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itting down to chat with Jason Luna I felt immediately at ease. He’s smiley and warm enough that his good looks can’t be too intimidating, and thank goodness for that! Even with a comfy hoodie covering his toned chest, his stylish eyebrow slit and mohawk are still enough to drag anyone’s train of thought off its tracks. I couldn’t wait to talk more about Jason’s life before porn, his special talent, and dreams for the future. Plus, I knew he was interested in sharing his experiences facing racism in many sectors of entertainment as a Filipino-American man.
How Broadway Prepares You For Porn
Jason grew up in the Philippines, but he moved to the USA as a young adult far before he started work in porn. Dance scholarships brought him to New York, the land of opportunity, especially for talented performers interested in musical theater. He’s been honing his skills in ballet and contemporary dance for years in the Philippines. In New York, he eventually moved on to Broadway. He got the life-changing experience of working in big-name shows like Newsies and Cats. Not only was the work fun and fulfilling in itself, it also laid the groundwork for his future occupations.
Nowadays, Jason often gets praise for his ability to open up and perform for the camera well “which is, I think, a gift from being a dancer: knowing your body, knowing your surroundings, knowing that the stage isn’t just in front; it’s 360, so you can see where the camera is going to be.” He laughs that dancing also helped his work ethic and physical fitness which has been important in his adult work. “At a young age I built that stamina and perseverance” he says, remembering his early years of dancing. “The vigorous training that I’ve had, even in the Philippines? Oh, brutal! In the Philippines we don’t have unions or anything, so they really work you hard until like three in the morning.” It might not have been fun, but now, Jason can’t resist a sly grin when he says “I never tap out! The only time that we stop is because the top needs a break.” He’s proud, but he’s secretly hoping someone will break his streak.
“I’m waiting for the guy who can make me tap out. Because I’ve taken big dicks and I still haven’t tapped out.”
The Bummer On Broadway
In some ways, working on Broadway was a dream come true. Unfortunately, one aspect bugged him from the start: he was “always the token Asian.” He’d show up at the airport excited to meet acting peers from around the country. Then, predictably, he’d see the cast and think “‘Oh God, I’m the only Asian here’ or sometimes I’m the only minority.” He was happy to add to Asian representation on stage, but it still got frustrating that he was consistently the only one. It made it hard to stay motivated and keep the passion up, which is part of why Jason started looking into other lines of work.
“I wanted something new,” Jason recalls. That was around the time that activism to Stop Asian Hate started to ramp up, and he remembers thinking “We really need more Asian visibility in our community.” Apparently others were thinking the same thing. Different establishments in Fire Island started doing fundraising events for Stop Asian Hate and Jason applied to go-go dance during them, noticing an opportunity to get his foot in the game. “They put me on fliers almost every weekend,” he remembers, laughing “So it was good for me, you know?”
The Only Asian Go-Go Dancer (In NYC)
Jason was tokenized just as much go-go dancing as he was on Broadway. He remembers being the only Asian go-go dancer working consistently in NYC at the time, and from the treatment he received on stage he could tell why. “Even then, it was so hard for me to be accepted in the community as a go-go dancer” he sighs “The white gays didn’t respect me.”
“I’d be dancing on my go-go box and [white partygoers] would stand on my go-go box and dance in the spotlight in front of me” he recalls with annoyed disbelief “like, many times.” How was Jason supposed to make tips and do his job if audience members would literally push him out of the spotlight every night? “Sometimes it just ruined my night.”
It’s not just the clientele, either. A lot of gay venues in the city just aren’t open to hiring Asian men. Jason’s reached out to The Eagle, for example, numerous times with his established history of work and impressive resume. Nothing. Jason was so intent to give them some Asian representation that he even offered to work without pay at the bar for Asian Heritage Month. “I thought ‘I don’t need to get paid. You guys haven’t had any Asian go-go dancers and I wanna be the first one!’”
Still, The Eagle and other clubs will turn him, and every other qualified and gorgeous Asian guy, down. It seems silly to treat his career like a volunteer position, but Jason cares about giving other men the representation he’s never had.
“For a gay Asian guy to see someone like him there on stage is a big thing, you know? To feel like ‘Okay, I have a place here.’”
Why All the Anti-Asian Bias?
Jason thinks the issue stems from people’s assumptions about Asian guys. “When they look at us they don’t see us as hot or attractive people,” Jason comments about other gay men in the New York scene. Hollywood and the media don’t tend to portray Asian men as attractive, so clubs and studios don’t hire them and the problem snowballs.
It’s an issue Jason’s noticed since his first years in NYC’s gay scene in the early 00s: there are plenty of Asian club goers, but everyone tends to stick to their own ethnic cliques and there’s so little diversity when it comes to paid performers and organizers. “There’s a lot of gay Asians who support the gay establishments. Sometimes it’s like 30% or 40% at an event,” he comments, but the clubs don’t treat Asian men as attractive enough to get paid to be there. It’s frustrating, sad, and “gets really lonely.”
