July 4, 2013 | Sex & Society

Cocky Boys owner forced out of the porn closet

It seems like everyone is just a few degrees of separation from the porn world. Last week the New York Daily News investigated the role of  Glenn Greenwald, the news reporter from The Guardian who brought to light the extent of  National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance programs via whistleblower Edward Snowden. This resulted in the porn outing of Jason Buchtel, one of the owners of Cocky Boys, who had been working under the nom de porn Jake Jaxson.   

How did this come to be? The Daily News discovered that several years ago Greenwald and Buchtel had been business partners operating several gay porn sites. Newspapers do not generally honor porn names -  they go by legal names - and name they did.

Buchtel has now blogged about the matter at JakeJaxson.com and says the main reason he has used a pseudonym was to protect his adoptive parents, who are very religious. They had come around to accepting him as gay, though they still thought it was a sin. Expecting them to tolerate his choice to work in gay pornography was more than he was willing to ask.  In fact, he chose to cut ties with his family rather than lie to them. 

There are two main reasons porn people use pseudonyms: to protect themselves in their future career and relationships and to prevent embarrasment of or judgement by family members. While porn has moved into the mainstream and most people would be more intrigued than judgemental, there's still a stigma attached to it, especially among older and religious individuals.

Buchtel concludes, "The truth is out, the dots are connected, and exorcising it from my reality is like removing the rock off my back, the sand out of my eyes, and the pebbles from my shoes. I am free."