Mainstream Media Pitches a Tent for Colby Keller

Sometimes gay porn is a lot to handle. The raunch and the fantasy that we crave often clashes with our own realities. However, as gay culture slowly, uh, inches toward the mainstream, the porn industry is becoming very different from the one we grew up with.

The new generation of gay men wants fantasy but also reality and relatability from porn stars just as they do any other celebrity. It is because of this newly emerging market that Colby Keller has found himself not only porn-star famous, but profiled on thinky website Salon.

"I think what people find appealing about porn stars on Facebook and Twitter is they want a real person. They don't necessarily want someone who's always performing as a sex worker, and I think that may be a kind of a mistake a lot of people go down. I think people who have more successful porn personas are ones that are closer to themselves as human beings."

His blog, Big Shoe Diaries, is notable for being stimulating for your brain (in addition to, well, you know) and is deservedly getting some attention, thanks not only to the sexy photos but to smart writing and features like "I See Penis," which tracks phallic shapes in the world.

"We started off doing 'I See Asshole' and 'I See Vagina,' and then came 'I See Penis,' Keller explained. "For whatever reason the joke never wears off. There's always something a little funny about these penises because sex is something everybody thinks about and it's ever-present and finds itself replicated consciously and unconsciously all around us and yet we're supposed to ignore it."

This is probably one of the brightest quotes from a porn star we've ever read. heard. Moreover, Keller's views on sexuality are also worth probing.

Keller told the site, "There's something magical about sexuality... Penises are just these weird things you've got on your bodies. They change. They get hard. And they're visual, which is partly why when you get into a bathroom stall, you want to draw a giant penis on the wall... It's about redefining ourselves and who we are and what kind of role our sexuality plays in our everyday lives."

Photo by Greg Endries.