A tale of two Steves: would Cheryl Chin turn into Louisa or Sylvia?

Hi guys, I've just done a post of Titus Low and having done a bit more research, I thought I'd do a follow up rather than update the previous post. In my previous post, I wrote that I was cynical about his recent marriage to Cheryl Chin and I'm a lot less cynical now. I guess I'm admitting this out aloud here on my blog as a lesson never to rush into judgment. Initially I was very skeptical of Titus getting married to a woman (any woman, never mind whom it was) because I had seen videos of him performing gay sex in some of his leaked Onlyfans video. It led me to think, this guy is gay, what's he doing marrying a woman? Is this going to be one of those sad cases in Singapore where a gay man is forced to conform by getting married to please his parents? However, there were two key points which have changed my mind: firstly, Titus has stated clearly that he is bisexual as opposed to gay and secondly, I have looked into the social media footprint of Cheryl Chin and it has given me a lot more context about why she might be happy to marry a bisexual porn star. But I also would like to widen the discussion up to look at the case studies of a few other older porn stars who did get married and settled down, to give us some idea of what it is like when a famous porn star actually does get married. For the record, I'm openly gay, I consume a lot of porn and I'm completely liberal on the issue of porn - that's why I was somewhat surprised that I did react with such cynicism in my previous post when I'm as liberal as one can be on the whole issue of the porn industry. I once wrote a post called a tale of two Johns, so this time it will be a tale of two Steves. 

So what happens when a male porn star gets married? Well there are two routes to follow: the first route involves a clean break with the porn industry and settling down to a quiet life in order to provide the child(ren) with a stable environment to grow up with. The second route is to marry someone from within the adult entertainment industry - a fellow porn star - so there's a very clear understanding of what both parties have to do to make a living. We shall look at two case studies: Steve Hooper and Steve Holmes - given that both porn stars use the name Steve, I'll use their surnames instead. Let's start with Hooper - he was a very successful British porn star, active in the period of 1999 to 2006, a period of just seven years but within that time, he starred in over 150 adult films, won numerous awards in the industry by starring in mostly straight porn, but also did some gay and bisexual content aimed at his audience which were primarily men. He was also a high-end escort who would meet fans (both men and women) and have sex with them, he commanded a very high price given his fame as a porn star. Then at 2006, whilst at the height of his fame, at the flick of a switch, he announced his retirement from the porn industry, married Louisa Bundy and settled down in a small town outside London called Chigwell. Hooper then went on to have a daughter with his wife and now works as an estate agent. Ironically, Steve Hooper is his real name, he never bothered to change his name to create a porn star alter-ego as he was proud of what he did as a successful porn star. He has managed to keep a very low profile since leaving the porn industry, though loads of his porn is still circulating online - I wonder what his wife and daughter make of his former life as the famous porn star. 

Let's contrast that to the other Steve - Holmes is a famous German porn star who started his career in the adult entertainment industry back in 1996; at that time, he was already married but he entered the industry with the consent of his wife Sylvia. He picked the name Holmes because he didn't want to use his real name when doing porn and one of the most famous porn stars in the world from the 1970s and 1980s was John Holmes (whom incidentally was married twice) - though the original John Holmes had died in 1988, eight years before Steve Holmes started in the industry in 1996. We don't know that much about Sylvia as she prefers to keep a low profile, however, we do know that she pops up every now and then behind the scenes, doing everything from make up, costumes to organizing the logistics of the shoots featuring her husband with other porn stars. She doesn't perform in any of the scenes, but she works as part of the crew. They don't have any children and at the age of 61, Holmes is still actively performing and producing porn today, with his wife Sylvia as part of his production team. Holmes and Sylvia are living proof that there are indeed married people working long-term in the porn industry  very successfully. Holmes is one of the pioneers in the industry who have embraced the way internet  technology has revolutionized the porn industry - when he started doing porn, people were still going to porn shops to buy VHS video cassettes to watch the porn films. In fact, many of his fellow performers from back in the 1990s have simply disappeared into obscurity, displaced by younger performers entering the industry but Holmes is still at the very top of his game and successfully making a lot of money in this ruthless porn industry - so I say, good for him! 

So let's contrast the two Steves: Hooper vs Holmes. It seems clear that Louisa (Hooper's wife) doesn't mind or care what he has done in the past but as long as he wanted to marry her and start a family with her, she wanted to put all that behind them and start afresh, as a family. Whereas Sylvia (Holmes' wife) has totally embraced the adult entertainment industry and she is more than happy to see her husband continue working in it. It would be wrong to pass any judgment on any of them - as long as they are  both happy, then whatever arrangements and agreements they have between themselves is private of course. Some people would feel that Hooper's situation is a bit weird - to go from one of the country's most popular and successful porn stars to a quiet life in a small town, pretending to be normal; like how does that work? Surely for quite a few years at least, people would be saying, "did you know that Hooper was a famous porn star? Just look him up on Google, he has done so much porn back in the day. What's he doing pretending to be a real estate agent in a small town like this, picking up his daughter after school like a small-town normal dad?" By the same token, some people might think that Sylvia's very liberal stance on her husband's career as a porn star is unusual to say the least, not many women would feel comfortable watching their husband have sex with many other women for a living, but then again, how Sylvia feels about the situation is not for us to judge and if she is happy with her husband's career choice, good for her, as there are so many women out there who wish that their husbands had more successful careers. 

