World’s oldest gay porn star: ‘It brings me closer to God’
At 85, Norm is the world’s oldest gay porn star. (Channel 5)
They say age is just a number, and for the world’s oldest gay porn star, that’s never been truer.
At 85, Norm is having the best sex of his life. The pornographic pensioner came late to his sexuality, having spent 40 years as an ordained minister — but now he’s out, he says he feels closer to God than ever.
Norm believes sex is a “holy and joyous gift” that deserves to be celebrated, and has made four highly-successful erotic films doing just that. He recently performed on the Channel 5 documentary, OAPs On The Game, to show viewers a loving and spiritual side to gay sex.
“I’ve had an amazing amount of notice. To me, it’s a matter of joy that so many people are so curious to check it out,” he told PinkNews. “It beats the humping and grinding that characterises mainstream porn! I’ll keep on doing it as long as there’s there’s a clientele going for it.”
Norm in Amsterdam for the filming of ‘OAPs on the Game.’ (Channel 5)
From priesthood to porn star
Norm came from a religious background and joined the clergy aged 18. He’s been married to two women — one for 28 years. Although he always had suspicions that he was different from other ministers, he never considered that he could be gay.
“I did not think of myself as a gay man in the closet. I knew that I had some stirrings and attractions for other men but I just assumed that everybody does,” he explained. “I had some inklings though.”
Those “inklings” became harder and harder to ignore, particularly when he began counselling gay men as a campus minister in 1997.
“They were coming to me saying, ‘I’m having these feelings, I don’t know if I’m gay, I don’t know how to come out,’ and I gradually realised, ‘Hey, that’s talking about me!'” he said.
“They all got a chuckle out of the fact that this supposedly straight minister was helping gay men find themselves, and look who’s gay!”
I was the last one to realise I was a gay man
Norm finally came out in the year before his retirement, aged 64. Never one to do things by halves, he did so by inviting his friends, relatives, ex-wives and church superiors to a big reception where he introduced them to the man he loved.
“It was actually quite anticlimactic really,” he admitted. “There were no overt recriminations against me. I think of all the people I know, I was the very last one to realise I was a gay man. I told my ex-wife beforehand because I didn’t want her to get any surprises, but she said ‘Oh I knew that!'”
He added: “My journey into homosexuality was a fairly smooth and joyous one. I have to say in all humility and appreciation to the many thousands of gay men who have suffered mightily, that I didn’t have to go through what a lot of my brothers had to go through.
“So I’ve been attempting to pay back for all the blessings I’ve had by [making erotic films], saying, ‘Hey it’s fun, it’s transformative, you don’t have to give up your spiritual connections because it all fits in.’”
Sex and faith go hand-in-hand
Norm’s attraction to men never made him question his faith — in fact, it strengthened it. He says the “mind-blowing” sex he’s now enjoying has opened him up “to another face of God’s love and mercy.”
He recognises that many Christians may find this hard to accept, but that doesn’t bother him.
“Whoever my detractors are, none have come to me personally,” he said. “Some people might be asking, ‘How can you still claim to be a Christian and a minister? How can you degrade yourself like this?’ No one’s ever said that to me yet but I have a bagful of responses if they choose to!
“It’s not about fighting them back but to see if I can penetrate that closed-mindedness with a little understanding.”
Norm shares photos from his youth. (Channel 5)
And understanding is what Norm’s all about. While portrayals of passionate and loving gay sex remain rare in mainstream film and TV, he uses his platform to show a different kind of sexual expression between men. The title of world’s oldest gay porn star amuses him, because he prefers to call himself “an evangelist for joyful sex.”
It’s quite the turnaround for a man who was once an evangelist of a very different kind — but Norm doesn’t see an inconsistency between the two halves of his life.
“It’s about who I am and what I can contribute to the world,” he explained. “It has brought me closer to other people and to God, [and] intensified my firm conviction that God is unconditional love.”
