Jason Okundaye

Jason: The night before the photoshoot, I veeted my buttcrack for the first time.
Douglas: The first time?
Yep, because I thought I might be spreading my cheeks on camera, and I had to consider, ‘Do I want a smooth hole or a hairy hole in those circumstances?’ The thing is, if my entire arse was hairy, the latter would be fine. But I have a very smooth arse otherwise. I kind of just wanted everything to be consistent.
It’s quite a surreal feeling to do that for the first time.
Yeah, I mean I’d done the usual – my armpits, my genitals. But I’ve always been nervous when it came to veeting my buttcrack. I thought, if I singe my arsehole somehow…
It’s over.
Penetrative sex will be out of the question for a long time. I’d have to rebrand myself as a side – or a top – god forbid.
The only time I’d done it was before this sex party I went to this summer. I’m a top – sorry – so I felt like a charlatan.
I just couldn’t believe how smooth and frictionless it was. I didn’t realize the hair served a purpose.
It does! Well, thank you for doing this. Let me start by asking – Jason, how do you describe yourself?
By occupation, I’m a writer. But in a broader sense I work within media and culture. As a person, I think I can be quite severe. People are surprised I can be quite serious in person because my online persona is a little more jokey and flamboyant. But I’m an adult and can be quite stern. I’m short, dark-skinned and muscular, which is a great combination. I’ve always been fine about those parts of myself, but I haven’t always found myself attractive. More recently, I’ve thought of myself as someone who could be considered attractive and desired.

Who taught you that?
Myself, I think. I had a lot of experiences when I was younger when I felt unattractive. A lot of the time, when Black men talk about this, they talk about it in terms of the white gaze. But for me, it’s never been like that. I don’t really date or sleep with white men. I’m not really bothered about their attraction. And I also find that their standards for Black men seem to be low – but that’s another conversation. When I was younger and watching a lot of porn, I was watching a lot of African American men, these incredible hunks, and thinking, ‘I could look like that.’ On the one hand, it was making me feel insecure because I thought I wanted to be sexy like that, but on the other I was like, ‘This is something that I could embody myself.’
As long as I’ve known you, I’ve always liked how you’re both an intelligent writer and someone who is proud to be sexy. Do you feel like you’ve become a man you’d want to have sex with?
I often think, if my 13-year-old self met me now, would he be attracted to me? Yes, absolutely. I’ve never taken steroids or pushed myself to the extreme, but I lift weights and buff myself up in a way I’ve often desired. That’s nice, because it means I’ve been able to find myself attractive. Maybe that’s problematic or vain but, who cares?
Is our generation of writers too self-conscious? Where are the sexy writers?
Some people are overly conscious of what people are gonna think.
Right.
I remember I was posting photos on my Instagram of myself in a jockstrap, and I was going through my story viewers like, ‘Fuck. My editors are watching this. Are they going to take me seriously?’ And then I realized that most people don’t care. If you’re a twenty-something, a gay man, attractive, most people don’t think that affects the value of their writing. People overplay these things. Like it’s interesting to be sexy, intelligent and a good writer all at once.
It’s a Sunday morning. Is seeing this hour of the day unusual for you?
I wake up very early, no matter when I go to bed. I’m always up before seven.
Are you not out at some gay party on a Saturday?
I stopped going to them. The timeline of my gay nightlife is that, when I left school, I started going to Heaven and didn’t like it at all. The type of men that went there – I wasn’t attracted to them and they weren’t attracted to me. Later I was going to Pxssy Palace, Queer Bruk. I’d always been a fan of nights that were more mixed-gender. I tend to not be as much of a fan of gay men. Most of my friends are women and always have been. So I usually just go out with my girlfriends, or to Black straight nights. I like the music more. You know, I went to the queer rave Adonis for the first time earlier this year.
And?
I don’t take drugs, so I couldn’t get into it, but I went into a dark room for the first time. As much as I have a lot of sex, I don’t really have many of those kinky sexual experiences. I stood there for a minute and stared. Someone came over and touched my crotch and I tapped out. I wanted to get a sense of what appealed to people there, and what the smell was like.
What does it smell like in a dark room?
Poppers. Sweat. Feces.

