The Maverick Men aren’t for everybody. And they’ll probably never be a Falcon or Raging Stallion or Sean Cody. But if you’re wondering what the gay porn will look like in five years, you’re probably seeing it on Maverick Men first. Five reasons why, after the jump …
1. It’s done on the cheap, but it still has character.
Most of the sex happens in the same apartment we’ve seen a thousand times, but it doesn’t look like a set — because it isn’t. These aren’t the Crate & Barrel bedrooms of Sean Cody, or the generic hotels of what used to be called ‘amateur’ sites. It’s Cole and Hunter’s own Boston apartment — and sometimes the stairwell, or the park around the corner. They film it themselves, rather than using a cameraperson, and yet you forgive the awkward camera angles because it’s authentic. They don’t pay their models, but they get excellent performances because they want to be there. Now that margins are tight, the ‘lucrative hobby’ model is one of the few viable models left for new studios.
2. There’s no story, but there’s plenty of narrative.
We all know the story — two committed tops seek out bottoms to help their sex life. You never see Cole or Hunter in costume, or trying to read lines, or doing anything (really) other than just trying to get laid. And if they fudge the spontaneity sometimes, it’s easy to forgive. Stories — at one point central to porn videos — have already dropped to near ironic status.
3. There’s no ‘type.’
While all their sleepover guests are bottoms, nothing else really unifies them — sometimes it’s a bearded hipster, other times a skinny black teen. If you’ve got a great ass, the rest doesn’t really matter to them. As a result, they’ve got some of the most diverse content on the site. While it’s doubtful subscription-based studios will move in that direction (or should), the aggregators — think NakedSword’s Netflix model — will succeed based on breadth of content.
4. It doesn’t end when the camera stops rolling.
They’re everywhere — Twitter, Vine, Facebook, you name it. I mean, sometimes it’s a little much. Still, they bring you into the process in a way that would have been unfathomable ten years ago, thanks to social media — from picking the guys to editing the videos to pumping gas (sexily). Lots of porn stars tweet, but few really involve you the way that Maverick Men do. It’s fitting that YouTube star Chris Crocker chose to give it up on camera for them first.
5. They love what they do.
Maverick Men started as a free XTube account. And while they can now make a living roaming the country hunting for cherry, they seem more than happy to give it away. In fact, you can easily get off just looking at previews on their blog. And if you keep overhead low, you can continue doing it forever.
Will the porn industry morph into a thousand Mavericks? Probably not. The Maverick Men’s advantage is also their Achille’s Heel — what an audience tends to pay for is consistency. The young, muscled and smooth boys of Bel Ami are a great example of a site that knows its market and is still thriving. Not everyone has the Maverick’s catholic sexual appetite.
And who knows how long Cole and Hunter’s enthusiasm will last — something once interesting might at some future point become more of a chore. (Staghomme started out with a similar conceit as Maverick, but has morphed much more of a business once Damien and Francesco broke up.) But what you will see and have seen are more established businesses being influenced by their success — think NakedSword’s recent Porn Star Sex Tapes series, or Cockyboy’s Austin Wilde/Anthony Romero sex documentary. But while it lasts, it’s pretty fucking amazing. And pretty amazing fucking.
MORE:
Maverick Men Blog (via Maverick Men)
Maverick Men Video Gallery (via Maverick Men)
Related:
The Secret Economics of Gay Porn