“Why do gay porn stars kill themselves” offers an intimate account into Conner Habib’s experiences in gay porn, and examines the cultural misunderstandings and attitudes regarding the recent suicide of gay porn star Arpad Miklos.
Habbib says:
The theories appeared as soon as the news did. It was immediate, like flies to a corpse. Theories arrived before grief, before honor and love and the experience of loss. When a gay porn star dies, instead of an outpouring of grief, we usually witness a buzzing.
All of this is to say that not even death can trump many people’s confused and hostile attitudes towards porn and porn performers. That is how deeply injured we are as a society when it comes to sex, sexuality, and love.
Habib’s essay complicates notions of how gay porn performers are perceived by themselves, the studios, their audiences, and society at large.