Nowadays Jason still go-go dances, but he’s branched out to content creation and adult film, too. That’s made navigating the world of gay venue work a bit easier. He’s respected more now that he’s more established. It may be bitter sweet, but it’s better than it used to be
Pandemic Porn: The Classic Story
Like so many adult content creators, Jason’s journey into porn started during the pandemic. With dance venues shut down, he was spending a lot of time just doom scrolling on Twitter. He enjoyed adult content personally, but he didn’t think seriously about creating it for a while. Still, rent doesn’t pay itself and it’s not cheap, especially for New Yorkers like Jason. With no dancing work, “Income was the top priority for me,” he admits “and somehow, the universe put me in a place where I was surrounded by content creators” so the jump to starting an OnlyFans felt natural and obvious. “I was in this world already; I belong in this.”
Despite his connections, taking the leap took serious consideration and thought. He knew from the get-go that content creation is a job you have to take seriously to succeed in.
“I had to really talk to myself and say ‘Look, if you do this this is it. You cannot half-ass this. You’re not gonna do this for fun. You have to embrace that.’”
He also knew it would open him up to scrutiny and bullying on a scale he’d never experienced before. He knew that “they’ll be people who say a lot of bad things about you. They’ll criticize you for who you are,” and that was an intimidating process.
When he made the decision to pursue adult content creation it felt therapeutic. “I had to throw away all of my insecurities,” he remembers, which took a weight off his shoulders. He’d been scared of rejection from his community, but he was embraced in ways he never expected. “All I heard was just positive things [...] People even thanked me.”
Instead of being rejected for being a sex worker, Jason saw how many people appreciated his work as a form of community service. Suddenly, the world felt more open and full of possibilities. “I became a much happier person than I was before [...] I got more confident. I’m bolder. It’s a lot of things, and everyone can see how happy I am.” And it certainly feels true; just chatting with him I could see the warmth in his eyes and how much he beamed and laughed even while discussing more painful topics.
Subtle Racism In The Industry
Unfortunately, he was right to brace himself for struggles in his new career. The issues with racism that he’d faced as a dancer followed him to his new work. “I thought it would be different for doing content creation and being in the porn industry, but it’s actually not different at all” he says.
It looks a lot of different ways, but a major one is lack of opportunities and networking. He’s performed live sex shows for a company consistently for quite a while. They keep hiring him and he keeps doing well…but they never ask him to shoot adult content for them. It wouldn’t be that weird, except that his (mostly white) scene partners keep being offered gigs so it stands out.
“They may not be doing this maliciously, but why is this how they think? Do they see Asian guys as not marketable?”
He had the same experience at GayVN. He was nominated for some awards so he came to have fun and socialize, but he kept finding himself being iced out of conversations.
Asian=Twink, Right?
Racism hits Jason extra hard because he doesn’t fit the stereotypes for Asian men in gay porn. He’s short, but he’s also muscular and masculine. He’s got a salt and pepper goatee and a stylish mohawk. The space made for Asian men in gay porn tends to be limited to skinny, more feminine guys.
“If I had a twinkish body, I think I would have probably got cast right away because then I would fit their fetish or niche.”
He laughs as he say it, but it has a real impact. Stereotyping’s not just frustrating because it limits Jason’s opportunities — it’s insulting to have all Asian men’s desirability be reduced to this one archetype. “It’s so weird! I don’t like it. I don’t want to be hired like that, you know?”
Facing Asian Fetishization
Even without fitting the twink stereotype, Jason’s been fetishized for his Asian heritage. In his early days of content creation (back in 2022) he collaborated with someone for a shoot. Everything seemed pretty above board and fun…until he saw how that guy was marketing the content afterwards.
Jason had known the guy had his own website, but he hadn’t looked much into it before shooting. When the trailer came out for the scene they did together, Jason saw how he was being marketed. “Cum Dumplings” read the logo at the bottom of the screen in a cartoonishly stereotypical “Asian” font.
“I was livid,” he recalls, remembering rushing to research what he’d been made a part of. The series had been going for years, marketing “sexy Asian bottoms [...] dripping with extra sauce!” and calling the performers “cum craving dumplings.”
Jason was furious to have been marketed in such a weird, reductive, racist way.
“That’s a stereotype and fetishizing us. That’s putting us in a special isle, that’s how I feel, yknow? We’re worth more than that.”
Jason brought up the issue in a group chat with other Asian content creators. It turns out many of them had worked with the same guy.
“They knew something was off, but none of them said anything.”
