Paul Morris is the owner of Treasure Island Media, a San Francisco, California-based gay pornography studio that specializes in bareback pornography.
Known to be reclusive, Morris has never attended an event sponsored by his studio and in fact, when invited to speak at the 1998 World Pornography Conference in Los Angeles,[1] he asked a thirty-year-old part-time administrative assistant to deliver his essay.[2]
Morris started Treasure Island Media, naming the business after his favorite childhood book (Treasure Island). In 1998, he filmed Raunch Lunch.[4] Alongside his own videos, Morris has expanded the studio to release videos directed by Damon Dogg [1], Max Sohl [2] and Liam Cole [3], and independently produced videos by Swiss members of the Dark Sun Collective.
He is known to be a patron of independent filmmakers and has supported work by Vanessa Renwick, Bill Daniel, Todd Verow, Daniel Rabinowitz, Lee Krist, Ryan Sullivan and others. He has also funded projects by San Francisco's Artists' Television Access.[5] He was a primary producer of Todd Ahlberg's film, "Meth", a feature-length documentary on drug abuse among gay men.[6] [4]
For “Breeding Season”, a movie made in 2006, Morris collected 73 shots of cum in a condom which he put into the freezer to turn it into what he called the “Devil’s Dick” – a dildo made of cum.
In 2007, Richard Curtis, Washington GOP Representative, resigned after media reports quoted him as saying that a man he had sex with was trying to blackmail him. The man in question, Cody Castagna, had appeared in the T.I.M. movie "America 3: San Diego" five years earlier”. [5], [6]
In October 2007, Paul Morris’ Treasure Island Media (TIM) won the prize for Best US Studio at the DAVID Awards [7] in Berlin. This caused controversy as TIM produces bareback films, filmed without a condom, causing Titan Media founder Bruce Cam [8] to decline his award.[7] In 2008, Morris received a Best Director Golden Dickie Award for "What I Can't See 2" (which also won Best Video) from Rad Video and Treasure Island Media received the most awards of any adult company including Best Studio.[8]
Morris and his company have been repeatedly banned from consideration for most adult industry awards and events. In July 2009, it was announced that Treasure Island Media had been banned from participating in both The Folsom Street Fair and Dore Alley in San Francisco, CA, and also International Mr. Leather in Chicago, IL.[9]
In his article "Unbecoming: Pornography and the Queer Event", Tufts University professor Lee Edelman discussed the role of Morris' pornography as work that "hopelessly heralds the future" of what Edelman calls the "posthumanous". In this function, Edelman wrote, Morris' pornography is similar to the film works of both Pier Paolo Pasolini and Michael Haneke.[10]
Academic queer theorist David M. Halperin has referred to Morris as "The embodiment of the posthuman." [11]
Morris is also extensively quoted in Tim Dean's [9] "Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking"(University of Chicago Press, 2009). [10]. Dean is a professor of English at the University at Buffalo.