Sean Ford on the Normalization of Violence, the Death of Eroticism, and Reclaiming the Word Faggot

Gay porn star Sean Ford, in the latest issue of Interview Magazine, says he wants to become the spokesman for “Queer Love.”

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For Ford, expressing queer love through his work involves “celebrating and normalizing the image of gay love and intimacy as more of a public sphere.'”

Ford says he  believes “queer love shouldn’t only exist in the narrow scope of porn. I’ve been trying to push it onto others, working with fashion designers who also appreciate sexuality and don’t try to hide from it. I think, in that regard, pushing the idea and image of gay love and intimacy as more of a public sphere and not so much as the disposable thing that porn tends to construe it as.”

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He continues, “I’ve been trying to push it onto others, working with fashion designers who also appreciate sexuality and don’t try to hide from it. I think, in that regard, pushing the idea and image of gay love and intimacy as more of a public sphere and not so much as the disposable thing that porn tends to construe it as. … Violence has become so much more normalized than eroticism. I think it’s for actually quite an intentional, sinister reason. It’s because violence tends to push people apart for the benefit of the powerful. Love, radical love, tends to bring people together and can affect real change. I think the promotion and normalization of violence over love and eroticism has been an intentional move by the powerful to sort of drive us away from each other.”

On the subject of the F-Word interviewer, Peter McGough elucidates the evolution of the word queer from one of derision in the past to one that is a stand in for the broader LGBTQ+ spectrum and notes that he sees Ford’s generation doing the same with the word faggot. “I see all these [young] people saying “faggot.” I love that kind of thing—“the faggotry.”

Ford agrees, “I feel like we’ve reclaimed that word, faggot. It feels really good to say.”