Porn Idol

There are good moments in life. Reassuring moments. Especially when you're feeling tired, out of sorts, overweight and under seige. When nothing seems certain. When all is dark. When your taste in men is being questioned.

That's when it's good to have a Canadian in your life. They're polite souls. They're softly spoken. They're well presented. And, if they're the lovely Matt, they're also very pretty.

I'm not saying this with the understandable bias of a man for his amour du jour. I'm saying this cos Matt and Darryl took me to Porn Idol at GAY last night, and Matt got picked out of the queue by a talent scout, eager to have him enter the competition. In the case of Porn Idol, this is meant in almost every sense of the phrase.

Matt, being bashful and quiet, blinked and stared at the man waving forms at him. "Do I have to get my cock out?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," replied the recruiter, rubbing Matt's arms appraisingly.

"Then no. No, thank you."

Instead we sat up above the stage, got quietly drunk, and watched other people strip in the hopes of being in a gay porn film.

It must be odd taking your clothes off in front of a thousand people. To music. When you've never done it before. They had had some offstage help - they'd solved the Sock Problem (it being impossible to take off socks sexily) by coming on stage barefoot - but none of the entrants had had much training in the art of slipping off jeans to music. True, they started well - undo top button, slip a thumb inside, pause, look up at the crowd, smile, pause, undo another button, pause again - maybe even suck a finger in cheeky Dirty Den tribute...

But, once the jeans had slipped to the knees, it all went a bit wrong - it's quite hard to dance with your jeans round your ankles. It's even harder to try and pull your feet through - it looked rather like that desperate man in the Andrex ads chasing the puppy who'd stolen the bog roll.... having trod on a pin... to music.

It's worth at this moment, saying a word or two about the penises. Contestant number 2 (Pete), was black, and therefore had more rhythm, and more to show off - but the others were understandably lacklustre. Standing naked in front of a thousand people isn't exactly going to encourage tumescense, but it was fun seeing great oaks of men stripping down to reveal tiny acorns.

The smart ones, when they were just about to peel off their boxers, would turn away from the crowd and run through what is best described as a short motivational exercise with the little chap - but sadly to little avail.

It was a strangely comforting, if unerotic sight - completely overruled by the shock revelation from the token mad drag queen contestant (Lulu). Lulu was not only a few centimetres short of the full six inches in all respects, but had also never trimmed her pubic topiary - resulting in a sudden spillage akin to having Rolf Harris erupt from her knickers.

As we stood watching eight naked men on stage, Matt turned to me. "If I was on stage now, would you still respect me?"

I considered. "Probably not. But I'd really want to sleep with you."

Matt gave this a careful Canadian pause. "Good," he said.