This has been one of the best years ever for Manhunt Daily interviews, largely thanks to contributions from Karsh and Lawrence. We had Boomer Banks tell us that his butthole’s better than Taylor Swift, we had Mike De Marko explain how he wound up in a video with Taylor Swift, and we had Eli Lewis doing stuff that had literally nothing to do with Taylor Swift.
Sadly, none of those posts made today’s countdown—and, for some reason, Taylor Swift turned down our multiple requests for a chat about the gay hook-up scene—but we’re definitely happy about the interviews that showed up when we ran the numbers for overall popularity. Sean Xavier, Dirk Caber and Conner Habib got delightfully nerdy with us, Killian James and Joseph Rough provided us with differing views on Truvada, and Jaxton Wheeler and Bennett Anthony demonstrated the fluidity of sexuality by explaining their (very different) reasons for bedding both men and women.
If you rewind back to last year, this list was delivered in two separate parts, composed by Lawrence and yours truly based on our own personal experiences. Lucky for you, I was better at tagging individual interviews over the past year, so you’re getting the cream of the crop based on traffic alone.
Note! I’ve omitted Manhunt Man of The Week interviews with gay porn models Darius Ferdynand, Scott Hunter and Adam Dacre. Don’t worry, though, because I’m pretty sure you’ll see those three on another Best of Manhunt Daily post coming soon…
– Dewitt
Photo credit: Raging Stallion
Take a look at the most popular interviews of 2014 below:
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10. JOSEPH ROUGH:
On the intimacy of dom/sub dynamics: “If you really trust your dom, they can push your limits and show you parts of yourself you never knew you had. For me, it’s always been somewhat spiritual and I feel that these experiences have really been instrumental in me becoming the man I am today.”
On doing both condom and bareback scenes: “I didn’t want to do bareback when I first began for fear of being a bad example for my viewers. But with the advent of PrEP, that has changed. There are more ways to have safer sex now than just using condoms, and I think it’s a great thing.”
On spare time and hobbies: “I love records and have a massive collection of vinyl that I’m constantly expanding. I also visit museums with relative frequency. Twentieth century art history was also a major focus in my undergrad studies, and it’s important for me to stay engaged in that discourse, so I try and maintain that as much as my lifestyle allows me to.”
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9. KAYDEN GRAY:
On finding his confidence: “There were times when I was so shy I couldn’t bring myself to ask a stranger for the time. You could say that confidence, in my case, has been the result of a long journey rather than something I could ever take for granted. And it turns out being an adult performer really works for me. It’s definitely one of the most liberating decisions I’ve made in my life.”
On his past as a pop singer: “I spent quite a few years pursuing a career in singing, songwriting and music production under the name Voytek until 2010, when my debut EP Lollipop was released. I quit recording music shortly after.”
On his fantasy group scene: “I have a few fantasies, top of which would be a gang bang with some of the Bel Ami and Cocky Boys together. My passion for jocks, sports gear and group sex would have us in a locker room, post football training, sweaty, covered in grass and mud and — needless to say — horny.”
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8. ANDREW JUSTICE:
On becoming a favorite on The Ten: “The first week I was on the competition, I saw the guys I was up against, and I never imagined I’d have a chance with such a group of gorgeous sexy men. Each week, I am still amazed when the results come out. I thank everyone who has voted for me.”
On finding love within the industry: “My boyfriend of over a year is in the same business, and we frequently travel the country together. He’s actually the first man I have ever dated, and we are having a nice vacation before he starts school in a few weeks. So it will be challenging to be traveling alone again. But I am sure I will have a lot of men to keep me warm at night!”
On how he’s not your average porn star: “I’m not like a lot of the guys in porn, since I don’t like going to the gym all the time. I absolutely loathe it. I love eating as well. Two weaknesses that do not go well with being naked for a living, although it seems to work okay… I don’t have sex because I am paid to. I truly enjoy sex. I enjoy being someone’s boyfriend for a few hours, a day or a long weekend.”
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7. LEVI MICHAELS:
On sharing his world via YouTube: “The largest influence on my decision to start a PG-13 web series was just listening to those who follow me, people who enjoy my work asked to see more of me, and sometimes the side of me they wanted to see, I couldn’t express via simple text updates. YouTube provided a great venue for me to be able to express a visual personality and connect a little more with my audience.”
On the stigma of sex work: “I think there will always be a stigma about sex in general, especially in an austere, puritanical America. I think it’s unavoidable in a country that has such a high religious population that there are varying views about sexual acts for pleasure. So in turn, people who act freely upon those urges and desires will always seem, at least to a large percentage of people, a bit taboo.”
On the kind of sex he loves: “I have my life very together and I’m very much in control of most of it, so it makes sense that it’s a bit euphoric for me to lose complete control in the bedroom when I’m with a partner that I trust and that I’m attracted to… I still suppose I prefer vanilla. I just like it when it’s a little rough.”
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6. KILLIAN JAMES:
On why he started filming porn: “I really entered into the escorting profession with the intention of not getting in front of the camera. However, throughout the past few months, I’ve met some really amazing people in the industry such as Howard Andrew, Austin and Tyler Wolf, Leo Sweetwood, Boomer Banks… All of a sudden, being a part of the adult entertainment industry seemed natural and something I had to jump into.”
On demanding respect as an escort: “I’ve declined many potential clients because something just didn’t seem right, or because they were rude and didn’t approach the situation correctly. I like to make it known that I am a professional providing a real service, and I will be treated with respect. In turn, the client will be treated with respect. Without respect, there’s nothing.”
