Page 45 - AVN Men 2022

“I love exploring new things and doing things a little different than other people.”
While honing his skills with visual management and marketing in retail for 16 years, Manuel Skye constantly resisted requests to do explicit shoots for photographers.
“On the side, I would always do modeling. I met amazing photographers, and a lot were asking me to do artistic nudes—I had no issue with nudity. But some were asking for the hard-on pictures, and I just wasn’t comfortable, I guess. I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to do porn. I don’t think it’s a match.’”
Skye pauses as he ponders, then corrects himself: “That’s not true. I’ve always wanted to do porn, but I had never accepted it because I thought it didn’t match my spiritual side. I thought people were going to judge me. I was already judged on Facebook for putting a photo of me almost naked with spiritual text. They were like, ‘You can’t be spiritual and sexy.’ But I was like, ‘No—if I nurture my soul and my mind, I should nurture my body as well, because it’s my vehicle.’”
Skye finally relented, contacting famed photographer Mark Henderson. By then, Skye had started performing acrobatics—and his famed move was just waiting to be discovered.
“He was the first one to shoot my split from the back, when I was on the couch. And when I saw it, I gasped. This became my signature pose, because the ass cheeks popped in the air like two balloons. I was like, ‘Whaaat?! This is me? Oh my god!’ And I really enjoyed the experience of doing the hard-on stills. It was fun. I felt very comfortable. And I was like, ‘I can make money for that? And make it a living?!’ And I had just met someone who was doing porn, so he showed the picture to a director, who was like, ‘We want him.’”
Skye hasn’t stopped since. He’s also preparing the release of 7 Skyes Under, his book about the journey through spirituality and reincarnation.
“I’ve always treated ‘Manuel Skye’ like a brand, just doing a fusion of all the arts that I love. So I incorporated acrobatics and all of my visual aspects into it. For me, ‘Skye’ represents spirituality and aerial acrobatics.”
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