A backdrop of political advancements around the world gives many of them some air of inevitability. Such changes are unthinkable outside the digital age. When a lesbian couple followed suit at Tokyo Disney Resort this year, Masaki tweeted his congratulations. The same month, two women were wed in a Buddhist ceremony in Taiwan. Taipei’s annual pride parade now draws up to 50,000 people to the city, while Vietnam held its first one ever in the streets of Hanoi last August. Major cities like Tokyo and Osaka have long been hubs of gay life, but today international crowds flock to circuit parties in Bangkok and Manila, bringing commercial sponsorship in their wakes. And while there’s notably little resistance to same-sex relationships in Buddhist and Shinto traditions, none are officially recognized in any of the countries where those religions are widely practiced.
In recent years, anti-discrimination measures were adopted in Japan and the Philippines, but only at municipal levels. Prohibitions against gay sex remain on the books in several countries, often as vestiges of colonial law, and most of the places where it’s legal changed their statutes only within the last two decades. Gay rights and protections in the region are scarce and unevenly distributed. What’s more, Masaki seemed to have thought it his duty to look out for them, too. He created a role model who not only enjoyed gay sex but openly identified with it. Still, his decision gave many gay men more than just a recognizable face in the porn they watched. By forgoing anonymity, Masaki didn’t set out to remake society. Dark sunglasses, hats and blacked-out swimming goggles are common accessories in an industry whose overall value has been estimated at around $20 billion.Īs the Internet and social media continue to transform gay life, particularly in Southeast Asia, Masaki’s career hints at one of its biggest contradictions: greater connectedness isn’t necessarily driving a push for social progress - at least not in all the ways familiar in the West. Japanese censorship laws require blurring genitalia, but social stigma leads many performers (regardless of gender) to obscure their faces, too. “It’s my duty to take care of him,” Masaki said, glancing over at Tenten.īy the time he died from peritonitis after an appendix operation, at just 29, Masaki had established a celebrity persona in a business where such a thing hadn’t existed before. In the video, Masaki, soft-spoken and with a close-cropped beard circling his angular face, never talks explicitly about his work in adult film, but his many fans would have had no trouble recognizing him.
#How much do japanese gay porn star make series#
They were talking to the photographer Keiichi Nitta for a recent video series profiling gay couples for Vice Japan. I’ve realized that recently,” Masaki said, about his partner, Tenten, a model and Chinese expatriate that he met on a train home from a Lady Gaga concert. “It must have taken him a lot of courage to decide to live in Japan. Just two days before, gay porn star Armond Rizzo called out a studio for paying its sexually submissive performers less than their dominant scene partners, essentially creating a wage gap between tops and bottoms.Koh Masaki was Japan’s foremost gay porn star when he died one month ago today. It was the second time in the same week that the gay porn industry was criticized by its actors for unfair practices. "Now that I am more experienced, I feel like a model should make no less than 1k." "When I started out I was making $500 per scene," said Nic Sahara. "Back when I worked for Boycrush we were only paid 400-500 per scene," one guy replied while another said that as recently as last year, he only received $300 for his first scene.
"If you're a performer making less than 1k this isn’t me coming after you in any way," he said, "I just want everyone to realize what your worth instead of letting your studio decide for you."Ī number of models responded to the tweet, sharing just how much (or little) they were paid when they started out in the industry, citing specific studios who underpaid their performers. He clarified that he wasn't criticizing the models taking less money, but rather pointing out how studios might be exploiting their naivety. As performers can we go ahead and say that no one who is preforming for a studio should be getting paid any less than 1k a scene I hear about some of these new models scene rates and how multiple well known studios are knowingly taken advantage of young performers #1Kornothing- Joey Mills January 27, 2020