Money’s on the Dresser: Escorting, Porn and Promiscuity in Las Vegas (5 page)

A majority of the ministry was donation and volunteer-based; it depended on its members to help out. Every week I stuffed envelopes, answered phones and even painted rooms and moved furniture during an office “redecoration.”

The summers in Oklahoma were very hot, so one day I decided to wear a tank top and white linen pants for comfort. The First Stone Ministries office was in the basement of an office building, and sometimes the air-conditioning didn’t work very well. I wasn’t about to spend the whole day sweating as I stuffed envelopes with letters asking for donations, so I put on the most comfortable things I owned. When I went to the office on that July day to help with some filing and other tasks, I was pulled aside by Sylvester, the director of the ministry, and told the way I dressed was too suggestive and it might be distracting to the men struggling with same-sex desires. I had worn this outfit numerous times before and immediately I thought,
But it’s so hot in here... I’m here working for free and you’re reprimanding me for the way I’m dressed?
I was embarrassed and felt like the slutty high school girl who gets sent to the principal for wearing a crop top and short-shorts, smacking her bubble gum, and twirling her hair. I did as I was told and threw out the tank top and pants as soon as I got home. I was frustrated because I was trying to do anything and everything to heal myself of homosexuality but yet again I failed. I was also upset because I had to throw away one of my favorite and most comfortable summer outfits, but I figured it’s what Jesus would have wanted.

I want to commend the people at ex-gay ministries for trying to help people, but their efforts are based on the misinformation and misinterpreted Bible they believed in. The reality is that ministries like First Stone are clearly a joke, filled with people desperately trying to affirm their own decisions to leave their “wicked ways” and live a holy life of servitude to God. Nobody leading these ministries is an actual doctor or licensed therapist, and the only thing they are doing is screwing up future generations of confused people who could make use of an educated mental health specialist. They were not going to find that at an ex-gay ministry.

In the weekly support group, one man “struggled with pornography.” From what he told us, his wife of seventeen years found him reading pornographic magazines—
Playboy
—and after several incidences of finding his “stash” she kicked him out of the house they had with their five kids. Now he was living with his mother and sleeping on her couch. Even as I was going through ex-gay therapy and followed the teachings of First Stone Ministries, I remember seeing this man weeping and crying out to God, begging for forgiveness, and I thought,
Really? All this drama for reading
Playboy
? She kicked her husband out for that?
This situation confused me, and it caused some doubt to enter my mind as to whether or not this was really the path I should be taking. The men, their families, and their churches were a strange bunch, but I still felt convinced it was where I needed to be. I also continued to spend every evening on my knees—literally—praying to God to “take the gay away.”

After being let go from the ballet company in Oklahoma City, I got accepted to a Christian ballet school in Jackson, Mississippi. I was at a crossroad where I didn’t know what the next step in my life was, but I took a chance and moved to dance in the apprentice program of the Christian Ballet Company. Working with the ballet company and living in Jackson was probably one of the most unpleasant times I have ever gone through. Being there was like stepping back to an era where black people still sat in the back of the bus. There wasn’t even a local chapter of an ex-gay ministry, because being gay there was kept so deeply in the closet, people hadn’t even come out to be told to go back in by their church leaders.

The ballet school and company were just as much of a joke as the rest of my experience in Jackson. I was reprimanded weekly for wearing my ballet tights too tight in the crotch area, and I was forced to wear baggy shorts over my tights so I would not offend anyone. I was also told my body language—the way I danced, spoke, and acted in and out of rehearsals—was too effeminate. This was something the pastoral leader of the company told me I needed to work on and he threatened to ban me from touring with the company if I didn’t change my body language, the way I carried myself in front of others and my style of dancing. He also told me I couldn’t live with another male in the school because others would assume we were gay and having some type of sexual relationship with each other. The list went on and on, and I felt like I was going crazy there. After four months, I left the school without a single regret. This ballet company in Jackson still exists and continues to groom future generations of young dancers to be homophobic while converting sinners to the teachings of Jesus Christ through dance.

