Way to go John! You did a great job on HS. You know you have support. Hurry home, waiting on that dinner. *wink*

"Johnette #1"
TV

hi neighbor! great work on signing John. congrats on your award nomination and your publication in yale's journal. just found your website today and think it's fabulous. really enjoy your writing. see you in the elevator.

Hey guys...I'm a complete Howard fan...Heard John on this morning...way to go buddy...you did great. Of course howards gonna have the "fag bashers" call in, however you dealt with all of them well....especially the "military" guy that called in. Michael...where were you? Never heard from you.

Anyhow....found the website today. Read the blog, and I love it. Definately a fan....can't wait to see more of John.

I am gay and think no one has the right to "out" anyone else. It is a very hard thing to do and each one of us should be able to pick a time when we feel most comfortable. John I think you are using Clay Aiken as your stepping stone to fame. How does this make you less creepy than what you are bitching about???

There is no valid reason to have moral problems with outing celebrities. Just because telling that someone is gay has a name ("outing"), why is it any worse than revealing sexual secrets (potentially life-changing, relationship-killing, job-ending ones) of straight people? I don't think this guy has the high moral ground that he claims (he is not doing this for gay pride, puh-leeze!), but what he's doing is no better and no worse than what any other garden-variety tabloid fixture is doing. If he makes money doing it, that's no worse than Howard Stern making money by interviewing people like him, or than Clay Aiken making money by attempting to be discreet about who he is.

Well said. Looking forward to seeing John in a Lucas Entertainment production. By the way, guys, just got my copy of Encounters/The Heat of the Moment. If you haven't seen it yet, get a copy NOW. All the scenes are hot, but my favorite has got to be the one directed by RuPaul, with Bruce Beckham and the very hot and sexy Wilson Vasquez. He sizzles!!
Looks like the Encounters series is going to be another great success for Michael!

I listened to the interview on Howard Stern and wrote my comments about the whole situation at Lavender Lounge Blog:

http://www.lavenderlounge.com/blog/archives/2006/02/clay_aikens_gay.html

That one interview was worth the entire one-year membership to Sirius!

Normally, I'd be with Michael. I have zero patience for celebs who whine about exposure when exposure was in big letters on the 'fame' contract they ran to sign.
But - I don't know about outing. Sorry, but it ain't that simple. If someone obnoxiously and falsely hetero - a Tom Cruise, say - deserves outing, isn't it more the DEGREE of his bullshit that ennobles the outing? Would we feel so justified in exposing him if he were pleasant, unconcerned with making so spectacularly hetero a show of himself, and relatively discreet in all his relations?
I'm just wary of determing the fate of public figures when the rationales are fuzzy. Anderson Cooper is sort of out, he's cool, so let's not push it and demand he be a gay icon. Clay Aiken is fucked-up and doing boys on the sly - let's get 'im. This is a dangerous game, y'all.

WOOF
GREAT PICS!!!
I'M ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!
SEE U LATER

HAIRYBEARS
http://hairybears.blogspot.com/

Im still in the closet and want to stay that way. Please do not out me.

Michael I'm surprised that you would jump on this bandwagon. You are better than that. Like Anderson Cooper, Clay hasn't either confirmed or denied his preference. John Paulus is not only capitalizing on this but to play the "bareback" card is trying to sweeten the story. When two people hook up wheather in a bar or online they have their boundaries. Drug use or alcohal may be causes for barebacking but celebrity isn't.
Michael I have tremendous respect for you and what you have achieved while affording me many hours of entertainment but I am disappointed in you for falling for this 15 minute media circus

There is no acceptable, moral excuse for any public figure who is homosexual to not declare his or her homosexuality.

A war is on against our having equal legal rights in the United States. The president wants a constitutional amendment prohibiting us from having our rights. It routinely happens that murderers of gay people receive lesser or no punishment because the juries are stacked with homophobes and the judges are with them. It routinely happens that gay teenagers are harassed and attacked in public schools with no discipline given by the authorities to the attackers and harassers. Gay translators of Arabic were fired from their government jobs for being gay, at a time when the country's security depends on our being able to translate Arabic messages.

