The adult industry and its audience are only just emerging from the pandemic lockdown — at least in the United States, at present — a period when the consumption of adult products skyrocketed. The key role adult content plays in the lives of its consumers was always hazily understood but never fully appreciated until COVID, when it became crystal clear that many millions were turning to cams, clips, premium social media and favored paysites for companionship, solace and diversion.
That last bit about “diversion” has been a topic of great interest to Legrand Wolf, the co-founder of Carnal Media with his husband, Jay Wolf, as they shepherd the launch of their nascent Carnal+ streaming service that gathers all of their premium paysites under one roof. Their specific focus is on fantasy roleplay, from the fantastical transformation fetish of Growlboys.com to the rich symbology and rituals of Freemasonry with MasonicBoys.com.
We should absolutely embrace and celebrate that there is an outlet for this type of speech and creative art. We need to embrace fantasy for what it is.
Carnal’s offerings also include Gaycest.com, an award-winning and immensely popular paysite exploring “daddy/son” stories and themes that have been part of gay adult since the beginning. Legrand and Jay Wolf were among the filmmakers regularly producing fleshed-out fantasies in the genre when so-called “stepporn” or “fauxcest,” now called “taboo” content, grew into a behemoth that has utterly overwhelmed the straight sector with hunky stepsons, MILF-y stepmoms, lusty stepfathers and nubile stepdaughters — and on, and on.
If you want to confidently predict what straight adult will be facing just around the next turn in the road, look at the issues and concerns facing gay adult today. It happens to gay filmmakers and companies first. And what they’re navigating is a highly polarized political climate where certain words and ideas have become weaponized.
How does a company that works in the gay market and produces so much fantasy and roleplay content navigate these kinds of cultural shifts? How does Carnal Media continue to explore these ideas and themes in a way that is artistically satisfying and also something they can market authentically to a hungry audience?
“My husband and I grew up Mormon. Making sex taboo made it that much more enticing and so much more thrilling and exciting,” Legrand Wolf recalled. “It was always kept as this explosive thing right underneath the surface. It’s one of the reasons why people would say, ‘Find a closeted Catholic, or a closeted Mormon, and the sex is going to be insane.’ There’s so much pent-up hunger for this particular [‘daddy/son’] genre and it has been presented in a way that doesn’t really satisfy people’s interest. And so they’re hungry for this thing that’s being repressed. Which is fascinating to discuss.”
ADAMS: The “daddy/son” theme has been part of gay adult from Day One. What is the enduring appeal of it? The obvious place to start is the idea that some gay men didn’t grow up with the guidance and normal development process that straight cisgender men have and so that becomes a fantasy – the idea of the “father figure” becomes sexualized.
WOLF: Yeah, I don’t fit that at all. I grew up Mormon; my husband did, as well. We both had fantastic, very normal and healthy relationships with our dads. My dad, when I was 10 or 11, was traveling to the Amazon for business and took me with him. I went on this week-long adventure through the Amazon rainforest with my dad. We spent tons of time together. Every day we’d talk about things that were important to him, or important to me. We’d get up every Saturday and go fishing. My very straight older brother was not at all into fishing; I’m second-to-last and my dad and I were very close. Our interests overlapped a lot. We had a great hour-long conversation when I came out; he told everyone at church on Sunday, “Yeah, the Mormons are wrong about homosexuality.” It could have jeopardized his position in the Mormon Church and it didn’t faze him. So my experience is pretty different. I was very open with him about pursuing my interest in porn. He had some questions for me … but he said, “I think it’s really cool.” There was a lot of mutual respect, always. And that continues today.
So the “daddy/son” thing is much like my fascination with various realms of [literary] fantasy. I read J.R.R. Tolkien. I love the world of fantasy that was created by Tolkien. I don’t masturbate to it, but I can definitely immerse myself in that world of fantasy. I just absolutely love it. And I remember the first time I came across “daddy/son” porn … I've got to be honest with you, there wasn’t a moment where I thought about my own father. That’s real life. And that wasn’t what I was interested in.
I absolutely enjoy immersing myself in that fantasy; maybe [other people] like slasher films. You wouldn’t say, “You want to kill someone, that’s why you like slasher films.” No, there’s a certain fantastical element to it and they enjoy being scared or they like the drop — I’m not really a slasher-film person, but you see what I’m saying, right?
ADAMS: I do.
WOLF: And so that fantasy element, for me, felt really creative and intuitively, especially since there was an eroticism there, it struck me as something that exists in this world of fantasy and that’s where you can explore and play with it. And I was reading all kinds of other [stories] — teachers having sex with students, doctors having sex with patients — that didn’t exist in [my] world. And I knew that I wasn’t alone because the stories that I would read [online] that were “daddy/son”-based had the highest numbers of views and the highest numbers of comments.
Those chats, those newsgroups, had more people posting stories in that particular genre than any other niche. Some of it was badly written, but there was some great stuff and it wasn’t slim pickings. Clearly, I was among people who enjoyed this fantasy as a fantasy — there were lots of us. So to answer your question about the genre, it’s a big niche and it did not grow out of some childhood situation. I feel like that particular idea is something that people have leaned on when they’ve tried to understand themselves…
ADAMS: Exactly.
WOLF: And they’re looking for an answer. And so if they’ve happened to have a bad relationship with their father, then they fall back on it. That clearly wasn’t the case for me; I don’t have that sort of easy answer. For me, and I suspect for most people, it has nothing to do with their dad at all and everything to do with the fact that some fantasies are more compelling than others and draw us in.
