“If you had told me a month before what I had done that I would do that, I’d tell you ‘go and jump off a bridge. How would I do that?'”
Cathal McCarron is almost glad that his porn video was discovered. He was off the rails – out of control – and he would’ve done anything for money. He needed help.
When he went through that ordeal in London – an ordeal that spanned hours – he came out and spotted a Ladbrokes on the corner. In no time, he had already blown half the money he was given for having sex with another man in front of a camera. By one o’clock the next day, it was all gone. All of it.
He had put himself through all that to fund his gambling addiction for a few more hours and, in his own words: “If I was still out there, I could’ve killed somebody.”
The Tyrone man’s autobiography, Out of Control, is a powerful read. It’s honest, it’s heartbreaking, it’s shocking and it’s gripping. His story is incredible. The way he tells it, even more so.
Speaking on SportsJOE’s GAA Hour podcast, McCarron opened up about how he hit rock bottom and turned to pornography for money. It was at first an ad for a modelling company that caught his eye, but it wasn’t as it seemed.
“Even thinking of doing modelling is insane,” the corner back revealed. “I became quickly aware, when I was invited it, that it wasn’t a modelling agency, it was a porn company.
“I was called back again another day and the day I was called back, I had nothing in my pocket. I jumped tubes to get there, I had no money to feed myself – at this stage, I was taking out of shops, the odd bar, slip it in my pocket just to feed myself… stealing. It was an awful way to be.
“It came to this situation where this company said, ‘look, there’s no money in doing pornography with a woman. You have to do this with a man.'”
McCarron was convinced into doing it. A lot of that pressure came from himself.
“They were telling me it was just going to be in America. They probably saw a very vulnerable individual looking back but, at the same time, it’s a business, they don’t care.
“If they told me to do anything on that day, I would have done it.
“I had a great power in my mind just to do things and blank them out. I did this thing – and it was horrific for me to do this, it was really, really, really hard. People made a lot of jokes about it after, when it came out and they don’t realise, my God that had some effect on me.”
The question was how could he do it though. Not morally or ethically or whatever, how could a straight man physically do that for “hours” with another man. They had the pair on viagra but McCarron wanted to opt out at a stage.
“When you look at the video, it’s not what really happened,” he explained. “There was a hell of a lot of editing that went through that video. It was a few hours of editing and stopping and I said ‘I can’t do this anymore’ but it was, ‘look, you don’t get paid unless you do this.’ All I was thinking was the cash.
“Do you know what topped it off even worse, there were other guys in there doing the exact same thing I was doing when I was finished and they were straight as well – they were looking for the money. The guy that I actually did it with, even he was straight. He worked for the company and he was getting married later on that year. I just couldn’t get my head around it.
“This was his job, that’s the way he had his mind. His partner didn’t mind him having sex with men, but he wasn’t allowed to have sex with women. That’s the world that they were in. I’m not here to judge anybody but, when you hear that, you wonder. It’s crazy.
“I would very much respect the gay community. They showed me a lot of support at the time when I hit rock bottom and I have to say they were fantastic, the support they give me. But for a guy that’s not gay to do that, words can’t describe how difficult it was.”
All he managed to feed himself afterwards with was a Yorkie bar. It was straight to the bookies instead until it closed.
“I sat looking at everybody in the tube and I was thinking, ‘Imagine they knew what I had done.’ I was just disgusted with myself, because it was porn. I’m from a farming background, a wee small village in Dromore and it’s not something you think you’d be doing. It was a tough journey home.”
It’s good to have him home though.
Listen to the full, honest interview with Colm Parkinson on SportsJOE’s GAA Hour.
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