The history of gay porn cinema.

[haiducii]

i have to admit i have been following this thread with avid fascination, Gorgik and Haducii I would love to sit down over a coffee and have a real conversation with you you on this topic.

Thanks for your invitation to coffee!

 

[gorgik9]

i have to admit i have been following this thread with avid fascination, Gorgik and Haducii I would love to sit down over a coffee and have a real conversation with you you on this topic. Addressing the question of when film gay porn arrived, I have done some research into this the main problem was of course the availability of cheap cameras to film such illegal content. it seems that the wide spread availability of 8mm film/cameras and projectors allowed individuals to film and copy men having sex. I have seen a number of reels transferred onto video dating from the 1930s.
my own interpretation is that porn is a technologically led medium, constantly mutating and that it is the increasing availability of ordinary people to consume porn thanks to the democratization of the means of consumption that has driven the increasing place of porn within society

Haiducii and me are serious coffee pots both of us :rofl::rofl::rofl:

It's really great fun to have followers to this thread who can teach us something. That's what we've been dreaming of! So big thanks, iltman:thumbs up:

 

[gorgik9]

The Economy of Porno.

The point of departure for this long post - totally without pics, vids and clips - is some lines from one of haiducii's earliest posts in this thread (post #25, and this is haiducii quoting american scholar Joe A. Thomas): "Gay video sales and rentals represent a disproportionately large segment of the $ 10 billion to $ 12 billion global porn industry". $ 10 billion - a figure that originated in the late 1990s and usually quoted as considering the American porn industry - and soon got mythologized as "the truth".

But as you all know, I'm in the business of de-mythologizing. I'm absolutely not blaming haiducii for anything whatsoever, but I will put a blame on lots of journalists and university professors too lazy to do their job in a serious way. And what is their job? Many things maybe, but first of all : Checking the facts. Period.

Haiducii has read this text in the original version and since he said he thought I should go ahead and post it in our thread, so here I am, on with the posting! This text will have two main chapters, of which the first is based on a stash of old papers and doents I happened to find in a cupboard drawer a few days ago.

The second chapter is based on my reading of Swedish journalist Mattias Andersson's book Porr - en bästsäljande historia ("Porn - a bestselling story.", 2005).

So here we go!

THE ECONOMY OF PORN.

Working on our thread I've been - among many other things - also looking for different kinds of pharaphernalia/memorabilia that got something to do with gay porn one way or the other, and a couple of evenings ago I found a stash of old catalogues, pricelists and invoices in one of my cupboard drawers.

Catalogues, pricelists and invoices.

So I had catalogues from the big international gay porn video distributors Gero and Videorama 1994-1996, but also catalogues and pricelists from Swedish gay porn mail order company Homeros Trading, but maybe the personally most interesting today to myself was a series of invoices from this company, that made me remember how fuckin' expensive it was to buy a few gay porn videos in 1995. So I bought two Cadinot vids for 1199 SEK each = 2400 SEK (250 EUR) and a few months later two Man's Best vids for 1300 SEK both of the together (140 EUR).

Around 2005 you didn't buy vids anymore, it was all about DVD:s, and I had a much better personal aconomy than ten years before, but the prices were mostly about the same, i.e. damn expensive. Homeros Trading didn't exist any longer, but I bought a small DVD collection from US Video, Swedens biggest online pornshop. Three Cadinot DVD:s cost about 3200 SEK (345 EUR) and about 15 DVD:s from other producers costing about 500 SEK each which makes up to 7500 SEK (800 EUR).

Total sum for my buyings of gay porn from 1995-2005 is 1535 EUR - and that's a danm lot of money, considering that it's nothing more than a bit over 20 DVD:s / videotapes. It's much, much, much more expensive than straight porn or non-porn DVD:s.

Gay porn goes Internet.

But what I didn't know in 2005 was, that video/DVD as distribution media in porno was soon coming to an end (hrmm, I guess I should stress that when I talk about video in this context, I'm thinking about the material video cassett), and entering the era of all the different Porno Tubes (RedTube, XTube, GayTube, XVideos etc) and Porn Forum (among them our beloved GH!). Another type of Internet porn became the membership porn sites (S3anC0dy, C0rbinFish3r, R4ndyBlu3, Br0ke Str4ight B0ys, C0ckb0ys, W1ll14mH1ggins, B3l4mi etc) where you pay a monthly fee, let's say $ 29.95 per month (C0ckyb0ys), $ 34.95 (B3l4mi), or $ 27.95 (S3anC0dy).