I hung around Jackson for another five months, doing short-term gigs with a few other companies in Illinois and Nashville before giving up, realizing I had to get the hell out of Jackson to create a life for myself. My ballet career was going nowhere and I was not suited for the life of a company dancer. The money was not great, and it was not what I wanted for myself artistically or personally. I wanted to perform in shows that would use my training in musical theater and jazz dancing.

I decided to audition for several production companies specializing in hiring dancers for production shows on cruise ships. In the span of a week, Royal Caribbean Productions received my audition video, hired me, and flew me out to Hollywood, Florida, to begin rehearsals and start a new life on the seven seas on one of their ships, the
Nordic Empress.

I would go on to spend about two and a half years traveling and performing on cruise ships. I was able to see many parts of the world and meet some amazing people. Ship life is special, completely unique, and unlike anything else I had ever experienced.

I am grateful for my time on ships, but it is not something I would repeat. There is little to no gay life, and fraternizing with passengers is grounds for immediate dismissal. I would often fuck less-than-desirable crew members—guys and occasionally girls—out of sheer desperation and because I would be doing seven-, eight-, and sometimes nine-month contracts on ships. My options for dating and sex were at times, limited, so I would have to make do with what I was given. Even though sleeping with passengers was strictly forbidden, and I did see several crew members (some of whom were good friends) dismissed immediately after they were caught and sometimes escorted off the ship at random ports in Third World countries in the Caribbean, I didn’t really care. I took chances, managing to hook up with passengers a few times during each contract, taking the walk of shame back to my cabin early in the morning.

On my second ship contract, another male dancer in the show named DJ talked me into going to a bathhouse with him, and this started my obsession with them. We would port in Vancouver every Saturday, and I spent each time there from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the local bathhouse on Davie Street, fucking and getting fucked by guys. I’d fuck, get fucked, and finger, fist, and suck anything. I had so much pent-up sexual aggression built up, I couldn’t fight it anymore. I had only a few short-term boyfriends and sexual experiences by this time, and I felt like I needed to catch up. I was tired and frustrated with all the ex-gay-Christian bullshit I was telling myself to believe, so I gave into what my body wanted. I was a total slut and a natural-born cocksucker, and I loved it. I didn’t care if I went to hell. I just wanted to go to the bathouse, fuck, and feel good. I had sex with nearly anything that moved in the bathhouse. I would fuck or suck as many guys I could find in one day because I needed to get out all this sexual frustration from being on a ship all week. There were times I was so desperate and horny on board, I began having sex with a few girls. It wasn’t something I would do regularly, but I had a loyal group of girls who liked to play around. The sex was nice, but it sort of felt like throwing a hot dog down a hallway. It was not something I did on a regular basis if I could help it.

I was in my early twenties and I had been away from home for a few years. I was coming to terms with the fact that I was gay, but I still struggled with the issue of my “salvation.” It took years before I would finally be okay with being a gay man who was not destined for hell because of it. A lot of the old demons still creep up now and then, and I do battle them but it’s nowhere nearly as bad as it once was. When I’m having the time of my life partying, dancing, drinking, or having sex with a beautiful man, a tiny voice will sneak into my head and say, “You realize you’re going to hell for this, right?” I overcome them with a little bit of cognitive behavior therapy or the recitation of a few personal affirmations my therapist taught me like:

“You are a good man, Christopher.”

“You are perfect the way you are.”

“It’s okay to be gay.”

“There is nothing wrong with who you are.”

These affirmations are simple and basic, but I still need a reminder every now and then. Undoing years of being told the way you are is wrong, sinful, abnormal, and an abomination is an ongoing process I continue daily.

