If a man in a suit gets your attention then you’re probably very familiar with the work of the MENatPLAY studio – they’ve been fuelling our fantasies since 2004.
I caught up with Hector Camacho – the Executive Producer of MENatPLAY – for a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create some of the hottest action in the business.
Hot guys in suits? You can bank on it.
“I began my career in corporate banking…” explains Hector, as we discuss how he ended up owning a gay porn studio.
“I love learning new things – I worked in operations, security, technology, and sales. Eventually, I got bored with banking and took a job with a gay dating app – that was a whole new industry to learn.”
“The owner of the dating app was interested in acquisitions…” continues Hector. “One of the businesses that we looked at was the MENatPLAY studio. I did all of the due diligence but ultimately the deal didn’t go through.”
“I moved on to other roles and eventually started my own consulting company…” continues Hector. “One of the first opportunities we looked at was MENatPLAY. I knew that it was an interesting business, the owners were looking to sell, and here we are.”
Given Hector’s background in the corporate sector, I was interested in whether he had a kink for men in suits and if that was the driving factor behind his interest in MENatPLAY.
“It’s not my personal fetish…” clarifies Hector. “To be honest with you, I was interested in the business because of the numbers – it was a successful site in a niche with little competition.”
“There is a proportion of our members that love the suit fetish – they understand the lining, the buttons, the shirts, the socks – even the specific way to knot a tie. They will sometimes ask us where we bought a specific pinstripe or something.”
“MENatPLAY is about suits and ties and socks, but it’s also about power play. A suit represents power.”
“The reason that we know that our MENatPLAY members are looking for more than just really nice suits is that we’ve been doing some testing with uniforms. We’ve filmed scenes with doctors and with military uniforms. These scenes perform just as well as the scenes where the guys are wearing suits.”
Talking about the appeal of power-plays led us into a conversation about aggression or coercion and why it’s important to be aware of the relevant regulations when depicting power being displayed.
“Compliance with laws and regulations is the number one challenge – it has been for a number of years…” confirms Hector. “Some of our biggest markets are now also requiring age-verification. It’s not what we want but it’s what the law requires however users understandably want their privacy.”
I was interested in the casting process used by MENatPLAY – particularly in the context of the power-play dynamic that they’re looking to tap into with their scenes.
“We start high-level – what are the scenes that are going to be shot this month…” explains Hector. “I then do some light scripting to help our production team understand the characters, they’ll then try and match that with the available locations and the potential models. We’ve done a much better job lately of connecting the script with the model.”
“I have a great production team that I can trust. Our director, Rex Marco, has been with the company for over 12 years. Alvaro Santana, who’s our chief stylist, really understands that niche and what the customers want in terms of the styling, in terms of the wardrobe.”
“In terms of the performers, we don’t have exclusives, we have headliners – guys like Dato Foland – he’s a great actor, very versatile, very easy to work with. Tom Storm is very authentic, very committed. Dani Robles has been in over 30 scenes. Jay Roberts has recently returned to filming after a number of years – his scenes are very popular.”
“We get about 25 requests each week from guys wanting to work with the studio. A lot of it comes down to logistics but they also need to fit the script.”
“In the beginning, MENatPLAY was based out of London but they subsequently moved operations to Malaga. We then bought the studio. It’s obviously easier to cast performers in the country where your studio is based. We fly performers in from across the EU, but if someone drops out at the last minute, we use local models. That means that where the studio used to use a lot of British models, we’re now using a lot of Spanish models.”
“We build relationships with these models. Our production team is talking to them weeks ahead. They’ll send them the script. We need to do fittings, so they’ll see our stylist and we’ll make any alterations required. Performers who film with us will have seen the team two or three times before they’re on set.”
I was interested in how Hector’s work with MENatPLAY has shaped him personally.
“I’ve always been an introvert…” explains Hector. “After 25 years of doing this, it’s made me more comfortable in who I am – not only as a gay man or an owner of a gay company, but as a pornographer.”
“I grew up in that era where being gay was bad, where the first thing people thought about porn was the really horrible stuff – I’ve always had these reservations.”
“It’s only been since I put myself front and centre with MENatPLAY that I’ve been able to say that I am proud. There’s nothing that I do that I’m uncomfortable with or that I’m not proud of.”
“We’ve only recently started putting my name on our videos – with the credit as executive producer. I would have never approved that three years ago.”
“In a way, that’s my way of being political, of standing up to conservatism, of standing up for our industry. There’s nothing wrong with this industry. There’s nothing wrong with what we do. We are doing it legally and ethically. I don’t need to be ashamed.”