Thinking about all the different PornoTubes and Porn Forums, among the biggest economic problems for professional porn producers today must be:
- How the hell do you get people to pay any money at all for gay porn???

I mean if I can wait a couple of days for the latest C0ckyb0y clip, you can download it for NADA. And y'all know from where. NADA!!!!!!

One thing is damn certain: if you are a porn producer today, you just can't demand 100 EURO:s or more for a single porn DVD, not even if you're Georges Duroy, William Higgins or Jake Jaxon. Not a snowballs chance in hell!!!

Those are the fundamental reasons why I don't believe in the 10 billion dollar hype of today.


"Porn - a bestselling story."

But there are things - the very figure 10 billion dollars - that were as fishy as a piece of rotten pussy already in the 1990s!

The main point in this chapter is to introduce you to the Swedish journalist Mattias Andersson and his brilliant book Porr - en bästsäljande historia. (2005; "Porn a bestselling story.) I don't think it's been translated into English, which is a pity. You'll have to make do with my reading of the central content.

There was much discussion in Swedish media in the late 1990s and early 2000s about porn having become such a gigantic global industry and how bad this was for society, bad for women, bad for children, bad for...well, just baaaaaaaad. Period.

What I didn't know was, that most of this so-called "information" came from different "research companies" and "news agencies".

FLT Newsagency.

So the FLT agency told all and sundry in 1998 that : "the porn industry is one of the four biggest industries in the world" and that it had a yearly turnover of "hundreds of billions". (Hundreds of billions of what? Swedish crowns? US dollar? Euro?)

Forrester Research.

The soundbite of "one of the four biggest industries" would become almost as canonical and repeated as the following announcement fro Forrester Research in 1998:
"The porn industry has a turnover of 10 billion dollars every year in USA."

But the problem was - and in a way still is - that this wasn't the result from a serious study, but just a plain guess that most often get quoted as if it was the reported result of a study.

Forbes Magazine

Now it's time to move on from the American 10 billions to the global porn market! Forbes Magazine told us 14 June 1999 that today's legal porn business is "a $ 56 billion global industry".

Now the interisting thing is, that Forbes didn't just make a guess - as Forrester Research had - Forbes had a source, which was an interview with the international Swedish porn mogul Berth Milton jr when his company Private Media Group was about to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Milton giving this interview to a very well known and respected magazine like Forbes was very much in Milton's own interest. You could say that Milton planted the information he wanted to plant - in the interest of his company's stock exchange ratio.

Adult Video News (AVN)

The editor of AVN Paul Fishbein pontificated in 2000 that american consumers "rent and buy porn on video for 4 billions a year".

Forbes again - and with a different message...

However, in 2001 Forbes did what it hadn't done before - a serious economic investigation into the American porn business, that the overall turnover wasn't 10 billon dollars in the US, but rather somewhere in between 2.6 to 3.9 billion dollars in 2001.

But who cares about serious investigations? The 10 billion figure from Forrester Research in 1998 was repeated by journalist Frank Rich in the New York Times in 2001, who's text got quoted by film studies professor Linda Williams in 2004.

And when the 10 billion statement got quoted by Jefferey Escoffier in his 2007 essay "Porn Star/Stripper/Escort" any annotation was obviously not considered necessary. The 10 billion dollars had become what "everybody" already knew. Just like the wetness of water.

Mattias Andersson's explanation.

I won't wear you out with any more horror stories about the almost total lack of critical sense among journalists and academics when it comes to porn. It is Mattias Anderssons critical genious that he gives a serious and in my view very plausible attempt to explain why all this came about.

First: the time when it all started, ca 1998-2001.
This is a very peculiar time in western economic and cultural history when the new glorious powerfull technological fan - the Internet - hit the age old financial shit of a Financial Bubble. The first recognizeable financial bubble was the Tulip Hysteria in Amsterdam in the 1630s, and in the late 1990s we were heading for the Dotcom-bubble or IT-bubble.

There are some messages that seems to repeat themselves in almost all bubbles: That this is a totally new type of economy functioning in a totally new way, that everything is totally possible and that everybody soon will become a millionair, a billionair, or why not a gazillionair!!! Yeah, dig it! Everybody! Soon!

