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The early gay pornographers were men who had an interest in or a business related to photography. The first studio to commercially produce material specifically for the use by gay men was Athletic Model Guild (AMG) and photographer Bob Mizer of Los Angeles, California. He produced about a million images, and thousands of films and videos before he passed away in 1992. Sets of photographs were a very popular form of porn, as they featured full-frontal nudity. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the advent of 8mm film cameras enabled these photographers to produce underground movies of gay sex. Sales of these products were either through mail-order or through more discreet channels: some of the early gay pornographers would travel around the country selling their photographs and films out of their hotel rooms, with advertising only through word of mouth.
The 1960s were also a period where many underground art film makers integrated suggestive or overtly homosexual content in their work. Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963), Andy Warhol's My Hustler (1965), or Paul Morrissey's Flesh (1968) are examples of experimental films that are known to have influenced further gay porn films with their formal qualities and narratives. Joe Dallesandro is probably the most remembered actor and model of the period; his naked beauty has appeared in Warhol's and Morrissey's films, as well as in Mizer's work at the AMG. All through the 1960s, a series of Supreme Court rulings in the USA created a more liberalized legal environment that allowed the commercialization of pornography. Wakefield Poole's Boys in the Sand, starring Casey Donovan, can be considered the first gay porn feature film. It opened in a theater in New York City in December 1971 (and rapidly grossed an impressive profit), preceding the first American commercial straight porn film, Deep Throat, that opened in June 1972. This one's tremendous success definitely launched pornographic film as a popular phenomenon.
The seventies saw not only the rise of the gay adult theatres, where men often had sexual encounters, but also the rise of gay publishing. Most gay men who purchased porn, did so via gay porn magazines, as they neither had access to adult theaters, or could not enter such establishments for fear of being "outed". During this time many publications were started including In Touch, Blueboy, and Playgirl, which, while ostensibly produced for women, were purchased and enjoyed by gay men.
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity among males, with the primary goal of sexual arousal. Although pornography has usually represented the heterosexual orientation of the dominant culture, homosexual explicit material has a long history, reaching back to the Greek Antiquity, if not to prehistory. Practically every medium has been used to represent all-male sexual acts, however, nowadays, the gay porn industry is mostly concentrated in the making of videos. Today, gay porn constitutes a disproportionately large part of the pornography industry. It has attracted much less attention from the anti-pornography movement than its straight counterpart, and is often considered as a significant force in gay cultural life.
Homoeroticism has been present in photography and film since their inventions. During that time, any kind of sexual depiction had to remain underground because of obscenity rules, even more homosexual material that also were the evidence of an illegal act because of sodomy laws in many states. (No longer the case in the United States since such laws were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2003. See Lawrence v. Texas.)
Because of these restrictions, early gay porn primarily consisted of pictures of individual men either fully naked, or wearing a g-string. Early gay porn in the 1940s and 1950s focused on athletic men or body builders in statuesque poses. They were generally young, muscular, and with little or no visible body hair. Commonly called beefcakes, those pictures were sold in physique magazine, allowing the reader to pass as a fitness enthusiast. Since most gay men of this time were deeply "in the closet", actual depictions of sexual activity were rare. Although now considered quite tame or soft-core, this type of porn still exists today.
Text courtesy of Wikipedia.
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