Let’s talk about ‘Revolutionary Acts’, your book, It’s so excellent and interesting to read about the Black gay men who were gathering in Brixton in London in the second half of the twentieth century. The book is barbed and flirtatious and gossipy. Why was that important to you?
It was important for me to show that these men are hot-blooded and sexy. I was attracted to some of them as well. It’s a book of conversations, and takes into account the dynamic between me as an interviewer and them, the subject. Obviously, the book is split into two halves – the first half is all veteran activists, and my relationship to them was more respectful, whereas the second half has men talking about the parties they were going to and the sex they were having. I didn’t want the book to be a study of how difficult their lives were or how strong and courageous these men were. There’s something I find really irritating when talking about queer elders. Deferential to the point of it being patronizing. I hate how they’re described as purely “pioneers” or “trailblazers”. These are messy, bitchy men. I quite like that about them. I wanted to show that gay men like this – alive or dead – haven’t always been pious political activists and passive victims.
I loved the image of the men living in the South London squat together, coming home at the end of the night and having to climb over men fucking each other to reach their own mattress on the floor.
Sometimes that detail is just as important as these men going on a march. They might not be marching every day, but every night they’re stepping over people who are fucking. That gets to the reality of their life.
There are parts in the book where you meet the men in their own home, or they came to yours. Did you ever think you were going to fuck?
At times there was erotic tension and I did write that in. I’m not saying I did anything with these men – for the record, I did not! As much as it was casual, this was a professional context, but I can also say that these are attractive men. Perhaps they found me attractive too. Perhaps that helped. People have always used desire to get a lot of things. These weren’t supposed to be cold interactions. If part of the reason they wanted to talk to me was because they wanted to fuck me, then great.
Do you have a high libido?
When I was first on the apps, I was shagging all over the place, but I was sleeping with men I wasn’t attracted to purely for practice and experience. I self-pleasure a lot and I’m satisfied by that. Masturbating, playing with my hole. I can go months without sex as long as I can self-pleasure. I can get turned on pretty easily, though. I have pretty sensitive nipples so, sometimes in the gym, if my nipples are sliding against my top, I get turned on. If there’s someone I can have sex with afterwards, I will.
Is your gym super gay?
I notice them around, but I’ve never had sex in the gym. Well, I went on a gym date with a guy I met on Grindr and then I sucked his dick in the gym. I don’t think that counts. I’m so grateful for the straight men who come in tank tops and really slutty short shorts. A lot of the time they compliment my body or spot me, and they have no idea that mentally I’m thinking about how much I want them to bend me over and fuck me. There’s one guy I see in my gym and I swear he’s one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen. He’s so big. A six foot four, dark-skinned Black guy with a slight Jamaican accent. He wears these really short shorts and has a massive penis you can see through them. He’s definitely straight, but every time… He’s like my gym daddy. I’m sad when he’s not there, and when he is I push a little harder.

