Ward Bodner
When did you first get into filming Twinks?
When I was 13 years old, I had an eight-millimeter camera. Us kids used to get together after school, this was in the 50s and 60s, and we would film. That’s kind of when it started, with puberty. The guys would come over, or we’d go to someone’s house, have a circle jerk or something. We were surprised when the film came back, it had to be sent out to a laboratory in Dakota. It was very expensive to film back then.
The next was in college – I was a journalism and mass communications major. I would photograph Twinks and do some X-rated filming. Then in 2013, I partnered with my current film partner, Steven Vaskowitz, and we formed Babaloo Studios.
Why Twinks?
Preference. I always said they make my eyes smile. In the past I used to get off to looking at twink’s, but I don’t even get off anymore.
You don’t get off anymore?
Too old.
How often do you film?
Three or four times a month. Try to average about once a week. I’m trying to store up people to post in the future, but it’s not easy to find models.
What’s difficult about it?
Finding a platform where they are. First of all, I don’t like to go out, so I don’t go to bars and things like that, or I don’t go to clubs. I tried looking on the large, rotating universe of Grindr, but you’re not really allowed to look there, you have to be subtle about it.
What’s been your favorite model experience recently?
It wasn’t really my favorite, but the experience was interesting. One of the models came over with his Spider-Man costume. I said, “Okay, well, put it on if you want. You can jump right into the room, and take it off.”
How much does the JFF bring in for you?
Not as much as it used to, but still it brings in a decent amount. If you consider what I’m paying models, I’m probably not making anything anymore. But it brings in $500 a month, sometimes a little more, sometimes less. I have to split that with my partner. Even though he does some of the editing, he’s not actively involved in this end of the business right now, but we still have a relationship where he gets a percentage of the income.
How did that relationship come about?
One of the reasons I started the business with him was that I found out, up until 2013, when we formed Babaloo Studios, he hadn’t made a penny. He’d been cheated by everyone. He had all these films out, some quite successful. But in the early 2000s he came away with absolutely nothing. I thought it was horrible to do all this work and not be rewarded for it, not to get anything. So he gets a percentage of all income, not profits, all income.
What video are you most proud of working on?
Angels with Tethered Wings. We put a lot of money into it and did it very professionally.
Before that, our very first one was Triple Crossed with Brent Corrigan. He directed and starred in it. He was our foot up into the industry. Triple-crossed is available pretty much everywhere, but it’s kind of a love story. It’s not really the kind of film that I wanted to do.
I like the ones that have more sex; sex is a big part of real life and it’s left out of the movies. I always wanted to produce things that showed a cross-section of everything, where you don’t stop filming when the sex starts. Did you ever cam on chaturbate or do onlyfans?
Yes. Why do you ask?
I think I watched you a bit. I really liked you.
I’m fishing for compliments here, but why did you like me?
I like people who have personality, who talk about things, who are not just sexual objects and performing. I like the performance, I like eye candy. But I especially like when people talk more about themselves, their lives, or show the stuff in their room. I think you had things in your room that you showed.
Yeah, like posters everywhere, and like my desk was always messy.
Yes, I tend to remember and watch people like that. So, you know, you probably like went away. I hadn’t seen you since then. Most people disappear, but when I find them, I latch on and stick with them. I go to their only fans and twitter. You look actually like you looked on cam.
Is that not the usual case?
No, well, I don’t meet many people who I see on cam. So I don’t know, but you look very much like you did then, sitting in your room.
That’s crazy cool to me. I’m almost blown away. This world is so small.
Yeah, I was kind of blown away when I saw I was following you on X. It made sense if you lived in Orlando, but it didn’t make sense that you were from Auckland.
What was your career in journalism like?
In college I was the sales manager of the college radio station. We traveled from New Mexico, just north of El Paso, to places like New York and went to conventions. I was an engineering student, and that lasted for a year and a half. After my father died, I switched to journalism, mass communications, and film. I had an advertising agency and film production company. We did commercials, then finally bought our own studio.
