Jason Luna: Broadway, P*rn & Beyond

Jason Luna’s a rare treasure in the industry. Since he started making adult content a few years back, he’s built up a loyal following with his bright smile, perfectly toned body, and…special talents. He didn’t just pop onto the scene in the 2020s, though. No, he’s had a long career full of professional dancing, Broadway shows, and commitment to making the NYC gay scene more sexy and fun for everyone. It hasn’t been easy facing stereotyping and racism at every turn, but that hasn’t taken away his relentlessly positive attitude.

Sitting down to chat with Jason 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 bulky 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 work before porn, how adult’s changed his life, and what’s yet to come.

Broadway’s The Perfect Practice For P*rn

Jason’s experience in ballet and modern dance has proven useful in his current line of work…I’m sure you can’t guess how

(photo credit: Kathleen Weinstein Photography/Lois Greenfield Workshop)

Jason was born in the Philippines and never thought very highly of himself. “I grew up knowing I’m the ugliest of the family,” he remembers. It’s hard to imagine how hot the rest of his family must be to make that statement true, but the low self esteem helped in some ways. Jason put all of his energy into building his skills as a dancer, which eventually lead to him moving to the USA as a young adult. Dance scholarships brought him to New York, the land of opportunity, especially for talented performers interested in musical theater. He’d been honing his skills in ballet and contemporary dance for years in the Philippines. In New York, he eventually moved on to the big leagues: Broadway. He got the life changing experience of working in massively popular 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.”

Jason showing off his dancing skills in a production of Newsies on Broadway

Jason snapped a selfie backstage at the Broadway revival of M. Butterfly

In some ways, working on Broadway was a dream come true. Yet one aspect bugged him from the start. “I was always the token Asian,” he remembers. He’d show up at the airport where all the actors were coming in from around the country to start auditions, still not knowing who was cast beyond himself. Then, predictably, he’d see the cast demographic’s 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.

Going Off To Go-Go

“I was really tired of performing [on Broadway] and 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 it was a good 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?”

Jason showing off his stuff at Hush in Hell’s Kitchen, NY (courtesy of Hush)

Still, Jason’s tokenized just as much go-go dancing as he was on Broadway. He’s still the only asian go-go dancer working consistently in NYC at the time, and from the treatment he received on stage early in his career he can 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 they 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 shift? “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.

This view of Jason dancing might be even better… (Photo courtesy of Hush)

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.’” 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 “it gets really lonely.”

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. Sure, many establishments like The Eagle have yet to hire any Asian dancers, but he still enjoys his work in the clubs that give him a chance. Jason’s also more established because of his more recent porn career which helps him get more respectful treatment. “People know me now. That kind of helped to give me this space so that kind of changed a bit.”

Pandemic Inspired P*rn

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.”

Still, 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 was very 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 felt like he was doing a service to the community with his work.

Suddenly, the world felt more open and full of possibilities. “It opened me up. I became a much happier person than I was before and I feel like I changed in the course of two years and my friends saw it. 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.

If You’re Asian, You’d Better Be A Twink

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 doing content creation and being in the porn industry, but it’s actually not different at all”

Jason’s “not marketable” physique

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 didn’t even bother asking me” he says, “They may not be doing this maliciously, but how come this is how they think? Do they see Asian guys as not marketable?”

He had a similar 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. “I got introduced to some of the producers and directors [...] but when they look at me they’re sort of like ‘Eh, not marketable.’” Which is especially frustrating when, as Jason put it later in our interview, the post 2020 boom of online content creation has shown that “In porn there’s always a market for everyone. [...] There are guys who are killing it with all body types. You just have to find your market, and you can do that”

Although racism affects all racialized men working in the industry, it hits Jason extra hard because he doesn’t fit the stereotypes that people think of 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” he laughs, “because then I would fit their fetish or niche.” It’s not just frustrating because it limits Jason’s opportunities — it’s also just 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?”

Fighting Fetishization

Fellow adult performer Sammy Sinsss, who supported Jason in fighting the racist marketing of porn with Asian performers (photo from instagram)

Even without fitting the Asian twink stereotype, Jason’s experienced being fetishized for his Asian heritage. In 2022, early in his content creation career, 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 had been in a group chat with other Asian content creators and brought up the issue with disgust. Some of them had been featured in the videos as well: “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 was sick of just taking it, and so was fellow adult content creator Sammy Sinsss. Jason 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, but, of course, that didn’t just fix the stereotyping and reduction of Asian men in the industry.

The Wrong Kind Of Beef Cake

This is an AI image by Canva to add some imagery to the story. No, this isn’t what the studio actually offered Jason and his costars thank goodness

It’s not just being made into a fetish. Jason’s also witnessed how Asian men have 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 just gave him microwavable beef patties from the freezer.

While Jason and all his Asian co-stars were dealing with exceptionally low pay and freezer meat, the mostly non Asian 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 and walked out, burning a bridge and losing income and time. It was a disappointment, but Jason was proud of himself for not just eating whatever scraps he was given. To this day, he feels frustrated by the company’s place in the industry. “I feel like they’re misrepresenting the Asian community in a way and I don’t like that it’s not run by Asians. I want things to change and I hope I can help with that.”

Remembering Tim Kruger

The late Tim Kruger, German performer and creator of TimTales

As much BS as he’s had to put up with, Jason loves traveling the world making adult content. Europe, especially, has welcomes 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 who tragically passed away from an accident at home on March 1st this year. Jason had met up with Tim in Berlin to film for OnlyFans together. 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’s presence in the industry is sorely missed and his memory will continue to inspire others in the industry.

To Top or To Bottom? Why Not Both?

Jason’s scenes for TimTales are some of the work he’s most proud of — his fans love it, too! “Everybody saw it!” Jason laughs, thinking of times he’s been approached by fans telling him how impressive the scenes were. “Since then 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,” he states confidently, “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 Secret Is Good Vibes

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 can I contribute in this room?’ 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 and 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.”

The Future Of Luna

There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up for Jason! He’s modeling for NastyPig and the gay app Scruff that’s perfect for LGBTQ+ dating, travel, hookups, community and more. He can’t wait for summer when he’ll be attending the massive São Paulo Pride celebration in Brazil. It’s perfect for a party animal like Jason, but he’s also excited for something very specific: he’s been itching to get his hands on Rico Marlon for a while now, and it seems like Pride will be the time.

Jason’s got a full bucket list, too. He keeps almost shooting for Men.com and having normal life BS get in the way, plus he’s got his eye on a few other studios for a while now. NakedSword and Falcon Studios are top of the list. As for who he wants most? Well, Rhyheim Shabazz of course. Specifically, he wants a gang bang bad. Rhyheim seems like the only one up to the task of making him finally tap out, but Jason’s up for the challenge. “You’re not the best bottom if you’ve never done that, that’s what they keep saying” he laughs, referring to gang bangs with Rhyheim, and Luna wants the title. You know, that or Best Body. He’s not picky.

Follow Jason Luna here to see what gets checked off the bucket list and enjoy his spicy content if you haven’t already. Oh, and if you’re near New York stop by a club to see him dance. Right now, he’s a regular at Hush, Boxers HK and for Good Friday at RedEye. He can’t wait to see you there…