Social:Van Darkholme

From HandWiki
Short description: American performance artist and gay porn director-actor
Van Darkholme
Born (1972-10-24) October 24, 1972 (age 53)
Vietnam
Other namesVan-sama
TDN Kosugi
Height1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)[1]
Websitewww.vandarkholme.com

Van Darkholme (born October 24, 1972) is a Vietnamese American performance artist, gay porn actor-director, and photographer.[2] He is among the few Asian American men working in Western gay porn as a director and actor, although he primarily works in niche bondage pornography.[3]

Career

Before 1999: Modeling and acting

Van began working in a corporate job, and became a masseur to earn extra income.[1]

He then worked as a fashion and photographic model, also pursuing photography as a hobby.[4]

He had minor roles in the movies The Adventurers (1995), in which he played the role of Xiao Hei, leader of the San Francisco-based Vietnamese Black Tiger gang;[5] and Who Am I? (1998), in which he played Takashi (uncredited).[6][7]

1999–2007: Fame and recognition in gay porn

Van's first porn video was TitanMen's 3 Easy Pieces, which was shot in 1999 but released in 2001;[8] while the first to be released was Can-Am Productions' Lords of the Lockerroom (2000).[9] Muscle Bound Productions' White Rope (2001), featuring bondage, was the first video he wrote, directed and produced.[1]

In the documentary 101 Rent Boys (2000), that explored the lives of male prostitutes in Los Angeles, he had appeared as a "Japanese 'slavemaster' in full fetish regalia" (#90).[10][6] In it he mentions that he wanted to be a movie star, but when he didn't find success, he started doing escort work and became a "dungeon master".[11][12]

In just a couple of years in the gay porn industry, Van became "the world's biggest gay Asian porn star".[13] In 2002, he attended the Nation.02 gay party in Singapore held on the occasion of National Day,[14] and an Internet auction for "Dinner with Van" fetched $12,000— with 100% of the proceeds going to Action for AIDS (Singapore) and other development programs for the GLBT community.[15]

Van, a shibari aficionado, started utilizing this Japanese style of tying in his bondage and photographic work in 2004.[4] In 2006, Bruno Gmunder published a book of Darkholme's bondage photography titled Male Bondage: Art Deserves a Witness.[16][17]

2008–present: Kink.com and other appearances

After reading an article about Kink.com, Van— who had been a BDSM enthusiast since the mid-1990s[18]— contacted the founder Peter Acworth;[19] and in 2008, the company launched a gay bondage site named 'Bound Gods' with Darkholme as the director, under a new gay-focused division, KinkMen.com.[20][21]

Van gained further recognition as a bondage master after he started working for Kink.com.[22][23]

In 2009, his photographic work was featured in visual artist Trevor Wayne's self-published magazine Pin-Up Show.[24] Paul Chan made a drawing titled Oh Van Darkholme as a part of his Sade project in the same year.[25]

Van appeared as himself in an episode of the TV series BadComedian in 2011.[6]

He also starred in the documentary Kink (2013) about Kink.com. In it he mentions how corporal punishment in Catholic boarding-school education planted the seed of BDSM for him,[26] and that he grew up fantasizing about whipping the muscular football players he saw on TV.[27] Describing his relationship as a director with models who take the submissive roles in his films, he says— "I respect and love the subs when I'm working . . . I care for them a lot."[28]

He started streaming on Twitch in 2020, and started a YouTube channel as well.

Van became famous in Japan as an Internet meme, after a clip from his gay porn movie Lords of the Lockerroom was posted on Nico Nico Douga in 2008. He was nicknamed VAN-sama (Japanese: VAN様) by his fans. He also had another nickname, TDN Kosugi (TDNコスギ), because his looks resembled Kazuhito Tadano (who was called TDN) and Kane Kosugi.[29]

Deep Dark Fantasies, a 2017 visual novel about a pornstar who runs a BDSM dungeon, was inspired by fan-made mash-up videos of Darkholme posted on Nico Nico Douga. The main character Van is a loose amalgam of Van Darkholme and the characters he has played on screen. In his review, Dan Starkey from Kotaku criticized the game for misrepresenting kink.[11]

Personal life

Van was born in Vietnam.[4] He immigrated to the US as a child, and lived in the Midwest as a farm boy, before moving to Los Angeles.[17][30]

