay porn star in Pornhub’s 2017 “Year in Review” annual analytics report (beaten to the top spot by relative new-comer William Seed, also a Men exclusive) 2 and was the 2017 recipient of Str8UpGayPorn’s Best Gay-4-Pay Performer award. At time of writing, toward the close of the last decade (November 2018), Rapid was just five scenes short of his 200th scene with the studio, and while his age was beginning to count against him, remained a major player-ranked Men’s “most liked” performer with more than 6,800 audience ‘thumbs up’. Johnny Rapid began his porn career at the start of the 2010s as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, shooting scenes with Boys First Time and Bukkake Boys before signing with Men as an exclusive and releasing his first scene in November 2011.
Through this reflection, I arrive at the conclusion that the time was right for an aging twink performer to be freshened-up by a transition to bareback-similar transitions of which have become widespread across the gay porn landscape in the intervening years between the 2015 Johnny Rapid Goes Bareback event and the present day, thanks in no small part to advancements in HIV prevention technologies. I read the case study in line with the concept of time, which has particular resonance with bareback. Yet I also take the opportunity-writing several years after this critical moment in Rapid’s career-to reflect on the success of the campaign. The analysis reveals a decidedly negative reception of Rapid, the promotion of bareback as event, and the quality of the bareback performance itself, all of which I read in accordance with what these narratives have to tell us about bareback at the time. This article explores a critical moment of going bareback in the career of arguably the biggest gay porn performer of the 2010s, Johnny Rapid.