I opened record stores in three cities that went bankrupt when bootleg tapes became popular in the early 70s and put legitimate businesses out of business. The record companies had you by the balls. You couldn’t buy their products if you carried these bootleg tapes, but if you didn’t carry them, people could buy the same thing on the street corner that they could in your store for less than half the price. So of course, half the business went away because cassettes and 8-tracks at the time were very big. Bootlegs wiped out the film production company and everything. And it was all tied together, the record stores, the film production company.
We did sports films which are still on my YouTube for New Mexico State University. Then I went full-time into stringing, meaning part-time news gathering for stations in El Paso and Albuquerque and eventually went to work for the station in El Paso while I was in my senior year. And it took me four more years to graduate after that because I was so busy. I worked in the media for eight or nine years. Didn’t make any money. And finally, I got married, and was talked into taking a job with a company up north that was totally different.
How was the marriage?
It was actually pretty good. I mean, I wasn’t a hidden person. I got married to someone I really liked. She ended up being dragged away from me by a bull dyke. And now she’s a happily married heterosexual, supposedly.
Oh.
She’s really not. She’s whatever she wants to be at the time.
Was your relationship sexual or romantic or platonic or..?
Sexual, very sexual.
What was it like, living through the AIDS crisis?
Harrowing. I came out in the 80s. I would go to clubs and have boyfriends and things like that. I knew many people with HIV. I knew many with AIDS. But like anything, you don’t let it rule your life. We used precautions, but probably not as many as we should have.
It was a big drug time. Pot, cocaine, acid, stuff like that. When you’re on the acid, you don’t necessarily think of protecting yourself. I was lucky. Lucky that I was never terribly attractive, so it wasn’t like I had people all the time. I had things going on, but I wasn’t like a total whore running around from one place to another. I suppose my looks helped. I did have sex with people who were HIV positive, but never got it.
Protected or unprotected?
Unprotected. Like I said, I was very lucky.
It was a sad time. Things got better as time went on. Meds came about. My first and second boyfriend died of AIDS. Long after we were boyfriends. And my last boyfriend was HIV positive. I haven’t seen or heard from him in 30 years; I assume he’s dead. He left me in Vermont and went to Texas because it was just too cold for him. He couldn’t stay there. And my emotional state was such that I needed to be close to my family.
How did living through that impact the way you film now?
When we started filming in 2013 we were very very cautious of making sure everyone was tested. Even though we were doing a lot of simulated sex, everyone had to be tested. But now, not so much. It’s changed dramatically, it’s not such a big deal.
What movies are your biggest inspirations when it comes to film, both pornographic and non?
My biggest inspiration was probably Short Bus. I’m not real good at recalling movies and such, I don’t have a mind for that. But I found it to be a very realistic portrayal of life. And when I saw it, it was like, wow, this is the kind of thing I’d like to be involved with. That’s the only movie I can think of that ever did that to me. Plus, it has this great music in it. I want to use it for my phone ringtone
What’s it like filming while you have a roommate?
I usually film when he’s away. He doesn’t like it when I film when he’s here.
What’s his opinion on it?
He thinks the whole thing I do is stupid. He doesn’t agree with almost anything that I do. I don’t really care.
I have to go back to my family now. But who’s that on the wall there?
I got two grandkids.
Oh yeah, what are they like?
Lovely. One’s 22.
Did you have your children with the lesbian?
Yeah, yeah, I did. We had a son and he died two years ago.
Oh, fuck, I’m sorry. Do you mind if I ask how he passed?
Mystery disease. The hospital said COVID, but he never tested positive in the hospital. He had just gotten his dream job, which was working at Disney. He was a security guard at Disney. My favourite photo of him was taken two weeks before he died. His health wasn’t the best. He had diabetes. But then one day I woke up to a call. “Dad, please come. You’re gonna need to get me an ambulance. I can’t breathe.”
And that was the last time I ever spoke to him.
