It was when he admitted breaking an alcoholic lover’s arms (after the lover had violently attacked him) that I knew I had a book: that Bobby was prepared to expose a mass of raw nerves. Bobby’s quite an opaque person, and I didn’t know how self-revealing he would be prepared to be – and in that context how problematic his marked religiosity would be, as when he revisited key moments in his life he would rework them in increasingly Biblical terms until they became impersonal parables more than personal revelations. I worried his life-story wouldn’t warrant a whole book, and didn’t want to be stuck with trying to make dull material work. As I was writing it in its entirety, I insisted I be named as co-writer.
I made sure to avoid reading anything she’d written (if she had written anything), and arranged that I would interview him by phone, taping the interviews, (we talked for around 16 hours), and would then turn them into a book, which he, of course, would work over to his satisfaction. He mentioned he’d tried working with someone else (a straight woman) but it hadn’t worked out. So I wrote a sensible email to Bobby pitching for the job, mentioning my award-winning novel, my interest in gay African-American life, my having seen many of his films and so on, and we agreed informally to give it a go. My journalistic impulses are nil, but I knew there had to be a story there. I knew from interviews I’d read that he had a kind of marriage to a fellow black gay porn-star, Flex-Deon Blake, that they were both lay ministers, and that he’d been a pastor before doing porn, which is not the usual way round. I’d seen dozens of Bobby’s films (he only made films for three years, but worked relentlessly throughout that time), and here was a chance to turn this mis-spent time to account. Patrik – who knew Bobby slightly – had suggested before that I reach out to Mr Blake, though being English, I had never done so.Īfter our talk I had a proper think about it. It is a rough ride at times, but an unquestionably exciting one!”Īs I was sitting on a beach in Los Angeles with my best friend Rikki Beadle-Blair, being (in my case unsuitable) background artistes for the Black Gay Pride sequence in the finale to season 2 of Noah’s Arc, we were approached by Patrik-Ian Polk, the show’s director and creator, who held his cell-phone out to me and said, ‘Speak to Bobby Blake.’ I took the phone and stumbled through an awkward conversation with the legendary – not to say notorious – porn-star, who was looking for a writer to work with him on his autobiography. "In his tale of a man who went from preacher to porn star and back into the ministry, of sex workers balancing ‘normal’ romantic relationships, the self-destructive behavior of many of his peers, and more, Blake offers a fresh and unique account of his life and a highly-revealing behind-the-scenes picture of the adult film industry. From his roots as a bisexual black male in the Deep South dealing with a troubled mother, criminal brother, an absentee father, and his own life-threatening health problems, to his early experiences in the porno industry where drugs, racism, and other obstacles presented constant challenges, Blake has come through the other side as exactly the man he wants to be.
“As the most celebrated black gay porn star in the business, Bobby Blake has seen and been through it all. It is also the story of one man’s spiritual struggle, the quest for a meaningful life, for love, and the need for community.