The company that I was working for, they had a series of films with guys that come for the first time to shoot porn. That got me a second audition, which was filmed. So I took a 25cm dildo and started showing off with it for the camera. He wanted to make a film about Israeli guys, and I was living near Tel Aviv at the time, in Holon. He’s the one I worked for across my whole career. The first film I did was called Men of Israel, by the American producer Michael Lucas. I started browsing porn sites and sending emails out to all the mainstream companies and then I got a break.
There are of course lots of ways to be famous, but I was a 23-year-old guy, I looked really good, all my partners always said I already knew the job, so everything was adding up. Porn always really excited me but not only in the sexual way, I guess you could say I was an exhibitionist. Before that I worked as a make-up artist and hair stylist, but I was looking for something else to do. Below, we interviewed Agassi about what he learnt from working in the gay porn business for seven long years and over 67 porn films. The film looks at the perks of being a porn and live sex show performer (travel, money, hot guys), Agassi’s heartbreaking relationship with his mother and how the sex industry can take its toll on your emotions. *George and Callum have changed their names to protect their identities.In the documentary JONATHAN AGASSI SAVED MY LIFE, director Tomer Heymann follows the Israeli gay porn star Jonathan Agassi from his first audition to the end of his on-camera career, which was prematurely brought to a halt by a serious drug addiction. approached AllAustralianBoys for comment but they did not respond. I do definitely recall thinking, ‘I’m not comfortable and I want to abort’ but being an anxiety-ridden person I didn’t think I could.” “At that point in my life, I was heavily and chronically depressed. Red flags went up but the young Queensland man says there were a number of reasons he didn’t walk away. “We weren’t told explicitly, ‘We’re going to get you to take your clothes off and have sex with another man on camera’. In that high-rise apartment, Callum was told that “whatever happens, happens”. It isn’t until you’re in the room that you realise what’s going on.” There was no mention of exactly what would be happening. “The man gave me a card and told me to turn up at a hotel on the Gold Coast at a particular time. “If you got tapped on the shoulder you were successful. “He showed me a newspaper clipping which I thought was a bit low tech but I wasn’t concerned that I was to get harvested for my organs.”Īll the videos are filmed on the Gold Coast.Īt a cafe in Brisbane, Callum and “two dozen other guys my age, early 20s” gathered for a man who appeared to be aged in his early 50s, who told them they would be modelling “trunks, boardies and Speedos”.Īfter a short time, only three young men remained – the rest had been told to go home. The insistence said to me that maybe it’s legit. “I said, ‘Funny, but no’ but he persisted. “I was chatting to a guy on Grindr, getting along well and at some point the conversation turned to him saying, ‘Hey, you should go to this modelling shoot’,” he said. He said what started as a friendly conversation with a potential romantic interest turned out to be an elaborate trap countless others had fallen into. The comments come after spoke to Callum*, 30, who claims he was also tricked into appearing on a video for the same website. I have since learned by working with other people that that is just completely outrageous. “People clearly aren’t informed about what is going on. That is not the case with these guys,” he said. It is normal for performers to discuss with each other what is okay and what isn’t.
“The issue is that there is so little proactive consent. It goes against standards elsewhere in the industry that allow for a “time-out” if a performer needs a break. One of the biggest problems with AAB, George says, is that performers are told they are not allowed to speak. Young men are targeted for the scenes and paid just $250.