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| One of the many porn-plastered store fronts in the Castro. |
Everything nowadays seems to be saturated in a new form of porn-chic: from Abercrombie and Fitch advertisements to Kim Kardashian and a daily slew of music videos. Pornography is no longer something relegated to the sleazy red light district or the dirty book shop. This normalization has been a fairly slow process, starting in the 1960s with the abandonment of the Hayes Code and the success of porn’s so-called Golden Age in the 70s; this all went into hyper-speed with the advent of the internet: as porn was beamed unfiltered straight into American homes. On the contrary, in gay culture, porn has always been a cohesive glue that binds the community together. For most homosexual men, seeing gay porn for the first time was a defining moment.
For many a lonely and confused same-sex attracted boy, gay porn was their lone realization that there were others out there who felt as they did. Whether on television or through the internet, for the sexual explorer, gay porn can be a revelation: that one is not alone and that the thoughts and desires going on inside the brain are worthy of expression; and, in the fantasy world of porn, those who express these desires are noble and beautiful. For me, it was the handsome, healthy, and sun-kissed Casey Donovan – who died of AIDS at age 43. Gay porn, not unlike heterosexual porn, represents the manufactured ideal: glorious sex with no physical or psychological consequences; to the young and ignorant it’s a magnificent lie that holds eternal expectation; for the older and fatigued, it’s a nostalgic promise of what never was. As a little boy, I believed it all; especially during the era of pre-AIDS hedonism; as a teenager, knowing only what I saw in gay porn – I headed to the Castro.
Some of the very first landmark gay legal cases involved controversies revolving about the authority of gay porn shops and bathhouses to operate within the city of San Francisco. In 1981, The Jaguar Bookshop in the Castro, which sold gay pornography, but was mainly a cruising ground for anonymous sex between males, was almost closed down until the bourgeoning gay liberation movement fought for it to remain open – and won. This instance in particular demonstrated the real linkage between gay porn and gay sex. In my experience of over 10 years in the lifestyle, all gay porn shops are actually fronts for a more lucrative “back-room” arcades of looping porn were faceless sex can be procured. To many naive and unsuspecting boys, including myself, these places are the literal gateway through which one is initiated into gay sex. Because, as a teen, I thought one just bought a VHS tape and left. No one told me; and no one warmed me.
Today, the allurement is more high-tech and devious. For, all gay social networking sites on the internet are linked with gay porn sites through a plethora of side-bar advertising and links. One either goes to a gay social network site from a gay porn site or inevitably checks-out a gay porn site through a gay social networking site. In addition, gay social networking sites mirror the anonymous and depersonalized sex to be found in the porn shops and the bathhouses; this is achieved through the widespread phenomena of naked headless selfies and the endless thumbnails of crotches posted by the users. For countless souls just going into the lifestyle, it can often be a sort of initiation through shock; because gay sex, especially anal intercourse, is not as mind-numbingly blissful and pain-free as its depicted in porn; this trauma often leaves you locked – eternally bound to the orientation and to the community; for, there is a shared sense of bonding through similar experiences. Porn, then, becomes a cultural linchpin: a storehouse of the collective hopes and ambitions of a people; yet, there is always tragedy – for it’s based on a warped sense of reality that is meant to deceive. Gay porn is a dream that actually hides the nightmare.