See also

  • List of actors in gay pornographic films
  • Gachimuchi

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Tan, Alvin (2002-06-07). "up close with van darkholme" (in en). http://www.fridae.asia/gay-news/2002/06/07/921.up-close-with-van-darkholme. 
  2. ↑ Man, Michelle (2006-01-08). "Hot For Porn? Adult Entertainment in the Vietnamese Community". http://bnmagazine.com/article_detail.php?art_id=257. 
  3. ↑ Burke, Nathaniel B. (May 2018). "History of Gay Adult Film". Inequality Regimes in Sexual Labor (PhD thesis). University of Southern California. pp. 22–23.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Male Bondage by Van Darkholme". QXMEN: 56. February 2007. https://qxmen.com/pdf/qxmen07.pdf. 
  5. ↑ "[達人專欄 Deep♂Dark♂Fantasy深邃♂黑暗♂幻想, 哲學♂家: 范.達克霍姆Van Darkholme. - 巴哈姆特"]. https://home.gamer.com.tw/creationDetail.php?sn=4172710. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Van Darkholme" (in en). https://watch.plex.tv/person/van-darkholme. 
  7. ↑ "Cast – Who Am I?" (in en). https://en.kinorium.com/113527/cast/. 
  8. ↑ "3 Easy Pieces | TitanMen Gay Porn Movies @ Gay DVD Empire". https://www.gaydvdempire.com/39519/3-easy-pieces-gay-porn-movies.html. 
  9. ↑ "LORDS OF THE LOCKERROOM DVD". https://ropemall.com/products/lords-of-the-lockerroom-dvd. 
  10. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (2000-07-17). "101 Rent Boys" (in en-US). https://variety.com/2000/film/reviews/101-rent-boys-1200463436/. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Starkey, Dan (2017-10-17). "Deep Dark Fantasies Is A Game That Doesn't Understand Kink" (in en). https://kotaku.com/deep-dark-fantasies-is-a-game-that-doesnt-understand-ki-1819542336. 
  12. ↑ 101 Rent Boys of San Francisco: #90 Van Darkholme. Retrieved 2024-05-04 – via youtube.com.
  13. ↑ "Lion City has gay pride" (in en). 2002-08-07. https://www.scmp.com/article/387453/lion-city-has-gay-pride. 
  14. ↑ Tan, Alvin (2006-10-19). "nation retrospective 2001-2003" (in en). https://www.fridae.asia/gay-news/2006/10/19/1724.nation-retrospective-2001-2003. 
  15. ↑ "van darkholme dinner auction to benefit charity" (in en). 2002-07-26. https://www.fridae.asia/gay-news/2002/07/26/401.van-darkholme-dinner-auction-to-benefit-charity. 
  16. ↑ Darkholme, Van (2006) (in en). Male Bondage: Art Deserves a Witness. Gmünder. ISBN 978-3-86187-990-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=8EPAAAAACAAJ. 
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Kline, Kevin Mark (2010-09-27). "Darkholme :: Bound Gods, Sweet Subjugation | EDGE United States" (in en). https://www.edgemedianetwork.com/story/110716. 
  18. ↑ "Photos by BIRON 1993-2014". https://www.photos-biron.com/1993-2014/index32.html. 
  19. ↑ Fleshbot. "Man On The Edge: An Interview With Kink's Van Darkholme" (in en). https://fleshbot.com/magazine/man-on-the-edge-an-interview-with-kinks-van-darkholme/. 
  20. ↑ Rice, G. Zisk (2008-04-14). "Kink.com Hires Van Darkholme". https://avn.com/news/gay/kink-com-hires-van-darkholme-87534. 
  21. ↑ "Kink.com Launches First Gay Bondage Site". 4 August 2008. https://avn.com/business/articles/gay/kink-com-launches-first-gay-bondage-site-54040.html. 
  22. ↑ "Metalbond Q&A: Meeting Van Darkholme | MetalbondNYC.com" (in en-US). 2011-12-09. https://metalbondnyc.com/meeting-van-darkholme/. 
  23. ↑ Feist, Jeremy (2012-04-18). "Diet kink: same taste, zero brains | Xtra Magazine" (in en-CA). https://xtramagazine.com/love-sex/diet-kink-same-taste-zero-brains-4174. 
  24. ↑ Wells, Duane (2009-09-11). "Trevor Wayne's Pin-Up Show" (in en). https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/people/2009/09/11/trevor-wayne%E2%80%99s-pin-show. 
  25. ↑ Gilbert, Alan; Schmidt, Suzanne (2011). "Paul Chan: the body inscribed : Paul Chan's sade project = auf den Leib geschrieben : Paul Chans Sade-Projekt". Parkett: The Parkett series with contemporary artists = die Parkett-Reihe mit Gegenwartskünstlern - (88): 94. doi:10.5169/seals-679753. ISSN 0256-0917. https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=ptt-001:2011:0::621#104. 
  26. ↑ Lodge, Guy (2013-01-23). "Kink" (in en-US). https://variety.com/2013/film/markets-festivals/kink-1117949061/. 
  27. ↑ Hunt, Drew (2014-08-18). "Review: Kink" (in en-US). https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/kink/. 
  28. ↑ Davin, Julie E. (2017-04-01). ""We control it on our end, and now it's up to you" -- Exploitation, Empowerment, and Ethical Portrayals of the Pornography Industry". Student Publications: 18. https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/543. 
  29. ↑ "TDNコスギとは (タダノコスギとは) [単語記事"] (in ja). 2008-06-22. https://dic.nicovideo.jp/a/tdn%E3%82%B3%E3%82%B9%E3%82%AE. 
  30. ↑ "San Francisco Bay Guardian" (in en). 2014-08-12. p. 40. https://issuu.com/sf.guardian/docs/48.46. 




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