YNOT – Sex and the City meets Queer as Folk in multiple award-winning director Chi Chi LaRue’s new web series about five gay friends caught up in a twisted sex competition. The first season of Channel 1 Releasing’s explicit dramatic series Raising the Bar began streaming at the studio’s website last week.

The series stars C1R exclusive Jimmy Durano plus Steven Daigle, Adam Killian, Mitchell Rock and Conner Habib as five oversexed friends who challenge each other to “raise the bar” in sexual antics. Each captures his darkest and dirtiest sexcapades on a handheld camera as proof of performance, creating a carnal game that separates the boys from the men … and may even separate the friends from each other.

As the season unfolds, more popular gay performers are expected to join the cast. Brent Everett, Landon Mycles, Jock Hudson and Jason Longh all will make guest appearances, and newcomer Billy Byron will be introduced.

Every episode features a new sex scene spliced with amateur footage the performers shot themselves using their own digital cameras, phones and webcams.

The screenplay for Raising the Bar, written by gay porn blogger and C1R publicist Jason Sechrest, has been called “one of the edgiest from C1R to date.”

“In the first episode alone, Steven Daigle offers straight bartender Jock Hudson an indecent proposal, paying to pound his straight ass while his wife waits outside for him in the car,” Sechrest said. “In a future episode, Adam Killian hosts a sex orgy with strangers where he snorts cocaine off his fuck buddy’s cock.”

The episodes are strung together by the escalating competition and how the men’s determination to outdo each other affects their friendship.

“We’re always looking for ways to combine what’s hot at the moment with what we’re really good at doing,” LaRue said. “It started with Steven Daigle: XXXPosed, combining the idea of amateur homemade sex tapes you’d see on these tube sites with our own high-end production values. Now we’re not only continuing that theme, but stepping it up a notch.

“When we decided to start updating C1R.com with new exclusive sex scenes every week like a lot of other sites do, we thought, ‘Why not string them together with a hot, dirty story?’” LaRue continued. “It’s something that hasn’t really been done before.”

Hardcore and softcore trailers for the series are available online. To view the entire production, visit C1R.com.