Lost Boys: Vintage Images Of Scott O'Hara

Lost Boys: Vintage Images Of Scott O'Hara

'The Biggest Dick in San Francisco.'

Scott O’Hara.

Love him or hate him, Scott O'Hara was a true sexual warrior; irreverent, unapologetic, and brutally honest, he scorched the landscape of the gay porn industry unlike anyone before him. Not even the AIDs crisis could slow him down or shut him up. 

In fact, it only served to fuel his very personal brand of warfare.

Robert W. Richards, of Manshot magazine once wrote of O'Hara: "In person, he's much softer, blond and friendly, with a mind that travels at the speed of the Concorde. He's a dedicated artist working very hard at sharing the joy he finds in his very deliberately chosen profession."

O'Hara wore many hats during his brief lifetime; porn star, author, poet, editor, publisher. Rising to prominence during the mid-eighties, his legacy remains truly unique in the annuls of gay porn history. Because of his fearless outspokenness, he became a lightening rod for critics - a storm he truly welcomed, for all the noise only brought more attention to himself and his favorite causes. 

Let's take a brief look at the man who would become a legend in his own time.   

Scott O'Hara
AKA: Spunk

Birthdate: October 16, 1961
Birthplace: Grants Pass, Josephine County, Oregon
Death: February 18, 1998

Hair: Brown/Blonde
Eyes: Hazel
Height: 5′ 10″
Position: Versatile
Build: Swimmer
Body Hair: Smooth

Endowment: 10” Cut

Tattoos: HIV +, left shoulder
Piercings: Ears, Nipples

Years Active: 1983 – 1988
Films: 21

Compilations: 17

Studios: Vivid, Falcon, Old Reliable, Brush Creek Media, Jocks, Wings, Seabag, Bijou, California Blue, HIS, In-Hand, etc.

John Robert Scott was born on October 16, 1961 in Grants Pass, OR. He was one of seven children raised by Robert Hogue Scott and Martha Jane (née Farwell) Scott. While the family lived modestly on a family farm, there was inherited wealth, so that for much of his life Scott was fortunate enough to be supported by a trust fund. 

From a very young age, O'Hara identified as gay, remembering, in particular, that by the time he was eleven years of age he was "obsessed with anything sexual." He knew he "wanted other men... from the very first time (he) jerked off." 

He had several older brothers, but, as O'Hara put it, "we were a puritanical family, and there was never any messing around. But I was always curious. I was even more curious about my friends at school, and especially about their older brothers and fathers. Most of my early role model crushes were older men, which I consider very positive."

His first sexual encounter with a man happened when he was fifteen. Sexually precocious, he claims to have seduced, or perhaps 'raped' (his word), a man thirteen years his senior. Once he came of age, he frequented gay bathhouses and other men's sex clubs, and developed a taste for cruising and having sex in public parks.

If O'Hara seemed to be a very young sexual outlaw, this certainly was not a reflection of his childhood or home life. Commenting later in life regarding his own focus on giving sexual pleasure to others, he said, "I've had this conversation with my mother, and she and my father put on blinders and refuse to see sexuality as a positive thing." He went on to say... "My mother doesn't understand it at all - she feels there are higher callings in life than giving people pleasure. She feels one should look beyond this life to other things. She doesn't seem to value pleasure, period." 

In regards to his sexual philosophy, O'Hara said, "I always, literally always, have been very open, even pushy, about my sexuality. I like sex in the sunlight. I think that's the place for it - in the sunshine on the grass. People should be able to watch people having sex. It should be a public thing, not subject to censorship. I've always felt this way, from the time I became aware of what my dick was for. It seemed to me that it was for public consumption. I knew that was not generally accepted, but it seemed so natural to me that I couldn't believe more people did not see it that way."

In an essay titled A Dick by Any Other Name, O'Hara wrote: "I knew from an early age that I was a changeling. I spent the next eighteen years looking for my real name, and since I found it I have not pretended to be anyone else." In his early teens he began to develop the idea that sex was a form of pleasure he wanted to give to the world, though he didn't act on it until he turned twenty.

His first paid work as a performer was in the summer of 1983 at Savages, a theatre in San Francisco later called The Campus. Recalling his arrival in San Francisco, O'Hara "saw an ad for a live jackoff show and thought, "Wow, fantastic, I gotta see this! And I went and watched and was thrilled and jacked off and went home. I returned two or three times and built up enough courage to get up on stage and do a show myself, just spontaneously after one of the other performers had finished. I just did it, and they said, 'you're hired'."

Scott became known professionally as Scott O'Hara or 'Spunk' and used his professional name throughout his adult life. He began to attract a great deal of  industry attention in the early '80's once he won the title 'The Man With The Biggest Dick in San Francisco,' a title that would follow him throughout his professional gay porn career. 

The size of O'Hara's penis has been reported as anywhere from 9.5 to 11 inches. And when the world of gay porn came knocking? O'Hara was only too happy to answer. That 'gift' he shared with the world made him one very popular centerfold model.

