One day in late June, all the stars and planets aligned and two friendly pornstars landed in our laps. Ready, open and willing to be heavily oiled and ordered into various states of undress, James Huntsman and Trystan Bull were a dream to work with.
They walked into photographer David Hawe’s studio, put down their backpacks and took off their high-tops and every stitch of clothing. Hot, buff and gifted in the dink department, the boys stood in front of me with looks of innocence and trust; it was both heartbreaking and boner inducing. I quickly fell for them and their carefree confidence and gladly adjusted straps in hard-to-reach places and wiped sweat from brows and other areas.
Then the fantasy ended.
While one of the pornstars is flexible, the other is clearly straight. After the shoot, I looked up some of his work to verify my suspicions, and it all became too obvious.
One of my goals as
fab editor is to use as much of Toronto’s real talent as we can. Gay photographers, writers and hotness for our covers — we’re all over this city and I want to show us off! So when I learned one of our cover models is straight, my heart sank. Had I failed? Had the huge dongs and abs of steel distracted me from the bigger picture? I felt really uncomfortable after the shoot.

Then, like a rainbow dolphin, Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” floated into my mind and everything became clear. As much as I want to feature gay Toronto realness, a quotient of fantasy must remain. We’ll have lots of “real guys” on the cover, but every once in a while there needs to be something unreal. Untouchable. Unattainable. Putting slick, rock-hard pornstars on the cover doesn’t mean readers should aspire to be that. They’re not an ideal, but more of an idea. Something impossible to drool over, dream over, jerk off to and put back on the coffee table.
A lot of the underwear featured in this issue is also completely unrealistic and won’t even fit properly under your clothes, but that’s not what it’s about. Take a trip to The Bay underwear section, and you’ll get a good dose of the everyday.
In the end, the pornstars were super friendly and willing to do anything we asked them to. So he’s not straight-up gay. He’s open, eager and has a great sense of humour about it all. And for a brief moment, sometimes that’s all that’s needed.
Also I think the editorial addresses your comments on the nail. Did you read it?