Bonehard Mike

Interview and photography by
Adam Baran

X-TUBE SENSATION TAKES A BACKPACK OF SEX TOYS WHEREVER HE GOES

I am sitting in a hotel room in Palm Springs, jet-lagged and completely nervous while waiting for Bonehard Mike to arrive. Mike is an amateur X-Tube porn star whose jerk-off videos have become my current obsession. Something about Mike, as he appears in his videos, seems so playfully masculine that I can't help but feel a little bit in love with him. He's always doing goofy stuff like flexing his biceps or playing with his nipples. Mike's profile on X-Tube lists his hobbies as 'Going to Burning Man. Keeping up with celebrity gossip. Knitting. Maintaining a sparkling, clean butthole. Making sure the heels of my feet are baby soft, so when they are resting on my lover's back, while I'm being fucked, they don't feel like sandpaper.' I'm pacing back and forth, thinking about how we'll be in the same room, and wondering if we'll hook up, and then Mike arrives. He's friendly, much more animated than I had expected, and has a cute Chicago accent. We chat, and then after the interview is over, we kiss passionately and jerk each other off, using lube from Mike's backpack of sex toys. It seems he came prepared. My jet-lag vanishes.

Adam: Okay, so I’m completely obsessed with you from X-Tube. It’s hard for me to believe that you’re really here. How did ‘Bonehard Mike’ come about?
Mike: I was living up in Sedona, Arizona over the wintertime last year. I was working on a show and painting. Sedona is really kind of isolated – a really small community. I was feeling really cut off from gay culture and the world, so Bonehard Mike and the whole X-Tube thing was birthed out of really feeling really repressed. I was just like ‘I’m going to make these videos and I’m going to post them and the fucking world can look at them.’
So all the videos are from very recently?
Yeah. All the videos that are up there right now are from this year. I had a profile with just photos but then I got rid of them and posted a few videos and then I took them down. It’s kind of been a personal growth thing for me, dealing with, you know, ‘Can I be this out there? Can I allow myself to be this out there?’ Finally this year I decided, you know, this is who I am. I’m forty-one years old. I’m an artist and if I choose to express myself this way, that’s my choice. I’m not hurting anyone and I have a lot of people who enjoy what I’m producing and what I’m putting out there.
It sounds like you like to push yourself, no?
Yeah, to push my personal limits. I just posted a video on X-Tube where I’m getting fucked and it shows my face. And all these people were like ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you did that.’ But there’s a certain type of pleasure that I derive from expressing myself that fully and being that comfortable to allow myself to put it on the internet. I don’t take myself that seriously and I think people in general take sex too seriously in terms of ‘You can’t do that, that’s scandalous, that’s immoral, that’s morally bankrupt,’ to be that open.
Has it helped you get laid?
Oh gosh. You know, to be honest with you, I don’t think it’s even helped me get laid, because most of the people who are watch the videos don’t live in the city where I am. I’m living in Phoenix right now and its more conservative. I’ve had a couple of people from Phoenix contact me and I get messages from people all over the world, but it seems like it never actually generates into actual sex. I suppose I could work harder at it.
You project a daddy vibe in your videos. Would you say that’s accurate in bed?
I would say that I’m really versatile and very open to whatever. I think, to me, it’s person to person. There are times when I’m with someone younger who’s looking at me as the daddy. I can play that kind of role. I’m kind of transitioning from being kind of a boy-man to man. Growing up I was kind of the boy, the son. I had a lot of kind of father-son relationships where I was with guys who were 20 years older than me but now I’m that guy, I’m transitioning into being that guy. Only in the past year have I referred to myself as a daddy. If I’m going to post a video, I’ll put it in the daddies section because I’m 41. I like to think I look a little younger than that but my physicality and just how I am is very much the daddy. It works for me.
What type of camera do you use to shoot the videos?
It’s a Sony CyberShot. It’s great. It’s only 10.1 mega-pixels. You know, I’m sure there are cameras that are a lot more advanced than that but I kind of like it not being too perfect. I want it to be a little grainy or amateurish. I think I always enjoy watching videos that are pretty good but have an amateurish edge – not too slick. I think that’s sexier in a way.
And your purse – sorry, your book bag – is from High School Musical?
Totally. That’s actually my sex sack. That’s like my little ‘High School Musical’ backpack but I use it almost exclusively for sex stuff — condom, lube, cock rings, poppers, and anal douche. Usually, I don’t have it in there now, but I have wet wipes, sometimes a little towel.
So you were fully prepared?
Yeah, by all means. I usually take that on dates.
That bag! You take that bag with you on dates?
Sure because I don’t know what’s going to happen after the date.
But doesn’t you date doesn’t mind the High School Musical angle of the bag?
Oh no, they usually do, they usually inquire about it. This is a funny story. I was going on a date with this guy. I met him at the restaurant and he noticed the bag and right away and he was like ‘What’s with the bag?’ And I was like ‘Oh you know there’s just some things I need to bring with me,’ and he was like ‘But why that?’ He was fascinated, obsessed with the bag. As we’re walking into the restaurant he was like ‘Well, I wanna know what’s in that bag.’ And as we are walking into the restaurant I’m like ‘Are you sure?’ and he’s like ‘Yes, I wanna know.’ So as we walked into the lobby of the restaurant I pulled out the anal douche, which is bright red, and his eyes almost popped out of his head. He was like, ‘Oh my god, put that away, put that away!’ He’s like ‘Why do you have that?’ And I was like ‘Well, I don’t know how this date’s going to go. If you wanna fuck me after this date I want to make sure the passage is clean, so I’m bringing the douche with me.’ It was just a funny moment. Of all the things I’ve owned over the years, nothing has generated as much interest as my little High School Musical bag.
I think you should make a video where you take stuff out of the bag and use it and the bag should become part of your repertoire.
Yeah. That’s a good idea.
Do you have any idea why your videos are popular?
I think in a lot of my videos, I think what’s kind of consistent is that I’m a pretty smiley, happy person and I think that comes through in the videos and I think that’s why, partly why, I’ve had so many responses from so many people because there are thousands, millions of people jerk off videos but what would make mine more interesting or more intriguing is I think I’m obviously showing my face. There’s personality. I like to think my personality comes through. It’s not just the physicality. It’s not just the body and the boner.

Published on 02 December 2009