Is sex exciting to you?
I wouldn’t say so. It was definitely exciting when I first started fucking. Because I mostly bottom, I have to think about the practicalities of sex. It’s definitely still pleasurable, but it’s pleasurable in the same way eating a nice meal is. It’s not necessarily something I crave all the time.
Is cleanliness part of your routine?
I’m a busy person. I respect people who don’t care too much about how clean they are. But I am – for lack of a better word – anal about cleanliness. I’m that person who will take five minutes, get a douching bulb and make sure I’m clean. I always wonder about people who don’t.
I was fucking a guy five or so years ago who had never douched in his life and was clean every time. My brain couldn’t compute it.
I wish I was one of those bottoms who was always ready, but I have a very tight hole. People don’t want to talk about the practicalities of sex, but it’s the first thing that I think about.
Does having sex ever feel new? Like you’re breaking new ground?
Every time I have sex, my child voice says to me, ‘I can’t believe I get to do this!’ The first time I sucked a dick, I was 13. He was one of my classmates.
You went to an all-boys school, right?
Yep, everyone’s got those experiences, ‘One of the rugby lads’ – I did too. But yeah, every time since, it’s kind of like my childish excitement that is like, ‘I actually have a dick up my arse,’ or, ‘I can’t believe I’m fucking this guy right now.’ I always end up having a conscious thought that I’m doing it. This is a good part of adulthood. I’m 26 and I’ve been doing this for a decade. But the novelty doesn’t wear off. It’s like eating cake for breakfast. I can do what I want.
Do you like being seen naked?
I tend to like myself naked more than with clothes on. I think that sometimes the body puts everything in context. I love seeing people naked. I like sending nudes and I quite like receiving them.
That insatiable curiosity.
Sometimes you just want to see what someone’s penis looks like. I’ve never complained about receiving an unsolicited dick pic. I’m not encouraging it – because obviously it’s harassment – but if I receive someone’s I’ll be like, ‘Oh, look at that!’ Then I may block them after.
I’m curious – do you think gay men are radical anymore?
I don’t think there’s an easy answer, but I understand why you’re asking it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Something happened in the early stages of my book, when I knew I’d write about Black men, when someone asked, ‘Well, why not women as well?’
How did you answer them?
The point of the book is that it’s specific. It’s not even about the whole of the UK, only Brixton. But I wonder if there’s a dismissiveness about the fact it’s a book purely about cis gay men. I understand where that comes from, because we’re in a time where trans people and queer women are finding the moment to be heard, but I wonder if we’re dismissing or minimizing these gay male figures. People might take that the wrong way.
Can you pinpoint that sense of minimization?
Discourses found online assume that gay men are not that oppressed or they actually weren’t important figures in some of our revolutions. A lot of the time they were – these movements are gay and white-centered. I write about the GLF and the Black men within it who were sidelined. People also rewrite it as if these movements were naturally diverse, but actually a lot of minorities – Black people, trans people, women – were sidelined. It’s important to recognize that gay rights movements were often led by cis gay men and women, but they were often arseholes. They were still revolutionary figures in some sense, but they were flawed. There’s a part of us that wants to say gay men weren’t revolutionary figures because of this, but we need to take more of a nuanced and balanced approach.

And that’s what you’ve done in ‘Revolutionary Acts’.
The gay men in my book, I’d say, are revolutionary figures – some of them might consider themselves to be or may not. But if you ask me, in terms of being Black gay men, they absolutely were. They weren’t the first Black gay men in Britain, but they were the first who were fully out publicly and were building the scene, showing themselves, campaigning, organizing… Perhaps today that’s not radical, but back then, it was revolution¬ary. Just because we’ve made progress doesn’t mean we should stop respecting what they did at the time.
I agree.
Me writing this book about Black gay men…I might be open about myself online, but does my extended family know about me being gay? No. I’m using my father’s surname, I have relatives who could see these things. I know it carries risks and consequences. That is brave of me to do. I’m not saying I’m revolutionary, but I don’t want people to think this is all easy.
Every time I’ve told a gay person I’m interviewing you, they know exactly who you are. What’s it like living in a city where your community knows you?
When I was a teenager, I didn’t really have many friends at my all-boy’s school. My parents were quite strict, so I didn’t go out socially. If you would’ve told me, in ten years’ time that people would know my name, I’d be startled by it. The adjustment has been a lot. When I was young, I craved popularity. I wanted to be invited to parties and have lots of friends. Now I want the opposite. I kind of wish I could disappear for a bit.
Where to?
I want to write my next book in another country, and live there for at least six months. So I can imagine myself in Paris, in New York. I’d like to experience a city that’s similar to London, but has different people. Somewhere that I can have a comparable but distinct experience. I’m getting a bit tired of London. I’ve always been in South London, which is why my book is entirely about it, but I’d also like to get out for a bit.
Final question – are there any men left in London that are worth fucking?
Absolutely. I’m fucking one of them right now. Some of them are in relationships, but that’s not relevant. Some of them are straight. That’s also not relevant. A lot of the time people try to say, ‘Oh, there’s this crisis in London. There aren’t enough tops or there aren’t enough sexy men here.’ Bullshit! I always find them. They always find me.