What A Porn Star Taught Me About Stripping

I wasn’t ready for it then. Maybe I’m still not.

The first time I clicked the link was in 2015. I was on my phone, in bed, with the volume off and the screen brightness turned down so my late-night scrolling wouldn’t wake my boyfriend.

When the email notification popped up, all I could think about was the space between things: my boyfriend’s steady breathing, our dog shifting under the covers near my feet. We had just moved to a condo that overlooked the Port of Vancouver. I still couldn’t get past the freight trains that ran behind the building, how they hissed and rumbled all night, every night, on their way down to the waterfront.

The email was from a guy I hadn’t seen in years, a doctor I’d dated briefly, but still thought about far more often than I should. His infrequent messages always sent a ripple of discomfort through my chest, then a flood of memories—reflections from a disco ball moving across his face on a dance floor, sweaty brown hair and striped sheets, sunrise coming through Venetian blinds, dust suspended in the morning light.

As usual, there was no greeting, no hi-how-are-ya-how’ve-you-been, just the link and a short message: you never told me about this :)

On one hand, I knew that I shouldn’t open it. The right thing to do would have been to delete the email, pull the dog towards me, and drift off to sleep. But it was late, and things weren’t great with my boyfriend, so I clicked the link.

Queerty.com. 2011. The blog post, as blunt as it was brief, was about a straight, gay-for-pay pornstar from the 2000s—a man I never thought I’d hear about again. His name? Reese Rideout, though he went by Nick off-screen. The post talked about his appearance on Don’t Quit Your Gay Job, a reality show that had tasked its two hosts with competing at different types of stereotypically ‘gay’ jobs. The blog explained that in this episode, the hosts were learning to work the stage from none other than Reese himself.

The real kicker: two YouTube video clips from the episode embedded beneath the post. For years, I had worried about scenes from this episode surfacing online. Would they cost me career opportunities? How could anyone take me seriously as a filmmaker after watching this shit? And here they were at last.

In the first, one camera tracked Reese Rideout performing on a raised stage below a red velvet curtain in an empty, dimly lit nightclub. Already shirtless, he was moving his hips slowly from side to side next to a giant, leopard-print chaise. He squared his body to camera and unbuttoned his grey jeans, letting them fall a few inches to reveal a pair of pink and white briefs. He was handsome with shaggy black hair, as muscular and ripped as a fitness model.

Then the video cut away from Reese to a second camera fixed on two younger men sitting on a low couch below the stage. And there, finally, was my friend Rob in a blue t-shirt, his blond hair buzzed short, and me sitting next to him in a pink shirt with a purple baseball hat clamped over my shaggy brown fringe.

In the next clip, Reese was explaining something—without the volume on, I couldn’t make out what—and then he smirked as if this whole thing was one big joke. There was something fluid in the way Reese moved on stage, a playfulness paired with a complete lack of self-consciousness. He was at home in his body and it showed, full of a kind of freedom that I’d never allowed myself to experience. All these years later, watching him again made me realize I would do anything to feel that way too.

The camera cut to Rob and me, perched on the couch, our bodies tense and rigid. Christ, we were young. We’d been close friends for years by then, but that day on set had felt different. No amount of joking around or awkward laughter could hide that we had no idea what we were doing. We were both pretending without knowing who we were pretending for: Reese, the cameras, or each other.

While the video continued to play, I ran my hand along the floor next to my side of the bed. Headphones? I was in luck, though now I was also starting to worry. If I kept moving around, my boyfriend would wake up, and how would I explain this?

Back on stage, Reese told Rob and me that there was a 'sexy' way to remove our pants and put our shoes back on. Corny reality show music plays in the background. Reese kicked off his boots and then tugged at the waist of his jeans, letting them fall to his ankles. He kicked one leg out from his body, raising it to hip level, holding it there so we could see every muscle straining. He moved in a way that balanced strength and flexibility, effortlessly commanding the stage. It made me feel self-conscious in a way I couldn’t shake.

