Stiff Upper Lip: A Guide to Porn Star Funeral Etiquette

by Amos Fake | 12:27AM June 21st 2012

Outrage is genuinely saddened by the untimely (if not entirely unpredictable) passing of Erik Rhodes, the NYC-based sex worker and shady internal porn industry critic who may well be the first gay adult film star candidly eulogized by the New York Times.  We’re left with the same questions you are: how cold and lonely is the vacuum of our universe, that dashes such young and effulgent talent on the rocks of depression and substance abuse? How weird will it be to j.o. to naked videos of a dead dude? And, perhaps most disconcertingly:  How does one handle onesself at the funeral of a porn star?  Go ahead and call us tacky, but Outrage etiquette experts are on the case:

1. Be sensitive about the phrase “open casket.” It means something different in the industry, and besides, that lid is bound to be closed. He’ll leave this world just as he made money in it:  Stiff, and hopefully tightly wrapped.

2. Assume the pastor is a Unitarian. What other kind of clergyperson is sex-positive enough to dispatch a man whose job required him to violate a full half of Leviticus pretty much every weekend?

3. No matter how many eulogies she’s mentioned in, don’t ask where “Tina” is sitting.  She’s there in spirit, gurl, trust us.

4. Be very careful pronouncing the word “pall-bearer.” It is not, in fact, interchangeable with “Matt-bearer,” “Drew-bearer,” or “Cody-bearer.” The last time the musclequeens carrying the coffin lifted a man in the air with their fists, he was considerably more responsive.

5. Whatever you do, don’t just watch the service highlights online. Appreciate the sense of suspense, narrative, and closure a well-planned, amply-budgeted porn funeral can bring. Streaming second-party pirate edits may be free, fast, and gratifying, but it’s also the reason the next thing to be laid to rest might be the porn industry itself.