ADAMS: I agree. Are you familiar with the idea that the absolute tidal wave of stepfather, stepmother, step-whatever — what the industry called “fauxcest,” but now we call “taboo” — comes from a craving for closeness? Where perhaps men were unable to express their need, for various reasons, for closeness and a deep kind of intimacy and this is how it manifested. It’s an interesting thought.
WOLF: It’s an interesting thought. But like lots of these things, when we do armchair psychology, just because we’re positing an idea doesn’t make it true.
ADAMS: Of course.
WOLF: I just suspect that it’s not that — it certainly doesn’t comport with my own personal experience. Fine, I’m a cohort of one. But I find it interesting when people posit these things and they gain legs — but they’re based on someone wondering out loud, “Why is this even a thing? I don’t really understand.”
ADAMS: There’s no one answer. It could just be the allure of the taboo — not to make a joke. The allure of the forbidden.
WOLF: Yes, and once again, here is where I can relate. Things that are more forbidden become more appealing in a fantasy [scenario]. Things that are more difficult to imagine in the real world — whether it’s dragons breathing fire or people with superhuman strength or “dad/son,” “mother/son” relationships — are so far beyond reality that they have an appeal. It becomes more appealing as a fantasy. The further it gets from reality, the more enticing it becomes.
ADAMS: You and Carnal have seen this happen again and again as you explore these various roleplay fantasies. The more you’ve decided to drill into these fantasies — I’m making all sorts of unintentional puns — you’ve seemed to reveal a thirst that hadn’t been deeply explored. Growlboys is a great example of this, which we talked about when you launched that site; and with MasonicBoys, the more you’ve explored the symbols and rituals, the more compelling people seem to find it. And with Gaycest, there seems to be a real desire for authentic fantasy roleplay. There’s such an avalanche of this kind of content and it’s usually just two people in a scene; they’re not doing anything to explore that dynamic. I imagine it’s frustrating if you’re into “daddy/son” fantasy stuff and all you get is two guys in a scene where one guy is 40 years old and the other is 24. Does that make sense?
WOLF: Yes. And this is a good segue into what we’ve just launched, which is [streaming service] Carnal+. Thematically, the sites that we do, whether it’s Gaycest, ScoutBoys, MasonicBoys, regardless of the fantasy, the reason you come to Carnal+ is for the fantasy element and rich storytelling. Like you said, if you’re a consumer of [fantasy roleplay] adult content, you’re probably pretty frustrated. I’ve seen this — over the last decade that I’ve been in the adult industry, and prior, when I was consuming stuff from the adult industry — when people would do Mormon missionaries. Throw a guy in a white shirt and don’t give him a haircut and he’s excited because he’s a “Mormon missionary.” No, you’re not! You’re just a big goof with a bad director executing a poorly thought-out script. Those guys would have been much better off shooting just standard suck-and-fuck porn.
When you’re actually trying to execute a fantasy, let’s see some real commitment to something beautiful. If it’s going to be a “daddy/ son” thing, then let me really believe that and let me become invested in it. Don’t slap “Step-” or “Family” on it because you saw that Legrand Wolf did it and then imagine you’re going to get the same attention or traction from the people who really like this particular genre. When we put everything under one umbrella with Carnal+ the idea was to sell people on this idea that fantasies are great and that you can really find fully fleshed-out fantasies and embrace them. You get to have an immersive fantasy experience.
ADAMS: We’re in an era now when certain words and fantasies are more of a trigger than they used to be. We could talk for another couple of hours about why that is. How does somebody who produces the kind of content that you do navigate these cultural shifts?
WOLF: Is it a trigger or is it something you’re not willing to say because Visa and Mastercard might not process [payments] for you? I don’t know. I have very little patience for people who talk about being triggered. If you’re so precious that you can’t hear a particular word, then don’t go to a comedy show, don’t read a particular book. Don’t go to college. I have no patience for that. If you don’t like what we’re producing, no one is forcing you to come to our website. No one is forcing you to [consume] something. I feel like we should all be standing arm-in-arm in the adult industry against that kind of bullshit. We have to stand up to it. If we don’t, our ability to have a fantasy or a point of view will erode and you start getting into the world of Thought Police and a very dystopian future that comes next. I hope we are willing to stand up to that.
ADAMS: The “War on Porn” is nothing new, but it seems to have taken a more dangerous turn.
WOLF: The “war” on porn is a weird thing; no one’s dropping bombs. What’s happening is people are effectuating very smart strategies to target particular elements of the adult industry and hit where they think they’re going to have the biggest success with the least [pushback]. For example, they’re not going to talk about porn [in general terms] because that would be a problem. Instead, they’re going to talk about “daddy/son” or “mother/son” because it’s a very taboo thing we can all agree should not happen in real life.
But then they want us to make this jump and say, “Therefore, we should absolutely not be okay with using the word ‘gaycest.’” Why? Porn is where fantasy belongs; it doesn’t belong in real life. In fact, you should absolutely do credit card processing for people who are willing to embrace the idea that porn is fantasy and that’s where it belongs. We should absolutely embrace and celebrate that there is an outlet for this type of speech and creative art. We need to embrace fantasy for what it is. We see the value in people embracing fantasy because they get their outlet. And where you have this “War on Porn,” or that people are antagonistic about what we do, I feel interested more than ever in giving consumers the ability to lose themselves in the fantasy world of porn as opposed to the real world.
Image source: Carnal Media
