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Ryan O'Connell

@ryanoconn

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On here to let people know my career is going great and I have a hot body

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Thank you to everyone who has bought Inspiration Porn!!! Your messages and posts are making my heart swell. Love you. Thinking of making a joke but letting it be earnest tbh. #growth by @ryanoconn

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The third book from @ryanoconn – Inspiration Porn – was never meant to be a book at all. Initially a log of the American writer and actor’s sex life, it evolved from laugh-out-loud and often poignant ruminations on hooking up into a collection of essays touching also on his life living with cerebral palsy, queerness, showbusiness triumphs, familial woes, the “prison” of heterosexuality and his sinuous road to body acceptance. He can speak on each with authority. And it all comes together in a collection of essays (nine to be exact) that mark him out as far beyond simply the voice of a community, but one deserving of the bedside tables of the gamut of society. Sitting down with Man About Town, he reflects on using humour to disarm, his kinship with the literary tone of Eve Babitz and the one thing he wishes his straight, white male colleagues would understand. Head to manabouttown.tv to read now! 📸 ryanmcginleystudios✍️ @andreww_wright by @ryanoconn

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“People have commodified their identity to such an aggressive extent that everything weirdly feels like a calculation, a chess move,” @ryanoconn tells @adameli for CULTURED. “I no longer trust what anyone says. I hate even saying that because I love personal writing, but being vulnerable online in 2026 is a really hard feat to pull off.”You likely met O’Connell when ‘Special,’ a semi-autobiographical series adapted from the former blogger’s memoir, premiered on Netflix in 2019. The show, which ran for two seasons, followed a gay man with cerebral palsy, played by O’Connell, who writes extremely personal essays for a website vaguely based on Thought Catalog, that bygone platform for millennial confessions.Post-Special, O’Connell published a semi-autobiographical novel, ‘Just By Looking at Him.’ His new collection of essays, ‘Inspiration Porn,’ sees the actor drop the “semi” label and go full non-fiction. In the book, he talks about his family, his open relationship with fellow author Jonathan Parks-Ramage, and “healing through his hole.” Eli called O’Connell up to talk about the vulnerability industrial complex, not becoming a total sub for the algorithm, and why his first memoir was a scam. Link in bio to read their conversation now.Photography: Ryan McGinley by @ryanoconn

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Valid question! 😹💀Link in bio for all of @ryanoconn’s Bravo hot takes 🎧📹#bravo #summerhouse #thevalley #realitytv by @ryanoconn

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After Ryan O’Connell‘s semi-autobiographical Netflix series Special—about a young man with cerebral palsy navigating life & love in LA—brought him to a new level of attention and acclaim, the actor/writer was surprised to find his very existence dubbed “inspiration porn.”While filming Peacock’s revival of Queer As Folk (which he also wrote & produced) in New Orleans, he decided to confront those feelings head-on by partaking more intentionally in every gay’s favorite pastime: sleeping around. After each new hook-up, he’d journal about the experiences, and before long he’d had thousands of loads—excuse us, thousands of words to show for it. Those words became The Slut Diaries, and eventually The Slut Diaries became the basis of his new book, Inspiration Porn.The follow-up to his fiction novel Just By Looking At Him, essay collection Inspiration Porn finds O’Connell musing, yes, about sex & romance, but also about his closeted childhood, family trauma, internalized ableism, navigating celebrity & creative ambition in Hollywood, and the car accident that led to painkiller addiction & alcoholism. There’s practically no corner of his life he doesn’t explore. Follow the link in bio to read more. @ryanoconn by @ryanoconn

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Stacked with @ryanoconn 📚💭 by @ryanoconn

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Unpacking “Summer House” stars Kyle and Amanda’s relationship dynamic. Link in bio for all of @ryanoconn’s Bravo hot takes! 🎧📹#summerhouse #amandabatula #kylecooke by @ryanoconn

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Ryan O’Connell got real with us about growing up disabled, feeling hypervisible and invisible at the same time, and how society’s silence shaped the way he viewed his body.⁠⁠Ryan O’Connell’s Inspiration Porn hit shelves today, May 26, available wherever books are sold. by @ryanoconn

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Ryan O’Connell explaining his “cumspringa” era might be the most honest anyone has ever been about sex, confidence and gay dating culture 😭⁠⁠Ryan O’Connell’s Inspiration Porn hit shelves today, May 26, available wherever books are sold. by @ryanoconn

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Inspiration Porn is out today. Here is a little mood board of the people, places, and things that inspired the book. If you’re in New York tomorrow, come see me at the Strand with @cocomellors. Link in bio for tix. I love you. by @ryanoconn

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Ryan O'Connell is in the studio recording INSPIRATION PORN 🤩⁣⁣A hilarious collection of essays and bawdy musings on disability, sex, family, and Hollywood, #InspirationPorn is available May 26 wherever you listen to audiobooks 🎧 by @ryanoconn

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For the latest installment of our advice column SEEK HELP, we turned to writer and actor @ryanoconn, the mind behind the hit @netflix series Special. His upcoming book, Inspiration Porn, is a collection of essays on sex, disability, and the peculiar experience of living the high life in L.A. At the link in bio, O’Connell prepares us for it’s impending release by sharing some wisdom about L.A. trade, looksmaxxing, and chasing older guys. by @ryanoconn

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