Jack Shamama is an award-winning American author, producer, screenwriter, blogger, and social critic who is best known for his work in the GLBT community and in gay pornography

Gay pornography

Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....

. Born in Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 and raised in Miami, Florida, Shamama graduated from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 and later moved to San Francisco, where he lives today. Since 2008, he has been the product manager for gay adult video-on-demand membership site Naked Sword, where he is concurrently producing the independent art-porn feature film, I Want Your Love.

Career

From 2001 to 2003, Shamama served as the Arts & Entertainment editor for Gay.com, where he interviewed celebrities such as JT Leroy and Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...

.

In 2004, he became the editor of GayPornBlog.com, which the adult industry trade publication Cybersocket Magazine honored as the Best Adult Blog in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Shamama was also honored with a GayVN Award in 2005 for Best Screenplay for his work with co-writer Michael Stabile

Michael Stabile

Michael Stabile III is an American journalist and documentary filmmaker best known for his work in and about the pornography industry. In 2004, he and Jack Shamama co-created the gay pornographic soap opera Wet Palms for which they won a GayVN Award for Best Screenplay...

 on the first-ever gay pornographic soap opera, Wet Palms

Wet Palms

Wet Palms is a gay pornographic serial produced for the U.S. market and originally distributed on a gay adult pay-per-view content web site....

. Shamama's other credits as screenwriter include the Falcon Studios titles Dare (in which he also appeared on-screen in a non-sexual role), Spokes III, Cross Country, and Pledgemaster: The Hazing. In addition to his screenwriting for Falcon, Shamama was also the product manager for the studio from 2005 to 2008 before leaving to assume his current role as product manager and producer at Naked Sword.

As a producer, Shamama worked with Stabile and cinematographer Ben Leon on the documentary short Smut Capital of America, which premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Shamama, Stabile, and Leon are also in the midst of filming the feature-length documentary on Falcon Studios' founder and GLBT philanthropist Charles M. Holmes.

Outside of pornography, Shamama has found success as an author and irreverent micro-blogger. His short story, "Spacial Devices Can Take Any Form," was included in the Dennis Cooper

Dennis Cooper

Dennis Cooper is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist.-Career:Cooper grew up the son of a wealthy businessman in Arcadia, California. His first forays into literature came early, focusing on imitations of Rimbaud, Verlaine, de Sade, and Baudelaire...

-edited anthology Userlands. In a favorable review, writer Kevin Killian called the short story "Syd Field form gone bananas." Shamama's Tumblr blog is known for its avant garde interpretation of culture and society as well as its celebration of internet memes with the use of original GIF

GIF

The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability....

s and other photo illustrations.

Social commentary

Shamama's critiques and observations on technology, adult entertainment, and social networking have been featured in numerous publications and websites. Upon the release of Apple's iPhone in 2007, Shamama—a devoted Apple consumer—was interviewed by Gawker and Fox News. The Wall Street Journal turned to him for a piece on ornate furniture. The Bay Area Reporter sought out Shamama for his take on the explosion of social networking sites, particularly within the gay community. And as an arbiter of trends in the gay adult industry, Shamama has been a guest panelist at the 2010 Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival as well as a featured consultant and interviewee for stories on controversial "incest porn" and the exploration of porn stars' sexual techniques.

I Want Your Love

Shamama is currently producing I Want Your Love, a feature film from director Travis Mathews. A demo scene from the forthcoming film premiered to critical acclaim in the summer of 2010, and was awarded a "Best of the Bay" award by The San Francisco Bay Guardian. The demo scene was screened at international film festivals throughout 2010, and the feature version of I Want Your Love was shot in March of 2011. The full length film is currently in post-production and is set for release in late 2011.