Thus for Titus & Cheryl, do you think that they would turn into Hooper & Louisa after they get married and in a few years time, you would run into Cheryl picking up her daughter from the local tuition center or would they turn into Holmes & Sylvia? Looking at their social media, the evidence strongly suggests the latter - I just can't imagine Cheryl making the same choices as Louisa. Louisa has never performed in the porn industry, nor has she even had a Youtube channel - she keeps a very low profile and has no interest at all in social media in sharp contrast to Cheryl, whose entire career is on various social media platforms. And of course Cheryl is aware of what Titus has been doing on Onlyfans and if she wasn't completely okay with it, she wouldn't have married him. The only difference is that Holmes & Sylvia are German, culturally Germans are very liberal - even way back in the 1970s, there was plenty of porn produced in West Germany as it was one of the countries with the most liberal laws when it came to porn production back then, along with places like the Netherlands, France and Denmark. Hence for a German couple like Holmes & Sylvia to have this kind of relationship, it wasn't frowned upon - the Germans would barely bat an eyelid if they heard about a wife supporting her husband's porn career, it really isn't that scandalous or shocking for Germans. However, Titus is Singaporean and Cheryl is Malaysian - this is why having this kind of marriage like Holmes & Sylvia is still very unusual in Singapore and Malaysia  - furthermore don't forget Holmes was having sex with other women whilst Titus is having sex with other men on Onlyfans. 

Then again, let's not rule out the other option: Prior to his retirement from porn, Hooper was doing a lot more than porn - he was cashing in on his fame as a porn star by working as a high-end escort. One of the stories I found online described an event whereby a male customer paid for Hooper and another male escort for a group gay sex party - it was extremely expensive but Hooper did everything he was paid to do and look, I don't want to sound like a prude. If he could make that much money like that, then good for him but many of us are still struggling to try to find out what made Hooper just decide that he didn't want any more of that lifestyle and turn his back on it. Some people thought he became sick with something like cancer whilst others thought he became a born-again Christian. Others had simply assumed that he had come to his senses after all the excesses in the adult entertainment industry and working as an escort, that he felt empty inside and longed for the love of a real family, though I feel rather skeptical about that last theory. I can imagine some fat and ugly loser who happens to be married with kids peddling that theory, because it is a narrative that suits him well - "look at that famous porn star, earning so much money, enjoying loads of parties, having sex with many beautiful women for a living, commanding a massive fan base but deep down inside, he really wants what I have! A stable family life, knowing that I can come home to my wife and kids everyday after work is worth so much more than what any of these porn stars have. That's why he left porn to become just like me." Is it possible to see Titus do what Hooper did? It is very unlikely, but hey, never say never. Titus' ability to earn is contingent on his looks, what will he do when he's 40 years old?

The thing is Titus has grown accustomed to earning a lot of money through porn, how would he cope with leaving porn and going to work as an estate agent the way Hooper did (for a lot less money)? If Titus is clearly good at what he does and can make this much money, then he has no reason to change the formula - he simply needs to do it in a jurisdiction where he is not going to get into trouble with the law. Thus if Cheryl is already based in Los Angeles, then it would make sense for him to move there with her and who knows, he might even cross paths with Holmes as Holmes spends a lot of time in Los Angeles. They would fit in easily in a far more liberal place like California, but that could be a double-edged sword. Titus & Cheryl are getting so much attention in Singapore and Malaysia because they stand out there - what they are doing is so unusual and thus people want to talk about them. Cheryl mentioned that a Malaysian newspaper even wrote a whole article on her and for a social media influencer trying to get your attention, that's exactly what she wants. However in a place like California, what they are doing is hardly unusual. In America, laws can vary from state to state and thus some states (like California) are a lot more liberal when it comes to porn production. Thus that explains why there is a thriving porn industry in Southern California and for Titus is going to be just one of so many porn stars trying to make it big there. Would his fans in Singapore and Malaysia stay loyal to him if he does move to California? Thus staying in Singapore for now and so courting controversy might be exactly what they want in order to occupy the headlines now. 

What the future holds for Titus and Cheryl is anyone's guess, but certainly, Holmes and Sylvia should give them confidence to pursue a married life that is very different society's norms. So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Can you imagine Cheryl patiently holding the camera, trying to get the lighting right for a scene whilst Titus is in bed performing with a couple of other men? And if she is perfectly happy doing that, can you imagine her being like Sylvia Holmes? Mind you, Sylvia Holmes is happy to take a back seat and work behind the scenes whilst allowing her husband to be in the limelight - can you imagine Cheryl being willing to do the same thing or do you think that she would be too hungry for attention to be willing to accept that deal? Please do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.