I’m seeking some guidance on some things. If you wouldn’t mind too much, I have many questions for you. First I want to ask you how to become a role model for younger kids. I myself am just about to turn 18 and I haven’t really had any gay role models that I knew personally. Also, I wanted to ask your opinion on how to deal with my fairly conservative family and bringing boys around. I have zero experience with that.
Just A Southern Boy
What part of the country do you live in?—Dan
Rural Mississippi. Pretty much the worst place for LGBT people in the states.—JASB
Are you planning to stay there? Are you going to college?—Dan
I don’t intend to stay here but I have some health issues that may require it. I may go to college eventually but at the moment I’m considering modeling.—JASB
I don’t think you should worry about being a role model at this stage of your life. Just figure out what you want to be and what you want to do and be yourself while doing it and you’ll be a role to kids already in your orbit without setting out to become one. As for family, how long have you been out?—Dan
A little while but it wasn’t intentional. It was really a weird thing. Sort of got caught with a guy. It was a huge deal at the time.—JASB
Give them some time (but not forever), and a some space (but not limitless space), and refuse to be anyone other than the person you are (but not in a reckless way). Let them know you love them and that you expect their love and support in turn.—Dan
I have support from some friends and a bit from family but I feel like my life goals are being sabotaged.—JASB
Your only leverage over your parents as an adult—an independent adult (it doesn’t sound like you’re quite there yet)—is your presence in their lives. If they don’t come around figuratively, if they only want to love some of you, you don’t come around literally. If they tell you in a few years that you’re welcome, for example, to come home for Christmas but you’re not allowed to bring your boyfriend with you, tell them you will not be coming home for Christmas. But what do you mean by sabotage?—Dan
It’s my mom, mostly. I work with her. She badly wants me to stay at this job even though I hate it and have said so many times. I have said I intend to model and I’m fully confident in my ability to do so. But I wonder if they would even allow me to travel for work. I’m doubtful they would.—JASB
Oh, wait. That kind of modeling? I thought we were talking about role modeling. Derp, derp. I’m half dead here—sorry. Well, modeling is a hard gig to get and it only becomes a sustainable/lucrative career for a select few. It’s something you might be able to do for a few years, if you’re lucky, and you might make some money and travel and have some amazing experiences. But the odds of a long career in modeling are long. Maybe your mom is worried about that. You also can’t really do much modeling in Mississippi.—Dan
I’d travel to California to do it. I want to model but it’s not typical modeling I mean. I’m considering working for [bareback twink porn studio].—JASB
I would discourage you from modeling for [bareback twink porn studio].—Dan
Okay. I understand.—JASB
I would discourage you from doing porn until you’re in your twenties, if you ever do porn at all. Some corners of the gay porn industry are notorious for chewing up teenage twinks. A career in porn is a fun fantasy but reality may not jibe with your fantasies. And I say this as someone who has friends who are porn stars and I say it as someone who runs an amateur porn festival for folks who want to have some fun doing a little porn on the side. But I have friend who’ve made commercial porn for fun and most have nothing but good things to say about the experience. However, JASB, I also know people who fantasized about doing porn—and people who thought porn would be their ticket out of a troubled environment—who wound up being very disappointed by the difference between their fantasies about porn and the realities of porn.—Dan
In what way? I’ve heard of a few stories about people who have been fairly successful. I can’t imagine its very common but even the slightest success in porn would earn me more more than anything I could do here in Mississippi.—JASB
Doing porn also closes certain doors. There is a stigma, and it’s unfair, and sex worker and porn stars are fighting it. (And porn stars scored a big victory today.) But the stigma is a reality. There will be things you won’t be able to do at 28 or 38 if you do porn at 18. That could include returning home, if you needed to. What is it you do in Mississippi now? And what are your health issues?—Dan
I have a menial job with the county and the pay is low. I have an auto-immune disorder that makes it difficult for me to do any sort of physical labor. A person can’t tell just by looking at me, but my disorder results in my being fairly weak physically. I am of small stature and just not physically strong enough for the kinds of jobs that exist where I live with my family.—JASB
That sounds rough. Is physical labor your only option besides porn? There are no desk jobs—in Mississippi or elsewhere—you might like doing? What else are you interested in?—Dan
I’m pretty healthy. But the average employee around here can work circles around me and not cost the company or the county as much as I do. (I use up a lot of insurance.) I’d like to become a public figure of some sort. Maybe become a public face for people living with disabilities like mine, as well as the public face for disabled LGBT people in some way.—JASB
Then focus on that.—Dan
Would you suggest? A YouTube channel?—JASB
It certainly worked for Tyler Oakely. (YouTube, not XTube.) But you would be better off finding a school with a good queer studies program and a good disabilities studies program—they’re out there—and applying. Don’t worry about what it costs. Just apply and see about financial aid after you get accepted. A disabled queer kid from Mississippi is likely to get financial aid. Get an education, start writing about the disabled experience and the queer-and-disabled experience, create a YouTube channel and speak about both, and see where it takes you.—Dan
Ha ha. Alright. Thanks! I didn’t expect to have a conversation with a famous person to be this helpful. I honestly didn’t expect a response at all. You happen to be one of my queer role models.—JASB
It was nice chatting with you. Please take care. And don’t put too much stock in the promises made to you by people recruiting twinks for porn studios. Not all of those guys can be trusted.—Dan
Some good advice about a queer career…which to Elmer Fudd would sound like the same thing twice.