On condom usage and PrEP: “People are going out and intentionally being risky, thinking it’s okay because they are on a pill. If it were 2020, I think there would be more scientific support and that the public would embrace PrEP more, but it’s so new and not many people are on it. I think at this point it’s still irresponsible to not use condoms.”
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5. CONNER HABIB:
On the subject of his book: “It’s about pinpointing where, along the line, our culture got our screwed up ideas and attitudes about sex. We tend to think that our attitudes about sex are somehow inherent; like ‘that’s just the way it is!’ But in fact, we can look at specific moments in time or specific concepts and say, Oh! That’s where we messed it up! So the book does a lot of that, and I also try to give some solutions to get us moving forward instead of being stuck.”
On his dream scene partners: “Colby Jansen. Bravo Delta. Valentino Medici. There were some rumors that Steve Kelso might turn up and make some gay porn, but I don’t want to get too crazy thinking about how amazing that would be. So, yeah, Colby, Bravo, Valentino.”
On advice for aspiring porn models: “Sexy and pretty are not the same thing. Someone can have an eight-pack and giant pecs, but that’s not ‘sexy’; that’s just pretty. Be yourself. If you have an eight-pack, okay great. But make sure, whatever you look like, to tap into whatever it is that makes you sexy, and don’t compare your body to other people’s bodies. Understanding your own sexiness – as opposed to trying to look pretty/buff/whatever – will help you stay grounded and secure.”
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4. BENNETT ANTHONY:
On his experience at Folsom: “I’ve never seen so many harnesses! So that was a lot of fun. Lots of public fornication, and I danced in bars all weekend… It’s like an Eagle, or any dirty gay bar, except it’s outside and eight blocks long, and there are women. So it’s very open. It’s a little crazy seeing people tied up to every single street light and stop sign.”
On enjoying sex with women: “What I can’t believe is how many girls I’ve started having sex with since I started doing gay porn. Maybe I had a confidence thing about myself before, but I’ve got this new idea of myself that I can have sex with whoever I want… I don’t go around telling people I’m bisexual. I tell people I’m gay, because I go to gay bars and have gay friends, but at the same time, I had sex with this girl and stayed hard for four hours.”
On being a redhead: “I mean, obviously I understand that that’s my niche. I’m not going to fight it. I love the fact that I have red hair and that I stand out in a crowd and that I have a giant ginger bush that I don’t trim so that I can have as much red hair as possible. I know some guys with red hair who get offended by the word ginger. I’m ginger just like I’m a faggot.”
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3. DIRK CABER:
On working with MEN.COM: “I’ve worked with studios where there’s just so much setup involved in the production. This was much less formal, but they produce fairly polished results. I’m actually surprised how well they looked. But they produce a scene a day, basically. It’s kind of amazing how much content they produce. They’ve been fun to work with.”
On classical music: “I’m still looking for a brass group in Boston, like a brass quintet. Singing’s slowing down a little bit, too. But I’ve been working on the reconstruction of an operetta that was found in an attic in Vienna about a year ago. The score’s sort of war-beaten and missing pages, and I’ve been trying to reconstruct it.”
On his kinky roots: “I do love the S/M, because you have to be so much more creative. It’s more than just finding a scenario where two guys end up fucking. Why are you tying this guy up? And how? You can’t just beat the shit out of somebody.”
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2. SEAN XAVIER:
On balancing porn and school: “I’d like to launch my own brand where I stand in front of a chalkboard, slowly stripping, as I’m educating on the finer points of discrete mathematics… I’ll write ‘largest’ on my cock, and stroke it until it’s fully hard, to demonstrate optimization. I’m sure it’ll work.”
On why he enjoys working as an escort: “There’s something remarkably intimate that comes from escorting. In an hour, a day, weekend, or a week, you learn some of the most cherished secrets held (in many cases for years) from men that are too afraid, shy, inhibited, or repressed; and, you have the privilege of being part of their expressed vulnerability… I have had countless men cry in my arms, because after one meeting, they have shared more with me in a few hours than they have shared with their wives, families, partner or friends in a lifetime.”
On the most surprising thing about him: “I’m really getting into the whole female condom thing. As a top, it gives you the same “free” feeling that you have when you’re fucking bareback, and as a bottom, it’s surprisingly more comfortable than a traditional condom.”
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1. JAXTON WHEELER:
On steroid usage: “Let me put it this way. If you see anyone in this industry with muscle, or their shoulders look like boulders… They are on juice. It helps with performance as well. I just got back on almost a month ago, but I do very little at a time. I’m just trying to slim down and cut up as to sharpen my image, but the better you get yourself to look, the more pressure to maintain that look. Being in the public eye when you’re baring all is a lot of pressure.”
On identifying as bisexual: “Though I can only date women, and they are my personal preference for regular sexual encounters, I have no problem being naked around another man and interacting with them in such a way that is sexual. If you ever catch me at a bar, you’re not going to get me into bed if you’re a guy, unless you know my rates or unless there is a woman involved as well.”
On upstaging Johnny Rapid: “The kid isn’t a star. He’s new and gullible. If I had the help he has getting into this—with the hook-ups for pushing social media attraction—my name would of landed hot on the scene too… But I started off barebacking for Chaos Men and didn’t care too much about promoting myself.”
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Andrew….Justice…
Jaxton….Wheeler..
Dirk…Caber..
Bennett…Anthony..
Can’t get through the rest of them because I’m gasping for air.