Last October, another renowned performer, Pheonix Fellington, similarly raised the issue to over 150k Twitter followers while announcing his departure from studio productions. I have seen some rates as low as $100,” he explains. “A lot of times they will ask my advice on offers from studios and those often include the minimal scene rate offers. Mills noted that his current employer pays him fairly, but that he was inspired to speak up by new models who reach out to him for advice navigating the industry. I would also like to see models banding together and not only agreeing on a baseline rate but standing their ground when it comes to negotiations with their studio of choice.” If not all of them, at least the larger and more profitable studios. Speaking to Dazed, Mills elaborates: “Ultimately, I would like to see studios join together and agree that £1K will be their baseline publicly. Mills recently shook up the gay porn world by tweeting a suggestion that “no one who is performing for a studio should be getting paid less than 1k a scene”. In less than three years, Mills has climbed to the top of the industry, racking up 14 awards, over 200k Twitter followers, a published biography, and a coveted exclusive contract at gay porn juggernaut Men.com. The occasion stimulated more than a few conversations about work conditions and performer pay (in my own award presentation for Best Newcomer, I encouraged nominees to “ask for more money!”) In its wake, a few performers have grown more vocal about the subject, including gay porn wunderkind Joey Mills. Gay porn recently rung in its own awards season in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, where performers from all over gathered, partied, and gossiped with each other outside of a porn set. Then there’s the necessarily smaller scale of gay companies, where an ethos of queer family can keep many models beholden to employers that value them in ways they’ve rarely experienced. For one thing, it’s difficult for us to openly express grievances about our labour conditions without being coopted by efforts to stigmatise and prohibit sex work altogether. These factors are obscure to most people outside the industry. They zone out when I talk about it like any other freelance gig – how uncertain future work can be, how bookings can abruptly eat up my calendar, or how hard it is to assess and demand your own worth.
They want to know how I prepare, how long I’m on set, whether I think my scene partners are hot.
When people ask me about gay porn, they’re mostly curious about the sex, not about the admin.