Brent Corrigan, Porn Star

An Homage with some Considerations about Porn in General.

Part 1: The Look




The future is hard to predict. We do not know for how much longer Brent Corrigan will be producing porn; his ambition aims into the direction of a career in theatre and film. Apparently dressed. And being aware of the fact that crossover careers from porn to mainstream are rare but not impossible one can assume that having a career in both, mainstream AND porn, simultaneously, is probably not working.
Brent Corrigan has set his mark in porn already, no doubt. You could say, five years are half a decade, who started earlier can retire sooner. Yet I do not agree that “Big Easy” has been an achievement that cannot be topped. Even though it points in a fascinating direction I still see a lot of potential that has not been fully exhausted in this project.

In that sense I do hope that Brent will go beyond the limits yet again, but I know him well enough to be sure that he cannot be pushed in any direction, not into and not out of porn.
So if his adult career as a very young man slowly comes to a halt this seems to be in any case an appropriate moment for an homage. Most of this has been written some weeks ago and was originally planed as an argument as to why I see the bottom (or the woman in straight porn) as the centre of attention, as the ruling person in any porn movie. The ground for these arguments has been paved by my earlier reflexions on penetration and enjoyment in porn. http://lana-e.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
I felt provoked to express these thoughts in public by certain signs of weariness about his status as premium bottom Brent showed in his blog (in comments to the post http://myblog.brentcorriganinc.com/?p=895 now gone due to technical reasons) Even though I would not discourage his ambition to strive for higher goods such as being nominated best performer or best personality for the awards of his liking I wanted to make clear that the status of best bottom should not be underestimated.

Brent Corrigan is a creature of many faces, but I never considered it appropriate to label him a “boy next door” kind of type. He is the rather unusual sum of unusual elements. And it is one danger of the trade he is in that the beauty and appeal of the performer is being dissected into an assemblage of fetishes and partial objects. In order to not end up as a monstrosity, and be it a monstrosity of beauty, one needs one strong feature, one element that dominates and outshines the rest. And counter to commonly held opinion in Brent’s case its neither cock nor ass, but his eyes. Catlike and heartbreakingly androgynous when he was in his teens. Nowadays still large, hazel and doe-like, but displaying a decidedly more masculine expression sparkling with ambition and intelligence, sometimes even mischief.
However, we rarely get to see them in his movies. And maybe with good reasons. To be addressed by such a strong expressive gaze would almost intimidate the lusting stare of the porn consumer focussed on his/her favourite body parts.
It is interesting to note that the extensive convention of female porn actors addressing the camera, habitually glancing ridiculously submissive glances at the anonymous spectator while gagging on a cock, does not have an equivalent in gay porn. This is all the more notable as other mannerisms of submission, including making eyes at the top while giving head, are clearly very similar. There is something about the theatrical act of the female performer confessing to be a whore and a slut that does not translate into gay culture. One reason might be the convention of “naturalness” in gay porn. Any exaggerated theatricality would be perceived as “drag queen like”, and drag queens, for very disquieting reasons, are excluded from the realm of sexually desirable subjects. SM porn is a significant exception though; it is loaded with hilarious and utterly unnatural displays of dominance and submission. Yet even here, no direct addressing of the camera.
While this riddle stays unsolved for the moment we return to Brent who likes to keep his lids half closed to display a row of silky eye lashes that could inspire yet another eccentric fetish in me. This predominant expression signals that the subject is completely involved with his own enjoyment and the gratification of the other. He is utterly concentrated and concerned. He acts as if we would not be there, we and our obscene accomplice, the camera. Lately he has created a situation for himself that allows for an undisturbed and smooth dramaturgy of the scene, directed from the inside by the main protagonist. In the old days though, the dirty old Cobra days, there were very discreet moments when we see young Brent suddenly dropping out of the little bit of role-playing that is needed for a sex scene and glancing a private, brief, annoyed look at the camera that apparently is the reaction to some director’s command balked at him and cut out later, commands such as “Moan loader” or “Push your dick down”. It would be a wonderfully nerdy sports, – and I encourage the readers to do so, – to produce stills of all those little moments; and reconstruct what the commands might have been.

In this particular example of EPBD the command probably was to lift his right arm which he does the next moment very slowly and deliberately.

