It’s a balmy February afternoon in Melbourne’s Peel Street Park. Artist and sex worker Emil Cañita (@gloryholemelb) lays down on the grass with writer and interviewer Rob Aquino in the days leading up to the Sniffies’ takeover party Disgrace, Darling at the Grace Darling Hotel executive produced by Aquino and presented as part of Vic Pride.
The conversation unfolds alongside a new art installation commissioned by Sniffies, The Suckatorium, an extension of Cañita’s sprawling Men of the Hole series (2024 - ongoing). The piece is part functioning glory hole, part installation art that touches on the interplay between amateur aesthetics, anonymity, consent, HIV, trans desire, male loneliness, and the politics of pleasure.
Recorded horizontally, in public, the interview mirrors the spirit of Emil’s practice: casual, porous, and deeply intentional.
Rob Aquino (RA): Ah, Peel Street Park. Hi, girl. How are you? We’re laying down. We’re horizontal in a park right now.
Emil Cañita (EC): Okay, which I think is a funny way to do this. We’re laying down. How are you?
RA: I’m good. Yeah. It’s nice. This is relaxing. Have you ever filmed anything outdoors, like in public?
EC: No, I really don’t like it. It just feels uncomfortable to do anything outdoors. Any kind of public stuff. I’ve done some. I used to date this worker who was really into public sex. So we’d go to toilets and parks and beaches, and he had a four-wheel drive that he converted into a fuck truck.
RA: A fuck truck? Oh wow.
EC: Yeah. It was really fun. But generally I prefer to do it at home. I think I’m kind of an exhibitionist online, but not in real life. I consider myself a digital exhibitionist.
RA: I love that. With the S*ckatorium, do you find you get more men who’ve never been on camera, or more creators and artists?
EC: I rarely collaborate with creators. I love amateur porn. I grew up watching it, and a lot of the aesthetics I use come from there. Hard flash, handheld, POV. What I love is the authenticity and immediacy, or the aesthetics that we associate those with. It feels like you’re being invited into a hot experience that two people genuinely want to share.
RA: Our generation’s aesthetic is so DIY because of the porn we grew up on. Earlier porn was often high-budget and cinematic. I’m more interested in intimacy that feels immediate and real.
EC: With the S*ckatorium there’s also a fine art element, in a way that I’m deeply intentional about how I want it shot. The camera sits in front of the glory hole, and the guys come in and get sucked off. One thing I’m very conscious about is that when they present themselves through the wall, they face the camera first, acknowledge it, and then turn around to face me.
Historically, glory hole videos online often feel non-consensual. I wanted to show you can have anonymity and acknowledged consent at the same time.
RA: I’ve been shot as part of your project before, and you made me do the walk-in, the glance, and the turn. I found that glance harder than I expected.
EC: Yeah. The acknowledgement makes you very aware of it.
RA: Do you make them do it multiple times?
EC: Not usually. I want the honesty and awkwardness to exist. That’s also why I rarely work with content creators, although I much prefer calling them pornstars. The term content creators make us sound like we’re some sort of factory workers. Nothing against those folks, but I think there’s an art to being a porn star that content creator as a term just doesn’t capture. Also, let’s bring back the starfucker power of the word pornstar, please.
Anyway, I rarely work with pornstars because they’re very aware of how they’re being perceived. With porn stars, there can be learned movements and sounds. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they’re genuinely enjoying it.
I mostly work with people who aren’t porn stars. Part of this is about portraying my hyper-sexuality as an undetectable person living with HIV. People on effective treatment cannot transmit HIV. I want this archive to be a living testament to that, and to show that we’re some of the safest people to have sex with.
It’s also about showing that there are many beautiful men who desire and like trans people. These men are often invisible in trans advocacy and politics. I want to make a space that says: they exist, they’re here. And to ask viewers: are these men just there to be fetishized, or what are you doing in your own life to make it safer for men to share their desire and love for trans people?
RA: Even though some of your work takes place through the glory hole, I find there’s so much intimacy.
EC: Yeah.
RA: It feels like the epidemic of male loneliness explored through sex work and partnership.
EC: That’s a big misnomer about sex work. People think it’s just wham bam. But it’s often genuinely intimate.
Even with the glory hole, I’ve had people I’ve been seeing for close to five years who’ve never seen me. But I know their family drama, their kids, what they’re dealing with. It feels like going to church sometimes. Like confessionals. There’s vulnerability and trust built into entering that space.
Anonymity doesn’t mean consent, safety, trust, or intimacy can’t exist. Intimacy happens all the time with people whose names we don’t know. Sometimes anonymity actually facilitates intimacy because there’s a degree of safety.
RA: I love seeing their backs, their movements. Being with someone when they orgasm is such a special moment.
EC: Yeah. And it’s a side even they don’t see. I make porn thinking about what I want. One of the things I find very sexy about men is their backs. It’s such a vulnerable state.
RA: Is sucking cock a compulsion, a kink, or a love affair?
EC: A German guy told me my cocksucking is a kunst. Art. The highest form something can be in German culture.
I’ve sucked off close to 3,000 men in five years. Now I can tell someone’s mental state by having my mouth on their cock.
RA: So you palm read with your mouth?
EC: I tap into their energy. Sometimes I stop and ask what’s going on because I can tell they’re not present. I’ve become a cock whisperer.
RA: Final question. Favorite oral tip?
EC: Be intentional. Regardless of technique, what people respond to is intent. If you’re eager to please them, that’s what turns them on. The hottest thing you can ever do for for anyone is to make them feel desirable. I try to do that every time I have someone over.
RA: I’m turned on.
EC: (Laughs.)
RA: Well, that was beautiful. Thank you.