When we're living inside a bubble, we're living in a climate zone where everything and anything seems possible. So it seemes possible for journalists and their editors that the porn industry really soon could become the worlds third, fourth and fifth biggest industry. It really starts seeming possible when Berth Milton jr says that the porn industry will have a global turnover of 56 billion dollars, so damn possible it isn't necessary for the journalist to make any critical analysis of the facts.

Don't be a spoil-sport, we're marching into Glory Land!!!

Second: The common interest of not checking the facts.

There were so many different actors who found, that ever rising figures about the porn industry served their interests much better than critical factchecking:
porn moguls like Milton wanted spectacular figures to get the best stock exchange ratio they could get;
research companies and magazines gave the moguls what they wanted, but they also gave shiploads to the tabloids, who craved news about porn industry and porn stars almost as much as they craved sex.

And then there were politicos and the professors! It was so much better if you could believe in porn as a superstrong economic monster, when you wanted new types of prohibitions on porno. The making of the new law craves 56 billion dollars per annum (preferably more...).

The porno professors wanted porn to look long, fat and juicy, so that they could say to their collegues and their presumptive students: - Our subject and our studies program is much more important than you would expect!!!


Andersson on the economic state of the porn industry in 2003.

Public Limited Companies Turnover US Dollar 2003 Country

Beate Uhse 327 millions Germany

Playboy 325 millions USA

Ricks Cabaret Int:l 15 millions USA

New Frontier Media 44 millions USA

Private Media Group 48 millions Spain

Penthouse Int:l Inc 53 millions (2002) USA

Erotic Media 110 millions Schweiz

Sum 922 millions

Private Limited Companies

Vivid Video ca 100 millions USA

LFP Inc ca 150 millions USA

Sum Total 1172 millions = 1.172 billions

One question only : where the fuck were the other 54.8 billions :?

Here endeth the lesson.

 

[iltman]

The point of departure for this long post - totally without pics, vids and clips - is some lines from one of haiducii's earliest posts in this thread (post #25, and this is haiducii quoting american scholar Joe A. Thomas): "Gay video sales and rentals represent a disproportionately large segment of the $ 10 billion to $ 12 billion global porn industry". $ 10 billion - a figure that originated in the late 1990s and usually quoted as considering the American porn industry - and soon got mythologized as "the truth".

But as you all know, I'm in the business of de-mythologizing. I'm absolutely not blaming haiducii for anything whatsoever, but I will put a blame on lots of journalists and university professors too lazy to do their job in a serious way. And what is their job? Many things maybe, but first of all : Checking the facts. Period.

Haiducii has read this text in the original version and since he said he thought I should go ahead and post it in our thread, so here I am, on with the posting! This text will have two main chapters, of which the first is based on a stash of old papers and doents I happened to find in a cupboard drawer a few days ago.

The second chapter is based on my reading of Swedish journalist Mattias Andersson's book Porr - en bästsäljande historia ("Porn - a bestselling story.", 2005).

So here we go!

THE ECONOMY OF PORN.

Working on our thread I've been - among many other things - also looking for different kinds of pharaphernalia/memorabilia that got something to do with gay porn one way or the other, and a couple of evenings ago I found a stash of old catalogues, pricelists and invoices in one of my cupboard drawers.

Catalogues, pricelists and invoices.

So I had catalogues from the big international gay porn video distributors Gero and Videorama 1994-1996, but also catalogues and pricelists from Swedish gay porn mail order company Homeros Trading, but maybe the personally most interesting today to myself was a series of invoices from this company, that made me remember how fuckin' expensive it was to buy a few gay porn videos in 1995. So I bought two Cadinot vids for 1199 SEK each = 2400 SEK (250 EUR) and a few months later two Man's Best vids for 1300 SEK both of the together (140 EUR).

Around 2005 you didn't buy vids anymore, it was all about DVD:s, and I had a much better personal aconomy than ten years before, but the prices were mostly about the same, i.e. damn expensive. Homeros Trading didn't exist any longer, but I bought a small DVD collection from US Video, Swedens biggest online pornshop. Three Cadinot DVD:s cost about 3200 SEK (345 EUR) and about 15 DVD:s from other producers costing about 500 SEK each which makes up to 7500 SEK (800 EUR).

Total sum for my buyings of gay porn from 1995-2005 is 1535 EUR - and that's a danm lot of money, considering that it's nothing more than a bit over 20 DVD:s / videotapes. It's much, much, much more expensive than straight porn or non-porn DVD:s.

