1. Luka Rocco Magnotto is neither a porn "star," NOR a professional porn actor, NOR a model. He has never made a film or a professional video in any capacity. **
He may have aspired to these things. He was delusional by his own and others' accounts. But he was never employed by, or worked with, any movie company-- his efforts in front of his own camera are the only evidence of his moving image in public.
Luka paid pro photographers on the fly to take head shots; he published his own videos and stills on the his own web sites.
The only videos anyone has seen of him (so far) are of sadistic animal and human murder, not "sex scenes" as one would describe in an erotic movie.
2. Luka was a prostitute, albeit an unsuccessful one. He is starving, literally.
3. To call this man "gay," or "bi," suggests some kind of consummated adult sexual life with other people.
But that doesn't seem to be the case.
The rare "customers," (one tragic critique on a john-review site) and even rarer people he dated (see the gay and French-Canadian press for best coverage) report that Luka didn't "have sex" -- he was seemingly paralyzed or too catatonic to do anything in bed.
To Luka's short-lived friends, he reported traumatic incest with his mother, and mental illness. People who met him casually (hitchhking, etc.) noticed he was disturbed.
Born under the name Eric Newman, Luka R-M is alienated from his family. It seems that the one man who knew him slightly, he killed. Interestingly, there is no information about his victim, none. There is more information about the massacred kittens than there is about this man.
Labels are pretty deceptive. But I don't know any word for Luka except "extremely dangerous and damaged adult, history of severe childhood abuse."
3. Investigators and magistrates are talking about inate evil, about a man lacking "a moral gene," and "serial killer DNA."
But there is no evidence, not remotely, of "inate evil," in anyone. There never has been. That's like saying the devil made him do it. Such a statement is a religious belief, not fact-based investigation.
4. There is no evidence Luka knew Karla Homolka, let alone dated her. The Montreal police have taken back that first reckless statement. His celebrity obsessions were entirely of his own imagination.
Aside from the shock of this case, and the tragedy, I know that gay and bisexual people, and sex workers and erotic actors/models, EVERYWHERE, are cringing.
So are mental health pros and seasoned reporters, the few that are left.
We are all hoping that the sensation of these murders will not be exploited by political opportunists and the con-artists of the right.
So far, not so good.
** UPDATE: Thanks to our intrepid readers below, you'll see that my original comment was premature, but close to the mark.
The definitive investigation on Luka's porn career is detailed by the Internet Adult Film Database (IAFD): "The media might want to keeping tagging Luka with the porn “star” moniker but a better one might be porn “dud.” A paltry 8 scenes spanning a near decade, it’s quite apparent that not even the porn industry was much interested in him."
Here's a bit more of an explanation: The current state of porn-labor economics these days is that web-cam and streaming sites are the mainstay, as opposed to "making a movie."
The models who appear in web-cam sites are sometimes entrepeneurs setting up their own bedroom enterprise. But the busier web-cam companies (which can be mom-and-pop-size, or huge) who will recruit models with little or no money... they are promised that their escort business will be improved if they do these scenes for publicity, or that they'll be paid a commission fee if their scene gets traffic, or they are indeed given a paltry amount of cash or drugs or some other small favor.
Some web-cam companies are more professional than others, to say the least. I"m sure many people who read my column here may have worked for them and can report a variety of labor profiles. The scene is changing year to year, month to month.
But would an industry pro consider Luka a "woodsman," a professional performer, an actor, who'd made his bones? No.
While no one need "prove" anything about the nature of their role in the sex trade-- there's no need to diminish amateurs or up-and-comers-- the nature of the porn-adverse media is to blame and portray every sex-tinged tragedy as the result of a perp-as-PORN-STAR.
Luka certainly is now a star of psychopathic delusion and murderous tragedy, but I have yet to see a news feature that investigates the real reasons for his mental demise.
Recent Comments