In 2004, I was working on the
Golden Princess
cruise ship sailing throughout the Caribbean. After four months, we went to New York City and then to Europe to cruise the British Isles. This is when I met Patrick, in May 2004. I’m not sure what it was about him, but I thought he was cute and we got along well. We started dating soon after we met and it was nice. This was my first real relationship and I jumped into it head on. I was ready to settle down and get married after a few weeks, and he felt the same about me. A big part of me wanted to be with Patrick for the sake of being with someone. I enjoyed being with him and he always knew how to make me feel special; I grew to love him and we decided the following January to leave the cruise ship and start a new life in Las Vegas. Patrick was from there, so it seemed like an easy transition for us. I had heard there was steady dance work there, and it seemed natural for a dancer to go from dancing on a cruise ship to the Las Vegas strip.

The move was not easy and tested our relationship numerous times. It took a while before Patrick started his job as a casino dealer and even longer before I landed my first dancing gig on the strip. Eventually, Patrick landed a job working as a dealer at the MGM Grand. I got a job dancing in the long-running show
Jubilee
at Bally’s Hotel. We had a good life living in Vegas, going to work at our casinos and socializing with friends whenever we had time off.

Before I got the job dancing in Jubilee, I had a lot of time on my hands. Patrick had unintentionally introduced me to adult bookstores and glory holes in Vegas. We were not in an open relationship, but we enjoyed playing with others together. He brought me to my first bookstore and I was hooked. I don’t know what it was, but there was something so dirty and depraved but sexy about going into a smelly bookstore. Even now when I smell the stench of the cheap lemon cleaner most of them use, it’s familiar and comforting. I would go in, stick my dick through a hole, and someone on the other side would suck me off. I loved it. Something about the anonymity of it all turned me on so much. I had no interest in meeting guys online or in bars, but bookstores and glory holes suited me well. It was quick, easy and there were generally little to no questions asked. My favorite time to go was around four or five in the afternoon when all the married men would be stopping in to get blowjobs after work. These men would come in dressed in their casual business attire with raging hard-ons ready to be sucked off. I’m not sure if any of them were gay or bisexual but they were more than willing to let a little blond boy suck their dicks, and I would eagerly get on my knees and do so. To this day, nothing turns me on more than a glory hole bookstore encounter. If I’m ever with a client or shooting porn, and need to get myself aroused or climax, all I do is think back to the days of trolling the arcades, sucking off countless guys. I had to stop going when all my favorite adult bookstores started playing my porn in the booths, and some of the guys I was with would look at the porn and me and say, “Hey... isn’t that you?” I usually said no, but sometimes I admitted it. I don’t think they understood why the guy on the TV fucking the hot porn star would be in a sleazy, dirty, smelly bookstore in the middle of the day. It wasn’t something I wanted to discuss, so I would brush it off casually and shut them up by sucking their dicks, or grabbing their heads and shoving my cock down their throats.

A year after I started filming porn, I was walking down Eighth Avenue in New York City, and I went into one of the bookstores on my way back to my hotel. I had two clients earlier that day and then went to a bar called the Eagle which is where I usually end up when I visit New York City. That day, I still hadn’t had my fill of sex, so I figured I would stop in, get off, and be on my way.

The clerk at the front of the store was breaking a ten-dollar bill when a drunk-looking guy approached me. He said (very loudly), “Hey... I know who you are. You’re Christopher Daniels! I saw on Twitter that you’d be in New York City, so I sent you an email about meeting up. Why didn’t you respond to me?”

Pissed off that he was about to ruin my anonymous bookstore encounter, I gave him a dirty look and said, “Seriously, buddy?” I realize we were in a bookstore on Eighth Avenue at 3 a.m. and looking to get our dicks sucked, but I was under the assumption that most people knew that little talking was done in an establishment like this and hoped he would leave me alone so I could get off and leave. I went into the arcade area and gave a friendly nod to a few guys before locking myself in a booth, hoping the drunk guy wouldn’t find me. Fortunately, he didn’t, but he did come stumbling into the arcade area knocking on the video booth doors asking “Where’s that blond pornstar? I wanna talk to him!” It was then I realized that unless I was incognito, usually wearing sunglasses or at least a hat, I probably couldn’t go into a bookstore for an anonymous blowjob without some drunk guy pointing out who I was.