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Van Darkholme

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Van Darkholme
Born (1972-10-24) October 24, 1972 (age 52)
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

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Before 1999: Modeling and acting

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Van used to work in corporate, when he 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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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References

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  1. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c "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. ^ a b c "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. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Kline, Kevin Mark (2010-09-27). "Darkholme :: Bound Gods, Sweet Subjugation | EDGE United States". EDGE Media Network. Retrieved 2025-03-29.
  18. ^ "Index of /1993-2014/images". www.photos-biron.com. 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. Retrieved 2025-03-29.
  30. ^ "San Francisco Bay Guardian". issuu.com. 2014-08-12. p. 40. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
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