Since then the professional in him has established certain moments to consciously open his eyes. The submissive look upwards while serving a cock, as in “The Porne Idenity” is “done” and slightly fake. Closer to an authentic expression but still a convention is the look that hovers in between addressing the audience and the in-scene partner to announce imminent orgasm, like a moment of testimony. This almost desperate expression, as in “Velvet Mafia”, the second scene, combined with contorted neck muscles and lifted shoulders, is a truly heartbreaking and deeply arousing mixture of acting and experiencing it for real. Still, it occurs only rarely and in larger productions, such as the one by Falcon, where “acting” it bigger is demanded.




I personally love the announcement of a male orgasm in porn, as it seems pure luxury. There has been a lot of discussion within the feminist critique of male dominated porn about the obvious, visible character of male ejaculation, – the “money shot” –, in straight porn and how it dominates the dramaturgy of any scene. Which is absolutely true. Still, to the extent to which the male orgasm is also a matter of enjoyment and not only a sign of a job being accomplished it has its own imaginary dimension. That’s one reason why I, – as a female porn consumer, – strongly reject the demand of some feminist porn activists to simply ban it from any woman-friendly porn. What a childish revenge ! So if, – probably rather in gay than straight porn, – a man is sighing “I am coming!” to announce an event that everyone can see he might also give the cameraman a sign where to point the camera. But in addition to that he supplements the anatomically obvious with voice and facial expression as if to perform a split in between the physical and the symbolic dimension of the act. After all, all we get to see is some white liquid oozing or squirting out of a tube. The fact that this is accompanied by intense lust and emotion only a human voice and face can testify to us. By doubling this seemingly banal event with its announcement the male orgasm regains a certain dignity and mystery that some like to ascribe to the female orgasm, even though in most cases, – and mine for sure, – it is as much of an anatomically distinct and punctual event, and sometimes as mechanically achieved, as male orgasm is.
It is by the way truly amazing, – and to me much more of a scandal than the display of male ejaculation, – that this mysterious and cosmic event that some men see in the female orgasm is in general absolutely absent from straight porn. The women do never announce or display any particular moment when they actually come, if they are not squirting. It appears that an event without a visible equivalent is not worth marking. Thus the female curve of arousal and release that in real life has its specific structure and demands different practices and rhythms of sex is absent from straight porn. Women whimper and moan from the first to the last moment of intercourse as if being tortured by a permanent orgasm born in the anatomically ignorant minds of some men. This convention is for sure far more damaging for heterosexual relations being influenced by porn, and a far stronger sign for male dominance in straight porn than any display of ejaculation. It signifies that woman does not have her own time and timing in porn and really only serves as a tool for male gratification.

In general the Brent keeping his lust to himself and the Brent openly looking into the camera are two very different creatures. The moderation of the scenes in “Summit” shows him too slick and businesslike to blend well into the passion of the scenes. And he even seems to comment on this sharp contrast between performance and moderation in the brilliant little epilogue, the beautifully photographed performance of a full body orgasm with his head hanging over the edge of a couch, seemingly ignorant of the camera, but then staging the interruption of a private experience with the cameraman (probably Grant) shouting “Hey Brent!”, and with a jerk of the body coming back to his still heavily breathing but alert moderator’s self apologizing for not having been able to resist.



It seems that Brent has to push himself a bit to look back at us. But there is one quite hidden little performance that bridges the gap in between looking and not looking in the most tantalizing and seductive way; and it is significant that it occurs in a very intimate solo scene in which every glance is not directed towards an anonymous audience but personally towards the cameraman; the cameraman Grant Roy who as a (then still or already former) boy friend and business partner was able to provoke all sorts of teasing, flirtatious but also slightly annoyed expressions.
In the solo of “Just the Sex” Brent changes smoothly and rhythmically between looking at us (at Grant) and at himself. Every look seems to comment on the desire his body evokes in the onlooker and thus heighten it. Still, in a tiny, unnameable shift this look can melt into a genuine offering of himself. As if the diva-like, annoyed expression of “Is this what you want” can tip over into a warm, open “Do you want me?” in any moment. Those amazing eyes seem to arrive at an expression of real vulnerability and devotion the more they try to keep a cool, sober, slightly amused look. And we drown in their dark soft glow while Brent is playfully slapping his pale swollen dick against his stomach with adolescent yet charming pride.