Gay porn goes Internet.

But what I didn't know in 2005 was, that video/DVD as distribution media in porno was soon coming to an end (hrmm, I guess I should stress that when I talk about video in this context, I'm thinking about the material video cassett), and entering the era of all the different Porno Tubes (RedTube, XTube, GayTube, XVideos etc) and Porn Forum (among them our beloved GH!). Another type of Internet porn became the membership porn sites (S3anC0dy, C0rbinFish3r, R4ndyBlu3, Br0ke Str4ight B0ys, C0ckb0ys, W1ll14mH1ggins, B3l4mi etc) where you pay a monthly fee, let's say $ 29.95 per month (C0ckyb0ys), $ 34.95 (B3l4mi), or $ 27.95 (S3anC0dy).

Thinking about all the different PornoTubes and Porn Forums, among the biggest economic problems for professional porn producers today must be:
- How the hell do you get people to pay any money at all for gay porn???

I mean if I can wait a couple of days for the latest C0ckyb0y clip, you can download it for NADA. And y'all know from where. NADA!!!!!!

One thing is damn certain: if you are a porn producer today, you just can't demand 100 EURO:s or more for a single porn DVD, not even if you're Georges Duroy, William Higgins or Jake Jaxon. Not a snowballs chance in hell!!!

Those are the fundamental reasons why I don't believe in the 10 billion dollar hype of today.


"Porn - a bestselling story."

But there are things - the very figure 10 billion dollars - that were as fishy as a piece of rotten pussy already in the 1990s!

The main point in this chapter is to introduce you to the Swedish journalist Mattias Andersson and his brilliant book Porr - en bästsäljande historia. (2005; "Porn a bestselling story.) I don't think it's been translated into English, which is a pity. You'll have to make do with my reading of the central content.

There was much discussion in Swedish media in the late 1990s and early 2000s about porn having become such a gigantic global industry and how bad this was for society, bad for women, bad for children, bad for...well, just baaaaaaaad. Period.

What I didn't know was, that most of this so-called "information" came from different "research companies" and "news agencies".

FLT Newsagency.

So the FLT agency told all and sundry in 1998 that : "the porn industry is one of the four biggest industries in the world" and that it had a yearly turnover of "hundreds of billions". (Hundreds of billions of what? Swedish crowns? US dollar? Euro?)

Forrester Research.

The soundbite of "one of the four biggest industries" would become almost as canonical and repeated as the following announcement fro Forrester Research in 1998:
"The porn industry has a turnover of 10 billion dollars every year in USA."

But the problem was - and in a way still is - that this wasn't the result from a serious study, but just a plain guess that most often get quoted as if it was the reported result of a study.

Forbes Magazine

Now it's time to move on from the American 10 billions to the global porn market! Forbes Magazine told us 14 June 1999 that today's legal porn business is "a $ 56 billion global industry".

Now the interisting thing is, that Forbes didn't just make a guess - as Forrester Research had - Forbes had a source, which was an interview with the international Swedish porn mogul Berth Milton jr when his company Private Media Group was about to go public on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Milton giving this interview to a very well known and respected magazine like Forbes was very much in Milton's own interest. You could say that Milton planted the information he wanted to plant - in the interest of his company's stock exchange ratio.

Adult Video News (AVN)

The editor of AVN Paul Fishbein pontificated in 2000 that american consumers "rent and buy porn on video for 4 billions a year".

Forbes again - and with a different message...

However, in 2001 Forbes did what it hadn't done before - a serious economic investigation into the American porn business, that the overall turnover wasn't 10 billon dollars in the US, but rather somewhere in between 2.6 to 3.9 billion dollars in 2001.

But who cares about serious investigations? The 10 billion figure from Forrester Research in 1998 was repeated by journalist Frank Rich in the New York Times in 2001, who's text got quoted by film studies professor Linda Williams in 2004.

And when the 10 billion statement got quoted by Jefferey Escoffier in his 2007 essay "Porn Star/Stripper/Escort" any annotation was obviously not considered necessary. The 10 billion dollars had become what "everybody" already knew. Just like the wetness of water.

Mattias Andersson's explanation.

I won't wear you out with any more horror stories about the almost total lack of critical sense among journalists and academics when it comes to porn. It is Mattias Anderssons critical genious that he gives a serious and in my view very plausible attempt to explain why all this came about.