Once both his legs were free, he punted the jeans away. “Sometimes when you’re putting your boots back on, a big stomp is cool.” He raised his leg again. Once the boot was on, he stomped down and thrust his crotch at us with exaggerated mockery, saying, 'Look at me, I’m putting my shoes on ughn!

Ok, maybe better with the volume off. Still, without it, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that Rob was asking all the questions while I studied Reese in silence. Rob told Reese a friend had warned us: don’t show them your hole.

“Really?” Reese grinned. “I get more tips when I show mine.”

Reese came to the edge of the stage, reaching out a hand to me, then to Rob. The video ended with him telling us it was time for us to try.

I stared at the play button to the second video for a long time, listening to my boyfriend breathing in and out beside me in bed. I wasn’t ready to watch it yet. So out of habit, I scrolled down to the comment section at the bottom of the blog.

One comment read: “Reese Rideout” is not a Kinsey 0

And below that: Reese’s speech and mannerisms don’t seem so “straight” to me.

butter face strikes again, another commenter wrote. the tattoo guy’s bod though…on balance i would. but i’d insist on a ski mask.

As I scrolled through the comments in the quiet of my bedroom, I felt myself retreat into a familiar, uncomfortable space—objectified, defined by others’ expectations.

Online comments from strangers weren’t just words on a screen; they were the script that shaped my self-worth. Back then, I had been reading social psychology books at night and became obsessed with the idea that the more attractive you were, the more people would see you as likable, knowledgeable, and trustworthy too. All I wanted was attention and thought I had it all figured out—redrawing the limits of my body in the gym, creating and hosting a reality show to put it all on display. I had worked so hard to become an object thinking it would simplify things, only to realize something I had always known: that desire is lonely work.

The second video began with a quick cut montage of Reese teaching us more specific stripping techniques on stage. Hip thrusting. Lap dancing. Opening your legs wide, reaching down to grab your ankles, and peeking at the audience through your legs.

Watching Reese coach us, I could feel how out of place I had been in my body back then. I was just trying to follow along while my interior monologue ran wild: Did I have enough charisma and personality for this? Was I muscular enough? Masculine enough? Man enough? 

Of all the episodes of the show, this one tapped into my deepest insecurities. It would just be me on stage. If I went full monty, there would be nowhere to hide, nothing between me and the crowd—not even my clothes. Could I play the role well enough to forget my flaws—or would I be exposed, not just physically, but in every way that terrified me?

But when I rewatched this again all these years later, the memory that materialized had nothing to do with my self-doubt or performance anxiety. It was of Reese telling me to take my shirt off, then tilting his head to watch. Thrilled by the attention, I yanked it off without hesitation. But forgot about my baseball hat, and it fell to the floor. Reese scooped it up and slid it onto his head. He winked at me and adjusted the brim, grinning ear-to-ear.

And sure enough, in the next clip, we were all standing shirtless together. Reese was wearing my hat, studying me while I asked if he would give us some solo coaching and run through our stripping routines for the show later that night. I realized now that I look a lot like Reese - muscular and tanning-bed brown, same shaggy 2000s-era hair. Except I was covered in tattoos and he didn’t have any. Maybe that was the attraction?

The next scene began with a tight shot of Reese’s face in profile. We had traded positions. He was staring up at me from the couch where Rob and I had been sitting while I waited to start my routine on stage. I was fully dressed again, but he was still shirtless. And Rob? He was waiting downstairs in the green room in the basement. That was the director’s idea. She didn’t want us to see each other’s routines in case it gave someone an advantage. The competition part of the reality show was real, even if so much of the show was not.

The corny reality show music started again, and Reese said, “Okay, Sean, show me what you got.”

I teetered across the stage towards Reese like a cow on ice, my eyes wide, nostrils flaring. The first half of my routine was just me trying to take my t-shirt off. I kept hiking it up and flashing my stomach before letting the shirt drop again.

When my nerves finally settled, I fell back into the leopard-print chaise. I pulled my belt off in one smooth motion and whipped my belt against the ground, causing Reese to jump back from the stage, his eyes telegraphing fear. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. Who wants to be sexy when you could be a scary stripper instead?

