I know nothing about the business of porn, gay or straight, and not much more than that about prostitution, gay or straight.
I will say that, back in the days when New York City had active street prostitution, and lots of it, the gay prostitution strips were worked by desperate drug addicts for the most part, who needed twenty bucks, or even smaller sums, right now. Plenty of straight boys working those streets.
Yeah, listen to some early Ramones songs. Some of the boys had experienced this.
I remember that film! And, the reaction of one of the actresses to the “stunt cock”: “He was joost so beeg!”
I remember going out drinking with a bunch of people from my adult dodgeball team, which would have meant the summer of 1998, and a couple of us were debating whether health insurers should be required to pay for Viagra. This was an issue at the time since the drug was beginning to enter the public lexicon.
Gay for pay is absolutely a thing in Eastern Europe. Here’s a piece from 2010 about the scene in Prague. The Bel Ami guys, for example, are totally phoning it in. https://www.pri.org/stories/2010-03-24/special-report-gay-4-pay-prague
My theory is that it has to do with adolescent wish fulfillment. One thing most gay men have in common is the experience of spending our teenage years lusting completely unavailable straight boys while having to avoid the appearance that we’re lusting after said boys (& being trust into much closer contact than boys & girls get with each other). That’s why the idea that every “straight” man will have sex with another man if they’re horny enough. That being said in every video when it’s supposedly the performs first time with another man it’s really, really oblivious that he’s done this before. 
I assume too, that over the last 20 or 30 years (since VHS, and especially since the internet and DVD) that the porn industry has gone more upscale in terms of money made, money paid, and the quality of actors that fit the part.
That is not my impression at all. There was a short window after VHS and DVD and before the proliferation of free and amateur porn available on the internet that allowed for high salaries. Now that’s no longer the case. Anyone with an iPhone can be a porn “star” or producer but for the most part they aren’t making much money per scene.
Viagra was launched in 1998.
Before that, they had Caverject. Don’t Google that on a public computer.
They injected that there?! eek
After I graduated in 1994, I worked with another pharmacist who had a desk job, and was almost totally bald even though he was barely 40 years old. His head would also turn red if he heard the word “Caverject”, and people would casually say that as they walked by his desk, just to watch his head turn red. It never stopped being funny.
I will also add that I told this story before here on the Dope, and other people accused us of, among other things, sexual harassment. Maybe it was one of those “you had to be there” things.
As for insurance coverage, I have no idea what it is now, not having practiced for a while, but most insurance companies that did cover it paid for 6 tablets a month. Medicare Part D(isaster) and Medicaid do not pay for it unless it’s used for any of a number of rare circulatory diseases, and it’s easy to tell the difference because it’s not dosed the same way for that. Some insurers also had age limits (usually 50) and required proof of a pre-existing condition in younger men. And most people would be quite surprised at how many women also use it for sexual dysfunction.
I have nothing to link to but I do recall from an episode of Pornicopia the narrator stating that the majority of male actors in gay pornography did identify as straight in their personal lives. while I don’t remember the exact episode I do remember the statement as I thought to myself “no amount of money, Viagra, or both would ever motivate me to have sex or even simulated sex with another man”.
Which gets back to what I said about sexuality being a spectrum. There are some men who would never have sex with another man for any amount of money. There are others who would never do it for fun, but would still do it for the right price, and for some of them, the right price is a price that porn producers are willing to pay.
Although this has nothing to with whether actors in gay porn are straight I just wanted to follow up on this one point. Mia Khalifa has been the #1 or #2 most searched for porn star over several years. She made a total of $12,000 for the scenes she did and gets no residuals from sites that show her scenes for free. The money isn’t what it used to be.
Yes. I’ve had it done for diagnostic purposes, and it’s as unpleasant as it sounds; I can’t imagine routinely doing it as a prelude to sexyfuntimes.
NO amount of money?
This reminds me of that old joke where a guy asks a woman if she would have sex with him for 5 grand cash. When she says yes he asks “how about 5 bucks”. To which she exclaims “Five dollars? What do you think I am!?!”.
You already told me what you are. I’m just trying to negotiate a price.
Some of us, however, are beyond reproach when it comes to these matters.
I’ve known a few gay porn actors. They ones I’ve known are all gay.
Do you not understand why people thought you were being a size large jerk in that thread?
Until recently being gay was nearly universally seen as a bad thing, even fairly commonly among gay people. So I’m sure most gay porn actors prior to, I don’t know, 2005? would say publicly that they were straight, and just doing the gay thing for a paycheck, if they thought it would save face among the non-porn-professional crowd.
Also, I’ve used Viagra, and it isn’t an aphrodisiac. It doesn’t cause arousal, it just makes sure that if you’re aroused, the plumbing all works flawlessly. And I’ve read Quora answers by actual porn stars who said drugs of any kind are forbidden on set, and that includes Viagra. I know I’ve seen enough softies and semis in the porn videos I’ve watched to believe it.