TORSO February 1985
ADVOCATE MEN May 1985, 

ADVOCATE MEN September 1985

STALLION October 1985 

MEN OF ADVOCATE MEN Oct/Nov 1985

INCHES April 1986

MEN OF ADVOCATE MEN Apr/May 1986

HONCHO May 1986

HONCHO July 1986

STALLION August 1986

MALE INSIDER August 1986

STALLION May 1987

HEAT November 1987

HONCHO May 1988

BLUEBOY July 1988

HEAT December 1988

MANSHOTS March 1989

JOCK August 1989

INCHES: GAYPORN STAR’S ANNUAL 1991 

INCHES February 1991

INCHES February 1992

INCHES September 1993

TORSO May 1995

MANSHOTS June 1995

ALL MAN November 1996
UNZIPPED April 14, 1998

MANSHOTS July 1998
MANSHOTS November 1998

PLAYGUY v08 n07, October 2001
 

JUST MEN v05 n05
DRUMMER 075, 088

GLORY HOLE SLAVE

SKINFLICKS v07 n05
STUDFLIX v05 n02, v05 n05
STROKE v03 n06, v08 n02
GAY PORN HEROES: 100 MOST FAMOUS PORN STARS
OLD RELIABLE: MALES #3
THE BIG PENIS BOOK
MEN MAGAZINE 15TH ANNIVERSARY
MEN MAGAZINE PRESENTS: FALCON 30th ANNIVERSARY
SURGE: OVERSIZE LOAD
SURGE: DIESEL DICKS

From 1983 to 1988, he would appear in over twenty gay or bisexual features. His first film, Falcon Studio's Winner Take All, O'Hara would appear in a scene that was, for a time, the talk of the industry. As O'Hara tells it, the scene where he puts a garden hose up Randy Page's butthole "...was planned. I would not have allowed that to be done to me, but if Randy was willing to let someone do it to him, that was his business, and... it's not a scene I'm fond of, but many people have seen it and remember it..."

In that same interview, O'Hara said he considered Oversize Load, directed by Al Parker, to be his best film and Tony Bravo, whom he enjoyed a 'friendship' with away from the cameras, was his his ideal match on film.

O'Hara also acted in several bisexual films. He once mentioned 1986's Switch Hitters 2 as one of his favorite films because he got to experience the novelty of sex with a woman. It was something he'd always wanted to experience and claimed to enjoy the scene - proud of how 'butch' he appeared on screen. He wrote, "in all my years of ass-pounding, I'd never once gotten into a pussy, and I felt as if this were a serious gap in my sexual education, which needed filling."

Another of his many other talents celebrated on film? His mastery of auto-fellatio, something he would become rather infamous for, as he was able to accomplish it by simply bending over while standing.

Later in life, O'Hara would describe his work in porn as "a sheer delight from the word go." He added, "It's sad that we're still not proud of being sexual... so while most gays are out there fighting for gay rights, I'm out there fighting for sexual rights. I celebrate pornography because other people censor it."

1983 

Winner Takes All
 
1984 

Big, Bigger, Best
Ramcharger

Slaves for Sale 2

1985 

Below The Belt
California Blue

Joys of Self Abuse

Other Side of Aspen 2
Sgt. Swann's Private Files
Sighs (AKA: Lovers & Friends)

1986 

Advocate Men Live
Oversize Load
Stick Shift

1987 

Old Reliable 52: The Guy Next Door
Old Reliable 72: J/O Collection 5

Sex Hunt

Switch Hitters 2

1988 

Advocate Men Live 4: From San Francisco To Rio

1988 

Double Standards
Head Over Heels
In Your Wildest Dreams

After he became aware of his HIV status, which he once claimed to have contracted in 1981, offers to appear in films came to an abrupt end. However, that did not mean that O'Hara's life quest was over.

In a March 1989 interview with Manshots magazine, he stated, "I'm talking about putting pornography in its rightful place in the world. That's what I consider to be my goal in life. But, I won't achieve it, not if I live to be one hundred and fifty. There's no way I could, but I'm certainly going to spend my life trying." 

Switching gears in 1991, O'Hara moved to Cazenovia, WI, where he wrote four books: SeXplorers: The Guide to Doing It on the Road, Do It Yourself Piston Polishing (for Non-Mechanics, Autopornography: A Memoir of Life in the Lust Lane, and Rarely Pure and Never Simple: Selected Essays of Scott O'Hara.

In addition, from '93 to '95, he edited and published a quarterly men's journal titled Steam. Dubbed "the intellectual review of public sex", it was intended to help facilitate gay cruising, focusing on "public and semi-public sex." Each issue was accompanied by the caveat: "Our purpose is to provide a sex-positive forum for subjects considered taboo by other mags. We are aware that many activities mentioned in these pages are illegal in many parts of the world, and we do not advocate unlawful activity." Issues featured stories about "all kinds of sex, but especially public, publicly-disapproved, exciting sex", plus tips regarding how-to and safety and lists of actual cruising locations (parks, restrooms, etc.) in various cities.

In 1995, O'Hara returned to San Francisco. There, he created a new cultural magazine called Wilde, though the venture was short-lived, publishing only five issues.