Why? Because Asian men get so few opportunities in the industry that they have to take what they can get. Well, Jason thought it was time to say something, and so did fellow adult content creator Sammy Sinsss. They went to the man with the website and “told him ‘You have to take this down. I don’t even want the video to go out there.’” Jason and Sammy managed to get that category taken off of his website-- a small but meaningful victory against the reduction of Asian men in the industry.
How Not To Treat Asian Talent
It’s not just being made into a fetish. Jason’s also had to deal with sub-par treatment and pay. Once, he’d been excited to get flown out by Peter Fever. He doesn’t do much studio work, but he liked the idea of being in porn by Asian men showcasing diversity beyond the classic skinny twink archetype.
Sure, the gig paid a very low rate, but he was willing to put up with it. As he said later, “I want to be out there because I think it’s good for the community.” He’d naively assumed that a brand based around the attractiveness of Asian men would be built by Asian-Americans who’d respect him and be pleasant to work with. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The company flew him out, sure, on a shitty cheap flight to the middle of nowhere. He had no car there or any real way to get around by himself, so he felt a bit trapped. It wouldn’t have been an issue except that they barely fed him. He didn’t even get coffee in the morning when he was expected to start shooting early after getting in on a late flight the night before. When he asked for food they gave him microwavable beef patties from the freezer…gross.
While Jason and all his Asian co-stars were dealing with low pay and freezer meat, the mostly white production staff running the show were making bank off of their labor. Jason had enough.
“I called the director out. I called the producer out. I said ‘You have to treat your actors a little nicer than this because you brought us all in the middle of nowhere, you didn’t even think about feeding us, and you just want us to work right away. You shouldn’t work people like that.”
And he left! He booked the next flight out and left, burning a bridge with and losing income and time. It was a disappointment, but Jason was proud of himself for not just eating whatever scraps he was given.
Remembering Tim Kruger
As much BS as Jason’s had to put up with, he really loves traveling the world making adult content. Europe, especially, has welcomed the talented performer with open arms. He’s loved shooting in Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, and all over the continent.
He most fondly looks back on his time with the late Tim Kruger, acclaimed German performer and founder of TimTales. They met up in Berlin to film for OnlyFans together, where Tim went above and beyond to rework his schedule to make sure it could work out. They ended up having such a nice time that Tim offered to fly Jason out to Barcelona, all expenses covered, to film for TimTales. “I was like ‘Oh my God!’ It was crazy.”
With Tim Kruger in Europe, Jason felt desired and respected.
“They are the nicest people to work with—Very easy. And they really appreciated me.”
It was the kind of experience that makes Jason love being a pornstar. He knows Tim is sorely missed.
Expanding Horizons (Among Other Things)
Jason’s very proud of his scene for TimTales — his fans love it, too! “Everybody saw it!” Jason laughs, thinking of times he’s been approached by fans telling him how impressive the scene was.
“They always say ‘You’re talented! You have some mad skills!’ and I’m like ‘What? That’s a talent?’”
For an ex Broadway performer taking big dicks without tapping out might not feel like a resume worthy skill, but it definitely is. Even one of the cocks he took in the TimTales threesome would give anyone a run for their money, but both at once?! He definitely has a lot to be proud of.
“I can take a pounding, and it also helps that I’m 5’2” because everything looks big next to me.”
Jason’s even gotten into topping a bit lately, too. “Most of the guys I top are like, so big. Sometimes I don’t even know how to handle it,” he laughs, “Most of the guys bending over in front of me I’m like ‘I can’t reach you.’”
Once he went to a sex party in Berlin where he pounded a guy who felt like twice his size. “I was tiptoeing!” he says, breaking down into laughter “It was so hard to reach the freaking thing! But everybody found it hot!”
The Real Reason Jason’s Made For Porn
But beyond all the sexual specifics, Jason’s most clear gift to every set he works on is his warm attitude. He always asks himself what he can contribute and
“The first thing I can contribute is good energy. Good vibes.”
He gives less fucks than he used to which has boosted his confidence considerably, and he has thicker skin, too. Being tough doesn’t mean being cold, though. Jason’s always careful to meet people with warm, friendly energy to help everyone have a good time. It’s one of the reasons he’s never had trouble finding other performers who want to shoot with him, even if some studios can neglect his talent because of his race.
His attitude is great when he’s shooting a perfect fit for go-go dancing career, too. He’s a party animal and genuinely has a great time at events, plus he knows how to spread the good vibes and turn any straggling frowns upside down. He remembers a time when a guy came up to him at work and said “I was going to leave, and then I saw you go-go dance and it gave me more energy to dance. Thank you for that! Here’s a twenty” It felt so gratifying to Jason. “That’s exactly what I want people to feel.”
Follow Jason Luna on Instagram
Photo Credits:
Jason leaping in shorts courtesy of Kathleen Weinstein
Final two photos captured by James Franklin
All others courtesy of Jason himself
