Few years ago, a major sex club in San Francisco, CA, (SoMa) showed a number of those 8mm movies, John mentioned above. I was quite amazed. Mostly because, neither my buddies nor I had seen any of those in our time and day. We go back to the Betamax and VHS but the 8mm gay movies have never crossed our radars. (Somehow, the str8 ones did make it into our part of the world, but were deemed totally 'old fashioned' even then...)

Very few of the guys who belonged to our m2m sex coterie actually admitted to having any gay porn. This was a bit too risky to start with, and far too expensive in those days, for most of the college kids living on their rather meagre allowances.

The very few guys who owned the original VHS cassettes of mostly Falcon productions guarded them with their lives. They also made few illegal copies that were given to the guys whom they 'owed' something. Sure, a full-feature gay movie was a valuable asset in an age that did not know of internet, free clips, torrents, etc. The story had it that every good party, i.e. a threesome or a foursome had to start by watching one of those flicks: 'to get the guys going'. Having such an option in your video collection made you a most desirable host who usually had the first pick of the guys, and who usually controlled the play to some extent. Not a trifle thing in those days...

KD

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Take a look at Wikipedia's story about 'Boys In The Sand. It was released in 1971, prior to 'Deep Throat' and was a milestone for all porn movies, not just gay ones.

Made on an $8.000 budget and filmed on Fire Island, it was theatrically released in New York City grossing nearly $25,000 the first week. After being reviewed in 'Variety,' not just 'The Advocate,' it grossed over $140,000 in the first six months and was released nationwide and in other countries. IMDB said it was the only X-rated film reviewed in the 'New York Times." That seems hard to believe, but a quick Google search did not show an NYT review of 'Deep Throat.'

Quite a few of those New York 8mm porn movies did get transferred to VHS and Beta at some point. I remember some of them being especially sleazy, uninhibited, and hot. As for 'Boys In The Sand,' it was sort of a visual poem, meant to be artistic, yet it was also sex-sex-sex.

Bob

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Thanks for the tips & suggestions.

This is where the partial cultural disconnect must have kicked in.

Living in Europe at that time, there was only so much of the commercial porn that made it over to us in the eastern Med.

Naturally, we were the 'new kids' and the 70's stuff sounded and probably must have looked 'old' and rather undesirable to us. The new VHS with bright colors, and very graphic scenes ruled out porn market needs.

KD

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When I first saw the 70's stuff in the mid-80s, some of it was really grainy or poor-quality when transferred to tape. Some things were better, especially if they had been at least a little bit remastered. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the poor quality went right along with the sleaziness and basic primeval sex of many of those films and added to their appeal for me.

Some of the other studios back then were Bijou Video (like the catalog), Jaguar, and P.M. Productions. I also recall one called "Old Reliable" that typically had straight guys being interviewed and then jerking off on camera. All of this product is a real contrast to the contrived stories that started appearing in the 80's. Some of the bareback and fetish studios (Treasure Island, Dick Wadd, etc.) have scenes or movies that recall the old style, but generally things have moved on.

There was also the increasing abundance of muscle-bound gym bodies. Porn moved on to show a standard of physical appearance that many or most guys couldn't realistically achieve. I suppose gay men have always had some degree of body-image and self-image issues, but it seems accentuated by the way first porn and then the wider culture emphasize more and more "perfect" bodies in advertising, TV, movies, etc.

Anyhow, Jack Wrangler was another big star who work in gay and straight movies then, later worked somewhat in theatre and especially as a producer for his wife, singer Margaret Whiting. Again, the Wikipedia article is fascinating. Wrangler always considered himself gay but not part of what he saw as the "gay lifestyle."

This is a really interesting discussion to me and I wish I had time to write more. There's a gold mine of people and topics here.

~ Bob

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Years ago a used bookstore in the area got in a collection of "vintage" gay magazines - as infopop mentions above - all muscle bound guys in tiny posing straps (so no dick showing) all oiled up and flexing.

It was amazing to me that this qualified as "porn" in the day (the magazines all had articles on exercise so they could say they were informational not porn) but for a gay guy this was all that was available.

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I fully agree with Bob here when he says that the poor quality of the 8mm gay flicks went so well along with the expected sleaziness of the genre. I am actually not sure that I would want to view them in a sort of remastered version.

John has mentioned all the magazines with oiled, super-athletic bodies that embodied t the aesthetics of the 70's. The east Med got very few of those in our time and day. But the gay guys had some limited access to the throve of the pre-WWII porn which only sometimes showed a 'strappin' fellow' here and there.

Every dude I have ever talked to about the gay porn 'loved it'. But the porn was neither cheap nor universally and easily available. The societal environment was however, mostly very sexually positive and permissive. Nude beaches used to be an absolute default for ALL the young guys. Nightly skinny dipping was a most usual thing you and your buddies could do. You wear your best bud's shirt or underwear on all kinds of pretexts, and he wore yours.

KD

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When watching the early gay porn movies the "dirtiness" was part of the fun - the "clean" sex was M/F - when you see those old gay movies it is sneaking out into the woods - doing it in a bathroom - it had the added element of being "bad boys" and doing something that is "wrong". Which just added to the fantasy because as kids we would sneak into the woods....




I don't know much history of gay porn - but looking at old magazines on line, in adult bookstores and the like you can see that suddenly in the 70's there was a breakthrough - they changed from guys posing - dicks soft or covered - to full on porn. So I am assuming some "decency" law here in the US was struck down and the publishers were no longer in fear of arrest just for distributing the magazine. Many of the old posing magazines would also have a section where you could buy "20 naked photographs of Steve for only $10 - sold as collector to collector only" - so they had used that to sidestep the law for awhile.

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