XPost: rec.arts.movies.current-films, alt.politics.economics, can.politics   
   XPost: misc.legal   
   From: ojoi@glaad.org   
      
   As Bryan Singer contests allegations he sexually assaulted a 17-   
   year-old teenager, one attendee of the Hollywood director’s   
   infamous pool parties recalls wild nights of no clothes and lots   
   of alcohol.   
      
   In gay company, use of the word “twink” is typically paired with   
   a rolled eye and a condescending tone. At its most pejorative,   
   the term describes a uniquely disposable kind of young gay man:   
   Hairless, guileless, witless. The term’s namesake is Twinkie, a   
   junk food containing shiny packaging, a sweet taste, and zero   
   nutritional value.   
      
   It’s a label that mitigates the need for names or personalities   
   or agency:  “twinks” can be bussed into parties, thrown into   
   pools, put into a tiny Speedo—or no tiny Speedo at all—and   
   ornamentally placed around the water’s edge like living,   
   breathing, giggling statuary.   
      
   Such is the purported scene at the infamous pool parties hosted   
   by Hollywood luminaries like Bryan Singer, 48-year-old director   
   of X-Men, Superman Returns, and The Usual Suspects.   
      
   The gay filmmaker is the subject of a lawsuit filed in a Hawaii   
   federal court alleging that he drugged, raped, and assaulted   
   Michael Egan, then seventeen, in the late nineties. It was at   
   pool parties in a mansion in Encino, Egan told The Daily Beast,   
   not hosted by Singer, that the worst of the abuse took place.   
   “At the house, it was drugs put in drinks. Liquor poured down my   
   throat. Rules in the house: No swimsuits, no clothes out by the   
   pool area. I was raped numerous times in that house. Various   
   types of sexual abuse. You were like a piece of meat to these   
   people. They’d pass you around between them.”   
      
   Marty Singer, Singer’s lawyer, has vehemently denied the claims.   
   “In a statement, he said: “The claims made against Bryan Singer   
   are completely without merit. We are very confident that Bryan   
   will be vindicated in this absurd and defamatory lawsuit. It is   
   obvious that this case was filed in an attempt to get publicity   
   at the time when Bryan’s new movie [X-Men: Days of Future Past]   
   is about to open in a few weeks.”   
      
   “We look forward to our bringing a claim for malicious   
   prosecution against Mr. Egan and his attorney after we prevail,”   
   Singer added in a later statement. “It is obvious that   
   plaintiff’s attorney is not looking to litigate the case on its   
   merits. This matter is nothing more than the attorney seeking to   
   get his 15 minutes of fame by sending out a press release with   
   his ‘media consultant’ yesterday and following up with a press   
   conference today. Attorneys who try cases don’t hold press   
   conferences.”   
      
   Singer also questioned why the X-Men director was not mentioned   
   in a 2000 lawsuit that Egan bought. “If Bryan had done anything   
   wrong, he would have been included in the previous lawsuit,”   
   Singer told The Hollywood Reporter.   
      
   Egan’s allegations of criminal behavior and abuse couldn’t be   
   further removed from the testimony of one attendee of Singer’s   
   pool parties that The Daily Beast has spoken with.   
      
   According to an interview with recording artist and actor Jason   
   Dottley, who attended pool parties hosted by Singer for nearly   
   three years, the parties, while wild, were not occasions where   
   he witnessed any of the kinds of criminal behavior detailed by   
   Egan in his suit. “They were not large parties—20 or 30 people,   
   max,” said Dottley. “Very chill, very relaxed—I never saw anyone   
   doing drugs openly. There was usually a bartender making drinks.   
   I remember a hot tub that could have held, like, 20 people. It   
   felt like any kind of Friday night hangout, to be honest.”   
      
   Singer’s pool parties have been a topic of discussion in gay   
   entertainment circles for years. Some parties, co-hosted with   
   fellow out director Roland Emmerich, have featured more than a   
   thousand celebrants. Emmerich told The Advocate, “when [Singer]   
   makes a New Year’s party, there’s like 600, 700 twinks running   
   around and he’s hiding in his room. That’s quite typical.”   
   Emmerich estimates that the last party they hosted, in 2009,   
   drew 1,200 guests.   
      
   Dottley attended his first “Bryan Singer Party” in the summer of   
   1999, at age 19. It was over the course of this same summer that   
   some of Egan’s most damning claims allegedly took place: That on   
   a trip to the Hawaii estate of hair care tycoon Paul Mitchell,   
   Singer drugged him with cocaine, forced him to perform oral sex   
   in a hot tub, and raped him beside a pool.   
      
   “Everyone knew Bryan Singer liked his boys younger,” according   
   to Dottley. “The age range was really tight between 18 and 21.   
   We’d all joke about ‘aging out’ of Bryan Singer’s parties—he had   
   a very narrow window.” As far as underage attendees, Dottley   
   remains adamant that 18 was the cutoff point. “If they were   
   [underage], they were acting like they weren’t.”   
      
   Despite being “Bryan Singer Parties,” most of the gatherings   
   weren’t even held at the director’s home. In fact, it was never   
   clear to most attendees exactly who owned the mansions they were   
   staying at—most likely, the spaces were loaned to Singer and his   
   friends by wealthy affiliates who didn’t mind comely, scantily   
   clad young men lounging by their infinity pools. “If you’re a   
   famous Hollywood director, you don’t want a bunch of strangers   
   in your home,” Dottley explains. “I’ve been to a pool party   
   hosted by Drew Barrymore that wasn’t at her house, either—it’s   
   pretty common.”   
      
   In the days before Facebook invitations and mass texts, “word   
   would just sort of get out” that Singer was hosting a party,   
   according to Dottley. “You would know one direct friend of his   
   who was told that he could bring friends, and he’d bring the   
   friends who sort of fit what Bryan wanted around.” Young men   
   attending were primarily actors, models, singers, and would-be   
   members of the entertainment industry—although never anyone who   
   was working on one of Singer’s movies, says Dottley. “I never   
   saw anybody who was openly working on one of his projects… It   
   was about creating an environment with the eye candy that he   
   appreciated.”   
      
   Part of creating that environment was an informal dress code:   
   The cutest outfit you had. “With the mind of a 19-year-old boy,   
   going to a big Hollywood director’s house, you dressed to   
   impress. Labels everywhere,” Dottley says.   
      
   According to court papers filed by Egan’s attorneys, pool   
   parties frequented by Singer, and hosted by millionaire founder   
   of Internet video pioneer Digital Entertainment Network Marc   
   Collins-Rector, had a strict dress code: nothing. “In compliance   
   with the ‘rules’ imposed by Collins-Rector that people in the   
   pool area were not allowed to wear clothes, Plaintiff was nude   
   as was Defendant Singer.” Dottley says that at the parties he   
   attended, there was no hard-and-fast ban on swimwear, although   
      
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