YouTube star and sexual health vlogger Calum McSwiggan is sad.
It seems he’s spent six years running from a gay porn past that he hoped wouldn’t come back to haunt him, but since he’s spent a lot of his YouTubing career advocating for gay sex ed and HIV testing and safe sex, it does seem kind of hypocritical that he was once a 19-year-old bareback cam performer.
You can see an example of one of the videos here that he made with two pasty twink pals back around 2010 or so (and here are some stills), and as Calum explains in the new vlog above, this all started because he got fired from a job for being gay, he was in college, and he and his friends figured out that this was a really quick way to make a buck. Also, he says, he thought that only doing live shows would save him from the embarrassment of porn videos living forever on the internet, but that turns out to have been naive, because people recorded and saved them for posterity.
He does get weirdly prudish about it all though, and suggests that a lot of guys who get into porn are doing it unaware of how it might effect them later on — it’s the same with tattoos, to be honest.
Also, and this is just fucking dumb, he’s shocked and saddened by the fact that so many people watch porn on the internet — more people than watch his dumb YouTube channel. “The sad thing is, some of those videos have more views than my most popular YouTube videos,” Calum says, “and that certainly takes its toll on your mental health. Knowing that someone would rather watch you take your clothes off and look at your body than listen to what you have to say… that is not an easy pill to swallow.”
Really?
He does say that while “the porn industry often preys on the young and naive” he makes exceptions for those who aren’t doing it naively. “If you want to do porn because you are super passionate about it, that’s great and that’s wonderful.”
Anyway, Towleroad and Pink News and everybody else have picked up the story, and he hopes that this doesn’t “annihilate” his current career, such as it is.
But I hadn’t even heard of Calum McSwiggan before all this. Had you? A sex tape is the perfect way to get your name out there, Calum. Congrats!!
I’ve seen him mentioned on a couple of websites.
He acts like he’s the first person who’s done gay porn to have a YouTube channel, news flash guy, nobody cares.
Rustin Charles (Levi), Colby Melvin , Blake Mitchell and Casey Tanner all have very successful YouTube channels that include pretty much zero sexual content.
So I’m confused why he thinks his porn videos make him a social pariah. People on Internet are more turned off by pretentious/ judgmental tools than they are people who like to screw for a living.
What he did took a lot of courage. He already stated the amount of criticism he’s received so the fact that you simply haven’t yet heard of him is irrelevant information.
I strongly agree with his purpose of outing himself in hopes to bring perspective to naive viewers who may be seriously contemplating the exact same issue themselves. Your standpoint on the issue is exactly what I would expect from such a site. I laughed at your tattoo reference. Yeah! Very similar. Glad you’re being honest—it really showcases the accountability you have as a blog writer. Leave the kid be.
who?
Yeah, the best way to bury a porn past is to create a youtube video about your porn past. As a 19 year old adult, if you are unsure of how your behavior may negatively affect your future, then maybe don’t do it. And definitely don’t do it on camera. I find it difficult to believe that this kid is as naive and braindead as he’d lead us to believe… i mean, he knows how to turn on a computer, and he knows how to walk upright. Which makes me tend to believe that this is just a simple publicity stunt for a kid scrapping for attention. Perhaps there was chatter in his own little circle, but now he has publicized something to the world that the world wasn’t asking about.
This guy is British so maybe that’s why you didn’t hear from him… The most popular gay guys/couples on YouTube are almost all American. Cultural proximity so to speak.
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Although I follow this guy on YT I was disappointed by this vid. Too much about gay porn shaming.
What a hypocrite, I took a look at his youtube and a lot of his video thumbs is him showing a great deal of skin. So no I do not feel sorry for this kid trying to act innocent. Wjhy should you even be ashamed of this.
This guy disgusts me
I wish him the best. It’s tough now that everything we do sticks with us forever.
I hope he makes peace with his porn past. There’s nothing to be ashamed of (except maybe the hypocrisy of the barebacking/safe sex message). And he should probably be a little less judgy about porn. I mean, he did make a year’s rent in a month. He’s probably encouraging more than dissuading.
Let’s stop judging people for making the porn that we watch. As gay people we should support each other whenever we can. The guy’s not a murderer or Republican or anything like that.
Maybe if we’re all a little less judgy, guys like this won’t have to regret their porn pasts anymore. More sex, less judgement, please.