Soon I was on my hands and knees, doing push-ups for Reese as he sat watching off-stage. Here, at last, was some choreography I had practiced at home in the week leading up to filming. Then the next shot jumped forward in time: I was in electric yellow briefs, giving Reese a lap dance on the leopard-print chaise. Pretty tame stuff until I pushed him down in the cushions, my head ducking beside his to whisper something in his ear.

Whatever I said to him had an immediate effect because the dynamic between us changed. His hands came to my waist and he began to tug my underwear off, slowly revealing a white thong. It had hidden clasps on one side and was the final part of my routine. The plan was to push Reese away from me and return to the front of the stage, then rip the thong off as the music ended. But instead, I lost my balance trying to get my feet out of my briefs and grabbed Reese’s hair by accident—and to my surprise, both then and now, he shoved his face directly into my crotch.

I hadn’t remembered this, and it was so unexpected I fumbled my phone in bed. My boyfriend rolled over away from me. I paused the video and hid the screen against the bedsheets. While I waited for him to settle again, I was struck by the parallels between my old life and this one. Back then, I was desperate for validation, my self-worth tied to how I was seen. Yet here I was, in bed with the person who knew me most, feeling more distant than ever.

Once his breathing slowed down, I brought my phone back up and zoomed in on Reese’s face. Dark brown eyes, eyebrows black as his hair. He had a heart-shaped babyface, but a well-defined brow ridge, a larger nose, and a strong chin. The way Reese stared at me in the video felt like more than acting. But maybe I was imagining things. I had read somewhere that he had a wife and was 100% straight, that he just stripped and did gay porn for the money.

In the next scene, we sat close together on the chaise on stage, both of us still shirtless. His critique started with some practical advice. He told me to think about wearing shoes later, during the real show, because it’s a nightclub and there could be glass on the floor.

But I wanted to know about the rehearsal, so I asked: “What did you think?”

“Pretty good. You know, your tattoos are great.” He reached behind my back and the couch cushion, and rested his hand on my ass. “Especially the lower back ones.”

In true reality show fashion, this moment was punctuated with an angel’s harp strings trilling in the background. Ok, so clearly I wasn’t imagining things. Reese was flirting with me. Even the show’s editor had seen enough to turn our flirting into a will-they/won’t-they story beat.

I scrolled quickly through the rest of the video. There was Rob, on stage with an umbrella. His routine was a little more acrobatic, like something you’d see in a real strip club. But he didn’t pull Reese onto the stage like I did. During the feedback session, they sat far apart, leaning away from each other.

Back on the blog page, someone else had noticed this too: During the critiques, Reese sat close to the first guy, leaned in and even touched his back while with the second guy, Reese leaned back and never got close. Hmmm…

Another wrote: Looks like there is a little sugar there. I bet he enjoys his work.

And below that: Could you PLEASE stop celebrating the gay-for-pays and other hypocrites who exploit our community?

And further down still: Every porn video plays into some kind of fantasy, which is the entire point. Whether or not every gay porn model is gay really doesn’t matter.

Maybe I’d been looking at this the wrong way. It didn’t matter what I wanted, who I was, or how I felt. For the men watching this, I could be anyone or anything. Maybe that’s the fantasy. And wasn’t that the same fantasy I had been projecting on Reese? He was just there to do his job, to get paid and make some tips, and then head to the next city on his club tour.

Earlier in the first video clip, it cut to an interview with me, Rob, Reese, and the nightclub manager sitting together in the basement, talking about stripping and Reese’s career. Rob asked Reese: “What kind of person does it take to do this?”

Without missing a beat, Reese joked: “A pervert.”

Reese’s kind of freedom was intoxicating to watch. The way he moved, the way he didn’t care who saw him, who judged him—it was everything I thought I wanted. The freedom to be yourself and not give a fuck about what other people thought and said about who you are or what you do. Maybe that was the real lesson here, the one thing I was supposed to take into my live performance later that night, and then onward into the rest of my life. But I wasn’t ready for it then. Maybe I’m still not.