First: the time when it all started, ca 1998-2001.
This is a very peculiar time in western economic and cultural history when the new glorious powerfull technological fan - the Internet - hit the age old financial shit of a Financial Bubble. The first recognizeable financial bubble was the Tulip Hysteria in Amsterdam in the 1630s, and in the late 1990s we were heading for the Dotcom-bubble or IT-bubble.

There are some messages that seems to repeat themselves in almost all bubbles: That this is a totally new type of economy functioning in a totally new way, that everything is totally possible and that everybody soon will become a millionair, a billionair, or why not a gazillionair!!! Yeah, dig it! Everybody! Soon!

When we're living inside a bubble, we're living in a climate zone where everything and anything seems possible. So it seemes possible for journalists and their editors that the porn industry really soon could become the worlds third, fourth and fifth biggest industry. It really starts seeming possible when Berth Milton jr says that the porn industry will have a global turnover of 56 billion dollars, so damn possible it isn't necessary for the journalist to make any critical analysis of the facts.

Don't be a spoil-sport, we're marching into Glory Land!!!

Second: The common interest of not checking the facts.

There were so many different actors who found, that ever rising figures about the porn industry served their interests much better than critical factchecking:
porn moguls like Milton wanted spectacular figures to get the best stock exchange ratio they could get;
research companies and magazines gave the moguls what they wanted, but they also gave shiploads to the tabloids, who craved news about porn industry and porn stars almost as much as they craved sex.

And then there were politicos and the professors! It was so much better if you could believe in porn as a superstrong economic monster, when you wanted new types of prohibitions on porno. The making of the new law craves 56 billion dollars per annum (preferably more...).

The porno professors wanted porn to look long, fat and juicy, so that they could say to their collegues and their presumptive students: - Our subject and our studies program is much more important than you would expect!!!


Andersson on the economic state of the porn industry in 2003.

Public Limited Companies Turnover US Dollar 2003 Country

Beate Uhse 327 millions Germany

Playboy 325 millions USA

Ricks Cabaret Int:l 15 millions USA

New Frontier Media 44 millions USA

Private Media Group 48 millions Spain

Penthouse Int:l Inc 53 millions (2002) USA

Erotic Media 110 millions Schweiz

Sum 922 millions

Private Limited Companies

Vivid Video ca 100 millions USA

LFP Inc ca 150 millions USA

Sum Total 1172 millions = 1.172 billions

One question only : where the fuck were the other 54.8 billions :?

Here endeth the lesson.

firstly your good self and Haiducci are always welcome to a good cup of coffee anytime you're in the north east of the UK. secondly i totally agree with your analysis of porn revenues, the 10 billion was always a total fabrication, and i would be inclined to accept the 2.2/3 billion you alluded to. I was a prolific porn consumer during the period 1997-2001 (still am), but you must remember that the internet was very different during this period. most people had very slow dialup and downloading a film was a long and difficult process. this period was the rise of the DVD and the slow decline of video and i remember that you had to pay $60 for a single falcon video.
thus the producers had a monopoly of content and were able to charge prices that are in hindsight staggering

 

[mikk33]

this is great, thanks for the Sam Delaney refs. His autobiography, 'motion of light in water', is a his-story of the east village, new York city in the early 1960's.(east village sex and science fiction writing 1960-1965). Includes many references to the underground/ under the counter culture movements of the time, that are now the mainstream.
Let alone a reference back to when Hubert Huncke was a hustler on Times Square in the 1940's.

thanks gorgik, will check your albums. next stop bruceLabruce. haha

 

[gorgik9]

@ iltman
You know your stuff and I think we just have to try to manage some kind get-together with lots of coffee. And haiducii will teach you and me to handle the Slovenian language!

@ mikk33
But then I'll have to meet mikk33 for samchipdelanyesque-reasons. He really is da maaaaan - a black man, a gay man, a writer, as it says in The Motion of Light in Water.

I haven't read all of Delany's 40+ books (or is it 50+ nowadays?) but at least 25. And The Motion of light in Water was the first I read, the one that got me totally hooked on this spectacular writer, intellectual, newyorker and human being.

 

[Rio Mack]

Just to add to the praise -- I'm thrilled I stumbled upon this rich, rich discussion. Thanks to Haiducii & Gorgik9 for this brilliant idea & their vast knowledge. I remember the time in college I was invited over to a dinner party held by a couple of young (apparently het) swingers. After dinner, they brought out the 8 mm projector, passed around a couple of joints, and put on BOYS IN THE SAND. To me, it was a revelation. I almost don't want to watch it again because it can never be as hot as what it was in my incredibly aroused memory.