That last point shows how mindless and ridiculous homophobia is. The anti-gay forces hate us so much that they would allow the entire population to be endangered in order to repress us.

So really, standing up in favor of gay rights is not just a question of gay rights; it is also one of national security.

One of the main reasons homophobes have such an easy time repressing gay people is that the majority of gay people can easily pass as straight. You never hear about an outing of a black person as black, for example.

Every time a gay person in the public eye remains in the closet, more years are added on to the war for our rights. And more events such as the firing of the gay Arabic translators will make the entire population more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

I have no idea whether Tom Cruise has homosexual leanings. But, if instead of reacting to allegations that he does have such leanings by insisting he does not, he were to say "I stand 100% behind the struggle for gay rights," he would at least be nudging the bigots towards enlightenment. Why has he not done that?

It's in large part because other public figures, who are certainly gay, have remained in the closet.

Every time I hear a gay person rationalizing against outing, I want to puke!

Our whole culture is retarded. Everybody knows who Clay Aiken is, but just try getting anybody to listen to Joseph Calleja, a young handsome tenor from Malta with a voice of gold.

I agree with Steve Ross' comments above... we need to be out PERIOD!

By chance I am friend with Broadway actress Cherry Jones who is an open lesbian. It's amazing how much strength young kids get from her just being honest about herself!

I also think so highly of Michael Lucas... I've met him three times and he's just a good guy ( with opinions, that is for sure ).

Odd that our country's biggest enemies are anti-gay, yet so are the right-wingers of the USA! Either you are for freedoms for all or you ain't!

Hi Michael:

First of all, I want to say that I love, love, love your blog and enjoy reading it as often as I can, even though I have never seen any of your films. You write very interesting essays.

I have a few concerns on this issue that I think you might want to take into consideration. My issue is this: how do you know that Mr. Paulus is in fact, telling the truth about his sexual encounter with Mr. Aiken? I mean, you were not there so you do not have first hand knowledge of Mr. Aiken’s sexual orientation or if he had homosexual relations with Mr. Paulus, as he claims. You are taking a big risk on the word of a guy who you hardly know. Unless, of course, you are just using him to further your career and company and get your name and company “out there” in publicity land to increase sales and profitability for you. If that is the case, that’s cool; in show business as in love, all is fair. But I think you should be careful about liability and slander issues and consult your legal department before you run out there screaming Mr. Aiken is a bare backing, lying, closet case homosexual just on the sole word of Mr. Paulus.

Another issue I have with this is that Mr. Paulus is an adult of legal age and no mental deficiencies that have been declared. Since that is the case, and if his story is true about his sexual encounter with Mr. Aiken, Mr. Paulus acted of his own free will. He made the choice to have unprotected sex, and now he is using this event to further his career by exploiting Mr. Aiken. I think that is rather discourteous and tacky of him, to put it kindly. Whatever happened between him and Mr. Aiken (if it happened at all mind you) is nobody else’s business but their own.

Now I understand your argument about celebrity status and you do try to validate yours and Mr. Paulus’ actions on Howard Stern, but in the end, all you and he are doing is trying to gain something off the celebrity of another; someone who appeals to a different audience than you do. Mr. Paulus can scream at the top of his lungs that he had a homosexual relationship with Mr. Aiken, but in the end it is no one else’s business about the sexual orientation of Mr. Aiken but his own. You can not get mad at Mr. Aiken for not wanting to come out and be an openly gay celebrity if that is something he does not want, or in fact, something that he is not. I am not even sure Mr. Aiken would contribute anything remarkable to the gay community if he did. I mean to say, Mr. Aiken won a contest on a ridiculous talent contest on television. He has no awesome great talent to write songs of depth like Sting, George Michael, or Mellissa Etheridge on their struggle and plight against homophobic behavior. He ranks in the status of meaningless “bubble gum” music of Britney Spears. Who would care that he is gay? What can he possibly add to the struggle by coming out even if what Mr. Paulus is saying is true?

