It was the second time it happened in less than a year: my life crossed paths with a favorite gay porn star in the moments just before his
death. In 2012, I saw a Tweet that Erik Rhodes posted about the tears he shed
every time he listened to Madonna’s “Has To Be”. And so I Tweeted him my blog
entry “Straight vs. ‘Straight’” and spent the next day anxiously wondering if he’d been affected and would reply. The next morning
he died unexpectedly, and that day his passing was the first I ever wrote about
for my blog.
Today I learned of the death of Arpad Miklos, the beautiful,
charismatic Hungarian actor and star of dozens of modern gay classics. I did
not know who he was until only a few years ago, but when I saw him onscreen, I
was mesmerized. The effect never went away. Something about Arpad was warm and
sensual and yet dark and dangerous. I always felt that he had the looks and the
talent to be a European movie star, and that’s why he became the muse for one
of the characters in a script that I have recently been polishing for
submission to a screenplay competition. In my mind, Arpad plays one of the lead characters, and my dream was that his recent fame following
the Perfume Genius “Hood” music video could lead to his being a contender to
play the role onscreen. (I even changed the character’s name from “Oliver” to “Armand”
to insure he’d be an instant fit.) In recent days I have been reworking the script,
and Arpad had frequently been on my mind as such. On Sunday night, I began work
on a new blog entry that he inspired when his being on my mind lead me to YouTube video clips of Arpad locking lips with his co-stars in various gay porn films. The blog
dealt with the power that onscreen depictions of male-male intimacy could have in
preventing suicide. I planned to post that blog this evening, but while finishing
it, I learned that Arpad had taken his own life on Sunday night.
Recent events have prompted me to be more open
about my deeply spiritual beliefs, and I cannot treat the timing of Arpad’s
suicide and his directly inspiring my pro-sex/anti-suicide post as mere
coincidence. However, I also cannot bring myself to post it as originally
written so soon after Arpad’s passing. It’s not that this awful news changed my perspective: I think the message is all the more relevant after such a tragedy, and
clearly the Universe agrees with me. But I’m just not prepared to rewrite what
must remain “a happy post” in this sad new context. Like Erik Rhodes, Marilyn Chambers, Jamie Gillis, and Linda Lovelace, this death affects me on a deeply
personal level because it was not only the loss of life but the loss of an
opportunity. And that opportunity was for mainstream audiences to see in these beautiful
people what made them among the most beloved film stars of erotic cinema. Fans
of adult films are not viewed with the same credibility as more highbrow film connoisseurs, because we live
in a society that treats sexual fantasy as a necessary evil and people who are
open about their fantasies are inevitably subjected to one of many different
forms of castigation. But this is nothing compared to the treatment of the
stars of adult films, who are barred from working in mainstream cinema and
often barred from working in the mainstream world at all. It’s easy to
understand why people would still make porn in their forties when they were denied jobs by the very hypocrites who bought their videos.
I am not going to
comment one way or another on the adult film industry, because there is a very
big difference between the industry and the art form. If my views of “the world
of porn” seem a bit Pollyanna-esque, it’s because I’m rabidly in favor of
preserving and celebrating the art form. This is not to say that porn stars are
not exploited by the industry that chews them up and spits them out. But it is
society at large that I call upon to take accountability for the number of porn
stars who end up turning to drugs or alcohol or crime or suicide. The judgment bestowed by
society upon people who have made a career having sex onscreen is akin to
the evils of racism, homophobia, and misogyny their most raw and rampant. I
do not know why Arpad Miklos (whose name, I learned after his death, was Peter Kozma) chose to end his life when he did, but I would
imagine that the worship of countless fans, the love of his friends, and the respect of his
industry peers was not enough to compensate for the cruelty of a society that
refused to see his inner and outer beauty the way those who adored him did. The
media will no doubt use his death to further admonish the porn industry and in
turn further disenfranchise porn stars from the rest of the world. But I hope
the onscreen legacy that Arpad left behind, and the many admirable qualities he
exuded in his interactions with people offscreen, will be what the world remember
about him. Like Marilyn Chambers and Jamie Gillis, he had what it took to be a
movie star. And like Marilyn Chambers and Jamie Gillis, he will always be a
movie star,
and a muse, to me.
Rest in peace, Peter…..I will never cease to be grateful. xoxoxo
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