QXMEN’s old bum chum, the gorgeous Hayden Bridge, gives us his unique take on this year’s Hotrods, the second annual British Gay Porn Awards.
The awards ceremony was held this year in South London’s huge gay district Vauxhall in a club that keeps changing its name but is currently called No. 65. It’s a warren of rooms and passages built into a railway arch and it’s got a great buzz.
Here in the UK we love awards ceremonies as much as anyone else. But the notion of gay porn prizes is new. This was an intimate event that must have come as a shock to anyone accustomed to the Oscar-like galas held in the US. But all I can say is that anyone who didn’t get to the so-called Hotrods missed a treat, i.e. the opportunity to stand closerthanthis to some of the world’s biggest gay porn celebs, many of whom were in town to have sex on stage at the following evening’s HustlaBall.
Highlights of the evening? Plenty. Legendary directrix Chi Chi La Rue was present to carry off two trophies. Leo Domenico made what might be his last public appearance. And the Lifetime Achievement Award was handed over by possibly the last person in the UK we’d expect. I was so taken aback that I tried to sell my story the next day to a tabloid newspaper.
The night was notable for the number of fuck film hunks built like trucks. We don’t grow them like that here. The Best Movie award for The Dom was collected by one of its stars, the gargantuan Trenton Ducati, who later returned to pick up his own award as Best Top.
(Ducati’s actually versatile. “He fucked the shit out of me”, Ducati said in a reference to his scenes with Paddy O’Brian in MenAtPlay’s The Big Day). The equally ripped Landon Conrad, who was nominated as Best Top, turned up to present Chi Chi La Rue with her Best Director award. “He’s just done four scenes in three days!” Chi Chi squealed. The QXMEN Readers’ Award was hotly contested but won by relative newcomer Leo Domenico (pictured right) – who’s already retired! I didn’t expect him to collect his trophy. But there he was in eye-catching, matching yellow top and sneakers.
Will this triumph make him reconsider his decision? No. “I had a blast doing porn”, the Cypriot sensation told me, “but I didn’t want to do it until I hated it.” So what’s next for Leo? He’s looking for a job and learning Spanish. The Best Newcomer award was surprisingly won by bearded and black-leathered Jesse Ares, who’s been in porn for three years, while other hot bodies mounting the stage were partners Paddy O’Brian and Paul Walker, J.P. Dubois and Sam Barclay.
It goes without saying, however, that the star of the show was Chi Chi, who loves coming to London and is a HustlaBall fixture. She’s a top value performer, who holds the crowd in the palm of her hand. One of the adult film industry’s best-known names and faces, she’s probably directed more than 350 movies and has been loaded down with awards almost since she began in 1987.
Therefore her Lifetime Achievement award was well deserved. “I’m here with people who were a sperm when I started!” she shouted at her much younger audience. “I love my life”, she assured us. Chi Chi picked up her trophy from the most surprising participant in this or probably any other gay porn event.
Lembit Opik was elected Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire in 1987 and spent thirteen years in Parliament. He’s as straight as they come and is notorious for falling in and out of nightclubs with his girlfriend, one half of the Romanian pop duo The Cheeky Girls. (They’ve now split).
He didn’t give the impression of knowing exactly what was going on at Hotrods. But apparently his appearance was part of his current attempt to embrace the LGBT community. “I get very annoyed with this laughable bigotry towards gay people and particularly transsexuals and transvestites”, he told a reporter. He’s also behind a gay night, Rise on Sunday, in the heart of London’s West End… No matter how long I work in porn, I never cease to be amazed.
Pics by Mark Storey