“Honestly, I’ve just always been kinky,” says Joey Mills, famed gay adult film star and notorious twink.

At the geriatric age of 27 years old though, Mills is getting on a bit. He is, in the words of his, erm, mother, approaching “twink death”, whereby a young, slim, hairless gay man is no longer all three of those things in blissful conjunction. It’s a sort of no-mans-land for queer men who look 23, but are actually 32, and have responded by calling the novel, pitiful sproutings on their chin a “beard”.

To be fair to him, on Zoom from his home in St. Louis in Missouri where he grew up, Mills’ beard looks admirable. As does the Grindr logo-shaped award behind him – it’s easily twice the size of his head – which he won in December after being named the ‘Porn Star of the Year’ by the dating app’s users. 

Clearly, twink Mills still has his fans. But this year, he’s going from twinky to kinky. In May, he will turn 28, and mark 10 years since he entered the gay adult industry as a fresh-faced 18-year-old. 2021, the halfway point, “was probably like the peak of my career so far,” he says.

That year, he won his fourth Gay VN Award (he has six in total). “I don’t want to say it’s been downhill [since then] but it’s just been, like, plateau. You can’t do much better than the elevator video unfortunately,” he says wryly, referencing a very viral, very NSFW video of him from 2019, donning a sapphire suit and getting rimmed while trapped in a lift.

Mills is indisputably gay famous, practically an A-lister in any queer club or Pride event, but he’s clear that he wouldn’t want to breach that level of celebrity. “I want to only be recognised at the gay bars in West Hollywood versus the grocery store when I’m shopping for eggs,” he says. “I did just have a fan that I caught staring at my house at like 2:30 in the morning. That was a little scary. It wasn’t the first time [and] it’s probably not going to be the last either.”

His move to kink content is something he’s been “inching towards” with recent videos; he won ‘Best Fetish Video’ at the 2024 GayVN Awards. It’s part of his mission to try a “little bit of everything”, he says. “Everything gets kind of stale after a while. So you got to switch things up.”

To you or I, to “switch things up” might mean buying a new bike, or growing a mullet. For Joey Mills, it’s meant spending a week building a BDSM sex dungeon in his basement, with the help of his mother Bridget, step-father Steve, and friend, dominatrix Fantasia Royale Gaga. Oh, and inviting a camera crew along to film the whole thing. This is DIY Dungeon, a new OUTflix docuseries about, well, exactly that.

“It was one of the most stressful weeks of my life, filming this show,” Mills confesses. The entire process, barren basement to kink sanctuary, took six days, though that included just a day and a half for the actual construction of the dungeon. It’s an odd duck of a series, combining sex education with home renovations fodder, and reality TV drama with a moving LGBTQ+ family tale. 

The bawdy and brilliantly bossomed Fantasia Royale Gaga gives the show its bite, sauntering her way into Mills’s house and gleefully adding low-level drama via a confrontation or two with the host. Mills admits today that actually, it was him causing the tension. “We’re kind of like siblings a little bit,” he says, as the pair have known each other for years. But the addition of a camera crew and production team in his home, plus furniture all haywire and construction mess everywhere, sent his heart rate rocketing. “It was…” he trails off. “I was a little mean.”

Bridget and Steve are pulled in to assist, and react to Mills’ project with the blasé indifference of being asked to put up a shelf. It’s genuinely heartwarming. These are the parents who have always been supportive of Mills’ industry of choice, with their only reservations stemming from worry rather than judgement. 

“When I told them that I was going to do [porn], they were just like, ‘OK…’” At first, they thought it was a bizarre prank. It wasn’t until Mills asked for a ride to the airport to fly and film his first scene that they realised he was serious. “They were obviously nervous as most parents would be. I was freshly 18; I flew out for my first scene, I think 20 days after my birthday, and so they were a little nervous that I was going to get kidnapped and sold into trafficking or something, which they probably should be.” Evidently no such fate has befallen him. “It worked out for me.”

Their relationship is close emotionally and physically; she lives two doors down from him. He imagines some may say she’s “too involved” with DIY Dungeon given its risqué material, but she is frequently involved with the business side of things. “But I’m not giving her details of a scene at all,” he hastens to add. You will find her at the award ceremonies though. “My mom likes the open bar at the GayVNs,” he smirks.

Besides, he suggests that a transparent approach is best. “I don’t know if there really is any right way to tell your parents you’re going to do porn,” he says, though, “you definitely need to tell them.” You don’t need to be Grindr’s pornstar of the year in order for your content to show up in the social feeds of a friend of the family. “It’s a lot easier to hear it from you than it is from a co-worker of theirs to send them a link one day.” He grimaces. “I’ve heard that story many times. It’s so common.”

In DIY Dungeon’s first episode, it’s Bridget who gifts him with a sponge cake iced with “Twink Death” piping (Yes, she is an icon). She’s being sardonic, but it’s a genuine hang-up in the adult film industry. ‘Twink’ is consistently among the highest ranking categories in gay porn, and the parameters of who constitutes a twink are tightly gatekept. Has he ever been told that he’s in the winter years of his twinkdom?

“Nobody’s ever said that to my face. I’m sure there’s conversations happening in the background, 100 per cent,” he says. “Age really only matters in the industry when you’re a twink. It’s the only time anybody will ever mention it to you, ‘cos it’s like, ‘twink death! Twink death! Twink death!” It seems of minimal concern to Mills, shrugging and smiling as he speaks. “I don’t know, I’m kind of enjoying twink death.”

If every twink death was succeeded by the acquisition of a personal sex dungeon, perhaps fewer former twinks would mind it. For those wondering,the dungeon is already in frequent use. “There’s a few videos that are waiting to be released,” Mills teases. 

The best feature? “The side table, the lamp. I really like the side table and the lamp. That’s my favourite piece,” he says. Oh, and the sex sling. “The new sling that I have in there is good.”

DIY Dungeon is streaming on OUTflix from 27 January.

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