Throughout all of this, O'Hara remained a strong advocate and activist for his various pet causes. 

In 1994, he had "HIV+" tattooed on his bicep and then tore the sleeves off many of his shirts so it would always be visible. 

An early proponent of barebacking, he praised his HIV status as "an undeniable blessing," while citing the freedom from fear it offered him - a controversial stance, for sure. He then gave voice to 'bug chasers,' commenting how he "admired tremendously" people who had "consciously made the decision to seroconvert." 

While these stances attracted plenty of attention, O'Hara also had to contend with the backlash; criticism that followed him to and beyond the grave. One such critic said of him... "I'm sure he was a great person, but he seemed to be eroticizing death more than sex towards the end. (I) never (understood) the appeal. Ditto with (his) more recent glamorization and justification of barebacking, specifically that weird subgenre of 'gift giving' conversion parties that some of the queer studies crowd has taken up..."

However, he also had his supporters: "Scott had many interests beyond sex (art, politics, writing) and definitely didn’t eroticize death. He embraced life through sex and sex positivity, supported emerging writers, and tried to make an impact on gay magazines with the short-lived gay glossy Wilde. He was fighting the anti-sex climate of the times. Fun fact: he was also an ardent anti-smoker, as he saw it as a threat to life and health. His HIV+ tattoo was for brave honesty and visibility, but also to challenge those who barebacked with their heads in the sand."

As far as his personal life went, he's on record calling monogamy "unnatural." O'Hara never had, nor did he want, a long-term relationship. He once said that there were only six times in his life when he "was in love, deeply and thoroughly, for a period of a month or more." He once wrote: "The concept of 'lover' (or 'spouse', or 'partner', or whatever) is basically, intrinsically antithetical to what my philosophy of life holds up as the ideal."

Instead, O'Hara focused on continuing to sexually liberate gay men. He once said, "having our mouth full of dick has been a political statement like no other." If true, then he was very 'politically' active; his personal appetite was so voracious that, until he became aware of his HIV status, he claimed to have had "a different man every night, or nearly." He said, "It may be hedonistic, but I devote myself to pleasure - other people's, as well as my own. The best moments are when theirs and mine coincide."

An acquaintance acknowledged this aspect of O'Hara's complicated persona: "I knew Scott O’Hara. He was smart, thoughtful, and quite a nice guy. He saw pleasure as a political issue, especially during (the) peak (of the) AIDS (crisis), and didn’t give AF what others thought. (He w)as happy to play public provocateur, but didn’t act that way 24/7." 

Even once the virus got the best of him, O'Hara continued to speak out, talking  about AIDs "at every available opportunity," including writing "in detail about his treatment for lymphoma and the pain he endured."

By then, the writing was also on the wall. His trust fund exhausted, O'Hara spent his final years in a windowless San Francisco apartment he dubbed "The Cave," surrounded by his collection of albums, CDs, books, and erotic art. He took up gardening to pass the time and jokingly referred to the non-Hodgkin lymphoma he had to live with during his final five years as "The Death Spoor."  

On February 18, 1998, at age 36. O'Hara died of AIDS-related complications in San Francisco. In his self-written obituary, he announced that he had "croaked" and asked that people make a donation to "their local sperm bank in lieu of charity." His body was cremated, and his ashes distributed among all who wanted any. In addition, he donated his collection of over 500 works of erotic art to The Tom of Finland Foundation and his is personal papers (journals, correspondence, notes, and manuscripts) to the John Hay Library of Brown University. In addition, the archives of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco have preserved a collection of O'Hara's performance costumes and other memorabilia.

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I must say, I put off writing about Scott O'Hara for as long as I could; there's an awful lot to unpack, here. He's such a controversial figure, even after all these years, and I have such mixed feelings about him. 

Was he attractive? I don't know. His photographic legacy is a mixed bag at best. And while a part of me cringes when I think of some of the things he advocated during his post-porn career, I have to say, that had I met him? 

I would have liked him a lot. 

I mean... a lot, a lot. 

Yes, he would have rubbed me the wrong way occasionally, but... the best friends always do.

I totally understand his positions regarding pleasure, sex, and being a gay man. Perhaps one of the reasons he struck such a raw nerve is because: it's a common nerve, one shared throughout the gay community. He simply gave it voice. Was he a visionary? A case of bravery or hubris? I think bravery... because, where he's concerned, there was a sexual intelligence in play from a very early age - another thing that I believe may be more universal than most adults are willing to admit.  

Whatever your take on the man? You must admit that he lived an extraordinarily fearless, honestly-examined life. That he shared it all with us, every thought? I ask you... 

Does that make him an accomplished exhibitionist or a sexual philosopher? 

Time will tell.

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And that's all for now. 

I've a few more profiles planned but, if you happen to think of someone I haven't written about who fits the criteria (Golden Age of Gay Porn 1970's - mid 1980's), please leave their name(s) in the comments section. 

Until next time...

Thank you for reading.

The Kid's A Punk - Slik

Rebel, Rebel - David Bowie