Austin Jennings Boykin Shares His Massage Stories
by James Judd
Austin Jennings Boykin promises that he doesn’t hold anything back on stage.
Boykin, 35, is an actor and stand-up comic who got tired of waiting for performance opportunities to present themselves and set out to write his own solo show. The result is A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings, on stage at the Red Room August 12 and 14.
“I think it’s a really interesting time because so many performers are creating their own work instead of waiting for auditions or waiting for someone to give them an opportunity,” Boykin says. “That’s what I did. I didn’t wait for someone to say ‘Here’s a one-man show for you.’ I just said, ‘I’m going to write one.’”
The show, which draws heavily from Boykin’s life and work as an erotic masseur, began when he related his particularly harrowing day at work to his boyfriend over dinner. A booking devolved into a mélange of sex, drugs, and guns and made him realize he had found the story he wanted to bring to the stage.
“It started with that story, and then I picked four other clients that were significant in different ways,” Boykin explains. “One of them was one of my first clients and was my first affair. Another one was someone I was genuinely afraid of. One was someone who tried to hire me for a family reunion. I picked these stories that felt like they had emotional or narrative significance. And then I just started writing.”
When Boykin, who has been seen in Fleishman Is in Trouble (FX), FBI: Most Wanted (CBS), The Gilded Age (HBO), and other shows, isn’t acting, he’s working the LA comedy circuit with stories about his handsy side hustle. He makes no apologies for the content. “It’s not a sanitized take on sex work or gay culture or anything like that. It very much lives in a gray area. I’m not saying this is right or wrong. This is just what it is.”
Massage, he says, provides his clients with a wide range of comforts. “People think gay massage is always sex. And the truth is, it’s not. People think it’s just gay guys, but I’ve had married men, women, trans and straight people.”
Boykin says loneliness and a need for intimacy are often the reasons his clients seek him out. Navigating the emotional complexity and expectations they bring to the table is part of the work. “And I like the parts where it’s not just about being touched in the ‘right way,’” he says. “I like that it’s messy. I like that it’s complicated. I like that it brings up issues of gender, and sex, and shame, and autonomy, and control. Because I think our culture is obsessed with controlling people’s bodies. Who has the right to control their body? Who has the right to use it in the way they want?”
That emotional toll doesn’t end when the show’s over. “It’s very draining,” Boykin admits. “I did the show last night, and I didn’t sleep very well. That’s usually the case. I’ll usually do the show and then go home and be up for two or three hours. Because it’s like a dopamine crash. I’ve just told people all my deepest, darkest secrets, and then I’m alone in my Airbnb eating popcorn.”
Boykin’s road to this moment has been anything but linear. “I went to New York when I was 18, and I’ve never looked back—like, ever,” he says. Although ostensibly he moved there to go to college, an addiction fueled by a drug-pushing therapist quickly derailed his plans. “I lasted, I think, two and a half months in college, and then they were like, ‘You need to go to rehab.’ I’ve been sober for 13 years.”
Though many years have passed since Boykin last saw that therapist, he still shudders at the mention. “I met someone in a 12-step meeting that, when we were talking about our pill addiction, they knew the doctor I was talking about. And they were like, ‘Austin, that’s the doctor all the models go to get their Klonopin.’ I’m not a model but he did give me Klonopin.”
Boykin estimates he’s performed thousands of massages over the years. “I did it all through my 20s and 30s, basically. I took a year off to be a schoolteacher. I taught acting at a public school, and I really thought I was doing something noble and worthwhile. And I thought, ‘Okay, this is how I redeem myself. I’ve been doing this sinful, weird job, and now I’m going to be a schoolteacher, and everyone’s going to respect me.’ And no one respected me. I had less respect teaching in a public school than I did doing erotic massage.”
That irony isn’t lost on Boykin, who’s still figuring out how to share his stories onstage without outing or infringing on the privacy of the people who inspired them. “Because the truth is, none of these people are villains,” he says. “They’re all just people—lonely, flawed, searching. Just like me.”
Austin Jennings Boykin performs in A Gay Masseur’s Guide to Happy Endings at Red Room, 258 Commercial St., Provincetown, Tuesday, August 12, and Thursday, August 14, at 7 p.m. For tickets ($51.50 VIP/$41.50) and information visit redroom.club.
