Draft:Van Darkholme

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Van Darkholme
Born (1972-10-24) October 24, 1972
Vietnam
Other namesVan-sama
TDN Kosugi
Height1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)[1]
Websitewww.vandarkholme.com

Van Darkholme (born October 24, 1972) is a Vietnamese American performance artist, gay porn actor-director, and photographer.[2] He is among the few Asian American men working in Western gay porn as a director and actor, although he primarily works in niche bondage pornography.[3]

Career

Before 1999: Modeling and acting

Van began working in a corporate job, and became a masseur to earn extra income.[1]

He then worked as a fashion and photographic model, also pursuing photography as a hobby.[4]

He had minor roles in the movies The Adventurers (1995), in which he played the role of Xiao Hei, leader of the San Francisco-based Vietnamese Black Tiger gang;[5] and Who Am I? (1998), in which he played Takashi (uncredited).[6][7]

1999–2007: Fame and recognition in gay porn

Van's first porn video was TitanMen's 3 Easy Pieces, which was shot in 1999 but released in 2001;[8] while the first to be released was Can-Am Productions' Lords of the Lockerroom (2000).[9] Muscle Bound Productions' White Rope (2001), featuring bondage, was the first video he wrote, directed and produced.[1]

In the documentary 101 Rent Boys (2000), that explored the lives of male prostitutes in Los Angeles, he had appeared as a "Japanese 'slavemaster' in full fetish regalia" (#90).[10][6] In it he mentions that he wanted to be a movie star, but when he didn't find success, he started doing escort work and became a "dungeon master".[11][12]

In just a couple of years in the gay porn industry, Van became "the world's biggest gay Asian porn star".[13] In 2002, he attended the Nation.02 gay party in Singapore held on the occasion of National Day,[14] and an Internet auction for "Dinner with Van" fetched $12,000— with 100% of the proceeds going to Action for AIDS (Singapore) and other development programs for the GLBT community.[15]

Van, a shibari aficionado, started utilizing this Japanese style of tying in his bondage and photographic work in 2004.[4] In 2006, Bruno Gmunder published a book of Darkholme's bondage photography titled Male Bondage: Art Deserves a Witness.[16][17]

2008–present: Kink.com and other appearances

After reading an article about Kink.com, Van— who had been a BDSM enthusiast since the mid-1990s[18]— contacted the founder Peter Acworth;[19] and in 2008, the company launched a gay bondage site named 'Bound Gods' with Darkholme as the director, under a new gay-focused division, KinkMen.com.[20][21]

Van gained further recognition as a bondage master after he started working for Kink.com.[22][23]

In 2009, his photographic work was featured in visual artist Trevor Wayne's self-published magazine Pin-Up Show.[24] Paul Chan made a drawing titled Oh Van Darkholme as a part of his Sade project in the same year.[25]

Van appeared as himself in an episode of the TV series BadComedian in 2011.[6]

He also starred in the documentary Kink (2013) about Kink.com. In it he mentions how corporal punishment in Catholic boarding-school education planted the seed of BDSM for him,[26] and that he grew up fantasizing about whipping the muscular football players he saw on TV.[27] Describing his relationship as a director with models who take the submissive roles in his films, he says— "I respect and love the subs when I'm working . . . I care for them a lot."[28]

He started streaming on Twitch in 2020, and started a YouTube channel as well.

Van became famous in Japan as an Internet meme, after a clip from his gay porn movie Lords of the Lockerroom was posted on Nico Nico Douga in 2008. He was nicknamed VAN-sama (Japanese: VAN様) by his fans. He also had another nickname, TDN Kosugi (TDNコスギ), because his looks resembled Kazuhito Tadano (who was called TDN) and Kane Kosugi.[29]

Deep Dark Fantasies, a 2017 visual novel about a pornstar who runs a BDSM dungeon, was inspired by fan-made mash-up videos of Darkholme posted on Nico Nico Douga. The main character Van is a loose amalgam of Van Darkholme and the characters he has played on screen. In his review, Dan Starkey from Kotaku criticized the game for misrepresenting kink.[11]

Personal life

Van was born in Vietnam.[4] He immigrated to the US as a child, and lived in the Midwest as a farm boy, before moving to Los Angeles.[17][30]