In the end, we all must live by our own choices and be true to ourselves as Shakespeare so eloquently phrased. If Mr. Aiken is gay, he is clearly not ready to accept his sexual orientation on a personal level, and it would seem if what Mr. Paulus is saying is in fact true, not able to carry the torch of freedom and equitable rights of homosexuals around the world. Or maybe he is, and just does not want to do that. He may not want to be Elton John or Michael Lucas and that right is his alone to determine, not yours or Mr. Paulus’. I think you are exploiting Mr. Aiken and Mr. Paulus to further your own career and company, and you should just say that. Do not try and present that you are doing a decent deed by outing Mr. Aiken because he will not do what YOU feel he should do. And then again, Mr. Paulus could be full of shit and Mr. Aiken is heterosexual and you have gone a long way to hurt him and his career. My best suggestion is to do as my Mom says and MYODB (Mine Your Own Damn Business.)

Here's what I don't understand and it is at the heart of this mess.

IF John Paulus and Clay Aiken engaged in 90 minutes of bareback, unprotected sex, how is John Paulus already filming anything?

I don't know about you, but I'd be a bit worried especially since Mr. Aiken is portrayed as such a sexual aggressor. So that makes me think that the story is not true and that you can't think it's true either -- because why would you expose anyone to that kind of risk?

Just a note to say that I agree totally with Ryans, very well stated comment. It really does make one wonder why John didn't just say "NO" if it was not something he wanted to do. I do not think that, with his being a former military man with special forces training, Clay would have been much of an obsticle in preventing his just, up and leaving if he didn't want other benefits from his association with Clay Aiken.

Earth to Ryan!

The social mechanism Michael is using in this case is actually one that people use on a daily basis to curry favor with whoever it is that causes them to earn money. Without this mechanism, civilization would not exist. It is, if you will, opportunism, in a negative cast, but the quality of being enterprising in a positive one. And it just so happens that Michael's business leads him to exercise that mechanism in public on a larger-than-life scale.

Ryan presumibly is a fucking homo but to judge by the statements he makes here, he has never seen "All About Eve." That is like, turn in your membership card, you are a disgrace to the orientation.

And let's not forget; erotic cinema is a very special form of artistic expression. And any sort of art is to be appreciated qua art on the basis of its artistic merit, not on the basis of circumstances under which it was produced. John Paulus could be eating pussy and loving it in the morning but if in the afternoon in Michael Lucas's studio he takes a humongous cock in his shitter and is the most exciting bottom actor of all time, clenching his butt cheeks, wincing with agonized pleasure, and showing obvious desperation for the fuck to last forever, who cares that he was eating pussy in the morning?

I just heard the record of HS interview ( 48 minutes of fame on Sirius ) and I'm 1000% believe that John Paulus is a ruthless manipulator and blackmailer. Questions :
1. Why would JP save all the instant messages if he had no cruel intentions behind this dirty scheme ?
2. Why would JP keep the dirty towel (containing the DNA)?
3. JP said he didn't like Clay but wanted him to contact him and be friends. What a hypocrite!
I'm not Clay's fans but this is way too much. It's CA's choice whether he wanna be 'out' or discreet.
Michael, u're hot n this a really great marketing strategy by riding Clay's popularity. Thumbs up for u! Now, ur name's in the buzz words list in google or yahoo.

This is an outing I am enjoying for 2 reasons:

1. The narrowminded bigots, oops excuse me, I mean fans of his need to realize that somebody nice and from the South like Clay is a big homo.
2. Though I of course do not know Clay, I think secretly he has to be happy about this. Otherwise why would he take such ridiculous chances, unless he is tired of living a lie.

By the way regarding John, I have to agree with the small story about him in Sunday's New York Daily News - he looks good, but he looks a lot older than his internet pictures.

Finally, another plug for your new Encounters series Michael. It is great!

Ok...I am confused, is this Michael Lucas' blog?
If so, why do you use the term *alleged* in your blog. Do you not have unrefuted proof of these acts. John Paulus has *stated* that he had an affair with this Clay Aiken guy...so these affairs are not *alleged* they are *factual*!
That being said, I have a family member who is openly gay and is totally appalled by the fact that another openly gay man has chosen to "out" this person. Now I don't know very much about this Clay Aiken guy except for the fact that he is an geeky looking guy that was on American Idol, but if what this Paulus guy says is true, Michael....you are taking a huge risk with him. From what I have heard on the Howard Show....he couldn't even get it up! I know for a fact that my relative won't be buying into this...what homosexual man wants to see another gay guy who has been "rear-ended" by a nerdy geek!?

