No Speed Bumps

Aiden Shaw

'Sordid Truths: Selling My Innocence for a Taste of Stardom'

Aiden Shaw is one of that extremely rare breed: porn stars who become successful writers, be it all the kind who transmutes life pretty directly into art. To explain their lives.

Everyone probably's aware he's put out three novels, two books of poetry and two biographies and is doing the rounds selling his 2009 book 'Sordid Truths: Selling My Innocence for a Taste of Stardom' ...


Shaw was interviewed by Judith Regan about the book, and his life as a British gay man and sex-worker. The interview is on Aiden Shaw's website.


I've read a couple of reviews (one at Queersighted) and bits and pieces of the book I've goggled up at Issue and at 'The Advocate'.

And I can't quite decide on him.

There's almost something of Quentin Crisp. In the unexpected quirky counter-view, the perhaps unconventional common sense and a sometimes irresistible and curious humanity. Which is at odds with the often condescending and rather elite positions taken by good looking sex workers with a big dicks to their clients.

Like when Shaw's asked by Judith Regan about having sex with guys who repulse him and he responds saying he seldom is, but would look for something attractive. Like a part of the body, such as the hands. Or the smell of the guy's clothes. Or would focus on the 'humble way the guy looks at me', showing an appealing less than arrogant empathy with the psychological position of the client.

Or when he's asked, alluding to the title of the book, to talk about the 'sordid' things. And he suggests the word refers to the position others take. And expands, describing the way he/the central protagonist deals with situations, for example, like arrinving at a client's flat to find him tied up with a plastic bag over his head. Without judgement, he says he feels his way along, trying a few things and seeing how the guy responds. Shaw then considers the subtext of his clients needing human interaction and 'being heard'.

I laughed a lot through the interview. And Shaw speaks with a disarming candour and witty self-deprecation that seduces. But I guess ultimately a question mark hangs in the air for me about the value of his work beyond the solid homespun truths and titillating insider insights into a world we all find compulsively fascinating.

What do you think?

What IS certain is a post like this would be more than incomplete without at least a couple of images of 'it' - the dick one customer early on told Aiden would be the making of him.

So here we go, a la maison ...







.. and en plein air ...







Reckon the real question is where does he look hottest?

For me, he's more 'naked' indoors but, curiously, more hunky and blokey outdoors - the tan?