See also

References

  1. Tan, Alvin (2002-06-07). "up close with van darkholme". fridae.asia. Archived from the original on 2014-01-06. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  2. Man, Michelle (2006-01-08). "Hot For Porn? Adult Entertainment in the Vietnamese Community". BN Magazine. Archived from the original on 2007-01-19. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
  3. Burke, Nathaniel B. (May 2018). "History of Gay Adult Film". Inequality Regimes in Sexual Labor (PhD thesis). University of Southern California. pp. 22–23.
  4. "Male Bondage by Van Darkholme" (PDF). QXMEN. February 2007. p. 56.
  5. "[達人專欄] Deep♂Dark♂Fantasy深邃♂黑暗♂幻想, 哲學♂家: 范.達克霍姆Van Darkholme. - 巴哈姆特". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  6. "Van Darkholme". watch.plex.tv. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  7. "Cast – Who Am I?". Kinorium. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  8. "3 Easy Pieces | TitanMen Gay Porn Movies @ Gay DVD Empire". gaydvdempire.com. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  9. "LORDS OF THE LOCKERROOM DVD". Ropemall. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  10. Harvey, Dennis (2000-07-17). "101 Rent Boys". Variety. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  11. Starkey, Dan (2017-10-17). "Deep Dark Fantasies Is A Game That Doesn't Understand Kink". Kotaku. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  12. 101 Rent Boys of San Francisco: #90 Van Darkholme. Retrieved 2024-05-04 – via youtube.com.
  13. "Lion City has gay pride". South China Morning Post. 2002-08-07. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  14. Tan, Alvin (2006-10-19). "nation retrospective 2001-2003". fridae.asia. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  15. "van darkholme dinner auction to benefit charity". fridae.asia. 2002-07-26. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  16. Darkholme, Van (2006). Male Bondage: Art Deserves a Witness. Gmünder. ISBN 978-3-86187-990-9.
  17. Kline, Kevin Mark (2010-09-27). "Darkholme :: Bound Gods, Sweet Subjugation | EDGE United States". EDGE Media Network. Archived from the original on 2025-03-29. Retrieved 2025-03-29.
  18. "Photos by BIRON 1993-2014". www.photos-biron.com. Archived from the original on 2024-04-16. Retrieved 2025-03-30.
  19. Fleshbot. "Man On The Edge: An Interview With Kink's Van Darkholme". Fleshbot. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  20. Rice, G. Zisk (2008-04-14). "Kink.com Hires Van Darkholme". AVN. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
  21. "Kink.com Launches First Gay Bondage Site". Adult Video News. 4 August 2008. Archived from the original on January 26, 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  22. "Metalbond Q&A: Meeting Van Darkholme | MetalbondNYC.com". 2011-12-09. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  23. Feist, Jeremy (2012-04-18). "Diet kink: same taste, zero brains | Xtra Magazine". Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  24. Wells, Duane (2009-09-11). "Trevor Wayne's Pin-Up Show". advocate.com. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  25. Gilbert, Alan; Schmidt, Suzanne (2011). "Paul Chan: the body inscribed : Paul Chan's sade project = auf den Leib geschrieben : Paul Chans Sade-Projekt". Parkett: The Parkett series with contemporary artists = die Parkett-Reihe mit Gegenwartskünstlern. - (88): 94. doi:10.5169/seals-679753. ISSN 0256-0917.
  26. Lodge, Guy (2013-01-23). "Kink". Variety. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  27. Hunt, Drew (2014-08-18). "Review: Kink". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  28. Davin, Julie E. (2017-04-01). ""We control it on our end, and now it's up to you" -- Exploitation, Empowerment, and Ethical Portrayals of the Pornography Industry". Student Publications: 18.
  29. "TDNコスギとは (タダノコスギとは) [単語記事]". ニコニコ大百科 (in Japanese). 2008-06-22. Archived from the original on 2008-06-28. Retrieved 2025-03-29.
  30. "San Francisco Bay Guardian". issuu.com. 2014-08-12. p. 40. Archived from the original on 2022-12-06. Retrieved 2024-05-05.