Sorry guys,
Anyone who lies about who they are to cultivate a fan-base that is VERY VERBAL about hating the kind of person he truly is...deserves what he gets.

Believe John Paulus - Don't believe Jphn Paulus...who gives a rats ass?
It was never really about him. It's all about being dishonest and playing "straight" for the bible thumpers as he filled his pockets with their money.
The big karma wheel was gonna come around and smack the Clay-man sooner or later.
It just happens to be sooner.

Ok, not only am I gay, but I'm a "Claymate". By wrapping us all into one group, "homophobic Christians that would shut down the site on which Clay picked up John" is Bullshit. You're only trying to promote yourself, your site, and your porn "star".

Equating Clay Aiken with Tom Cruise is like comparing apples and oranges. Not once has Clay said anything homophobic about the community. That he wants to be in the closet until he's comfortable should be his choice not some Star Fucker's choice. Mr. Cruise on the other hand, has married, by contract, several women, sued a porn star that allegedly wrestled with him and denied flat out that he was gay. Ricky Martin in an interview with Barbara Walters several years ago denied flat out that he was gay. THEY should be outed.

I find John Paulus a dispicable liar. Supposedly a Green Beret couldn't turn skinny 160 lb Clay Aiken down for unprotected sex because he was so enamoured yet he was able to grab the cum towel to black mail him? BULL SHIT!

Clay has talent, I've seen him in concert and he does a fantastic job. My partner, who is not a Claymate was pleasantly surprised by the show though he was somewhat dragged to it and even admitted that he would go to another one.

John Paulus is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame at the detriment of someone's reputation and that's disgusting.

I am "out", religious, conservative and I don't believe it serves us well to betray people by exposing them for betraying people.
We must live a standard that can be admired with universal appeal, and, yes without blemish, if we truly respect those who have gone before us and sacrificed to make life easier for us.
The majority of the people we share this country and world with may not have figured out the whole "judge not lest ye be judged" thing.

If you truly are concerned about others and have a vision for how great the future could be, use celebrity to elicite favor and esteem from all.
If you are have aqcuired influence or find yourself in a place of great opportunity and use it only to behave like those you say are your enemy, no one of any signifigance is going to hear you, and your only base will be those who hold your guarded views.

Wow. I really hate outing. I hate it. I try and try to understand people's reasons for doing it, but in the end, I just think it's awfully unfair.

I've been following this story for several weeks, because, like "Bullshit" (ha!), I'm a fan of Clay's.

One thing that seems to be missing from all the arguments about how it was so NECESSARY to out Clay is that element in John's story, repeated in articles, on websites, and on the Stern show, where Clay had come out to his mother and certain family members last year, and it didn't go well. It kinda reminded me of my own situation. I wanted to come out, I was ready (or so I thought), but it got too weird, and I backed off for a little while. Came out to a few select people and some of them freaked on me.

Clay Aiken, if we're gonna believe this story to be true (and, I'll be honest, I have my doubts about 90% of it) was TRYING to come out. He was in the process of doing so. Something happened with his mom or some other family member, and he pulled back. Maybe he's got some people in his family who he's really scared of hurting with this? Just because he's a public figure doesn't mean he stops being a guy with family and friends.

And news like this story, the kind of thing that isn't just outing him as gay, but outing him as, essentially, a jerk who "forces" barebacking on his tricks (again, if we believe Paulus), means he [a] no longer has the option of keeping certain personal secrets from his family, or [b] is put in a position where he's probably going to deny it more fervently.

This isn't just news that he's gay. It's news of the specifics of what he's into sexually. What if someone called your mother and told her how you liked it in the bedroom? That would, at the very least, make for a tough Thanksgiving.

It's simply not fair. It's not the way decent people act, no matter who he is or what he is. Only people who don't follow his career think he's a holier-than-thou Christian who preaches to people. Believe me, if he was one of those, I wouldn't be able to be a fan. And it's especially unfair that this whole escapade seems to be solely for the purpose of some guy starting a porn career. It stinks.