With GuysInSweatpants.com, Austin Wilde Turns Fetish into Big Business

CYBERSPACE—Austin Wilde may have just won Web Performer of the Year at the Grabbys and Best Personality at the Cybersockets earlier this year, but don't expect the enterprising gay star to take a time out. He's about to challenge the gay adult industry to a game of hoops—with GuysInSweatpants.com. Wilde first created Guys In Sweatpants two years ago, but it was more for amusement than profit. In its original incarnation, the site was a way for sport-oriented guys to upload cellphone pics of themselves in sweatpants. It turned out that he was on to something. And the traffic was strong enough it attracted the attention of industry vets who thought they might help build it into something larger. So, earlier this year, Wilde and his small team launched GuysInSweatpants.com as a full-realized gay porn site focusing on sporty guys and stripped-down sex. "Basically, I built a site where I'd want to be a member," Wilde says. "A lot of the sex scenes I was shooting for other companies just felt so stale and repetitive. I've got a high-sex drive, so I'd shoot these assembly line things for studios during the day and then go out and pick up these hot guys at night and have mind-blowing sex. I thought, there has to be a way to make this type of sex work on a site." Wilde bought two Sony cameras and set about trying to making it happen. There have been no large ad buys, no booths at trade shows and—though a few affiliates have picked up on it—no large push with affiliates. Guys In Sweatpants, Wilde speculates, might just be the first porn site built by social networking. Austin himself drives much of the traffic from his Twitter accounts; the rest comes from word of mouth, often from the stars who show up on set or by bloggers who follow him. "This is a site that we've built because we love it," he says. "That it's doing so well already I think speaks to the work we put into it. We wanted to make a site that had real sex, hot sex. I'm glad people are responding."  But while Wilde's route to success has been largely DIY until now, he's ready to go toe-to-toe with the bigger studios. Now that he's got nearly 30 scenes up, he's looking to expand his reach with affiliates and invest in more traditional methods.  "What you've seen so far?" he jokes. "That’s just us warming up. It's time for the game to start."