J. C. Adams - Writing Career

Writing Career

Adams moved to Los Angeles, California in 1992. He began writing articles on various sex-related topics for Sex Vibe, an occasional magazine published by AIDS Project Los Angeles. He continued to contribute to the publication until its demise in 1998.

In August 1995, Adams began writing reviews of gay porn films for Adult Video News (AVN), a trade industry publication covering the straight, gay, bisexual, and transsexual porn industry. In 1997, the Adam Gay Video Directory, an annual publication of gay porn film reviews produced by Knight Publishing Corp., hired him to write reviews for the next edition of its annual film guide.

His work for AVN brought him to the attention of the gay adult film industry, and in 1995 he worked as a coordinator for the Gay Erotic Video Awards (GEVAs), an annual gay porn industry awards show sponsored by Gay Video Guide. In 1997, he became judging and nominations coordinator for the GEVAs, and continued in that role until the final awards show in 1998.

In 1998, Adams began reviewing gay porn films for RAD Video, a major online retailer of gay, straight and bisexual mainstream and adult films. That same year, Adams began writing a monthly column for the company's Web site in which he reported on industry events, technology, scandals and other newsworthy topics.

Adams' first published mainstream work was a portrait of gay adult film agent and former rock promoter David Forest, which appeared in Genre magazine in October 1999.

Adams also began writing for Unzipped magazine (formerly Advocate Classifieds) in 1998, contributing articles, reviews and interviews with gay porn stars. He was hired as the publication's editor in June 2000 after the editors decided to relaunch the biweekly publication as a monthly, and produced the first issued of the new Unzipped (August 2000 issue). He left the magazine in January 2002.

Adams began syndicating his gay porn industry news column in March 2002. It began running on adult film Web sites such as NakedSword.com, but also on sites such as the mainstream GLBTQ portal site, OutinAmerica.com.

Adams did a great deal of freelance work for various gay porn studios during this time as well. He helped Sports and Recreation Video publish a print magazine, Inside Porn, from 2001 until it folded in 2003. And he did freelance publicity work for several gay porn studios, including All Worlds Video and MSR Videos.

He was hired by MSR Videos as a full-time publicist in November 2002. In 2003, he became a production manager for the studio. He left MSR Videos in October 2004 (the studio folded in January 2005 after the death of its founder and owner, Tony Alizzi).

In 2004, Adams wrote an article for the peer-reviewed academic publication, Journal of Homosexuality. The article, "Sex Pigs: Why Porn is Like Sausage, or the Truth is That-Behind the Scenes-Porn Is not Very Sexy," discussed why adult film sex work is, in fact, work. The article was published as a chapter in the book Pornucopia: Eclectic Views on Gay Male Pornography, published by Haworth Press in 2005.

Adams has continued to work for the "Adam Gay Video Directory" since 1997. In June 2005, the company hired him as editor of its monthly gay porn review magazine, XXX Showcase, and as editor of their annual directory. The first issue of XXX Showcase he edited came out in August 2005. The first annual directory he edited covered gay adult films for 2005, featured Hot House Entertainment on its cover and was published December 2005. His second edition as editor featured Raging Stallion Studios performer François Sagat on its cover and was published December 2006. Adams' third edition as editor was published in December 2007 and featured COLT Studio Group performers Adam Champ and Carlo Masi.

Adams is at work on book titled It Just Happened, an oral history of the gay adult film industry.

"I was going to call it an oral history," Scuglia tells me, "but people kept giggling. It's about how the Falcon aesthetic has infiltrated the mainstream via advertising and popular culture. Look at any fashion magazine and you see those naked, hairless, androgynous male models—and where does the aesthetic come from? Falcon movies! If you want to predict the next trend, just look at gay porn."

The "home base" for Adams' column is currently GayPornTimes.com, a Web site which he also helps manage and edit.