I'm interested in the effect of so much available internet gay porn on young men. My assumption is that many many young men are watching gay porn own the down-low. Call me naive, but I'm hopeful it will help broaden notions of what counts as masculinity, as male sexuality, allow young men to get in touch with same-sex desires (which I feel are natural in everyone). Who knows if perhaps the easy availability of gay porn is helping to drive attitudes on same-sex marriage?

I could recommend a good book -- an older classic our very literate seminar leaders are no doubt familiar with: K. J. Dover's GREEK HOMOSEXUALITY. A great read. It was amazing to me to see, for example, so many of the frank gay images on the classic Grecian Urns. It showed how openly, how publicly men at the time acknowledged their need for homoerotic imagery.

Very excited, again, to have found this profound discussion!

 

[gorgik9]

@ Rio Mack
Yet another voice giving witness to the importance of 8mm films! I'm thrilled this thread is getting such great followers, and I'm pretty sure haiducii thinks just about the same, so thanks Rio Mack!!!

 

[dargelos]

The data on the economics of the porn biz do not take into account the non legal sector of the trade. In the UK in the early nineties the home grown product was too soft to be called porn. We had some good magazines but the censorship of video was severe. To make up for the unsatisfied demand the good old criminals came to the rescue just like they did when Americans were prevented from buying booze by prohibition. Smuggled video tapes were duplicated with a dual standard NTSC/PAL video recorder as master and up to eight, probably stolen, ordinary vhs recorders as slaves. These tapes sold for £40 (53 euro) under the counter. The quality ranged from bad to unwatchable but nobody asked for their money back, the sellers being the kind of men you do not argue with. It is impossible to put a value on the gay part of this trade since the sellers dealt in straight, gay, rape, underage, all the same no questions asked. The relaxation in enforcement of censorship around the turn of the century has killed off that trade in the UK (apart from the underage part which I do not want to know about) but it must still be going on in parts of the world where it is still difficult to obtain porn legaly, on dvd which is so much easier, quicker and cheaper to pirate than vhs tape.

 

[iltman]

this is great, thanks for the Sam Delaney refs. His autobiography, 'motion of light in water', is a his-story of the east village, new York city in the early 1960's.(east village sex and science fiction writing 1960-1965). Includes many references to the underground/ under the counter culture movements of the time, that are now the mainstream.
Let alone a reference back to when Hubert Huncke was a hustler on Times Square in the 1940's.

thanks gorgik, will check your albums. next stop bruceLabruce. haha

thank you for mentioning Delany, The motion of light in Water is one of my favorite books, and he is a genius writer, i remember reading an interview with Delany a few years ago in which he discussed his partner of many years, a self identified str8 man who had never had any same sex feelings until he met Delany.

 

[iltman]

The data on the economics of the porn biz do not take into account the non legal sector of the trade. In the UK in the early nineties the home grown product was too soft to be called porn. We had some good magazines but the censorship of video was severe. To make up for the unsatisfied demand the good old criminals came to the rescue just like they did when Americans were prevented from buying booze by prohibition. Smuggled video tapes were duplicated with a dual standard NTSC/PAL video recorder as master and up to eight, probably stolen, ordinary vhs recorders as slaves. These tapes sold for £40 (53 euro) under the counter. The quality ranged from bad to unwatchable but nobody asked for their money back, the sellers being the kind of men you do not argue with. It is impossible to put a value on the gay part of this trade since the sellers dealt in straight, gay, rape, underage, all the same no questions asked. The relaxation in enforcement of censorship around the turn of the century has killed off that trade in the UK (apart from the underage part which I do not want to know about) but it must still be going on in parts of the world where it is still difficult to obtain porn legaly, on dvd which is so much easier, quicker and cheaper to pirate than vhs tape.

oh yes i remember that period all to well, i was raided and arrested by Customs and Excise in the late 90s for possessing gay porn videos, i was lucky as they arrested dozens of people included several friends and some of them went to court and got criminal records.
as for the illegal trade, later after the legal contretemps i lived in the US and used to smuggle some choice porn back to the UK, i'd copy them and flog them to friends for a fiver each, the quality was pretty good and in those days we were glad for them.
frankly whilst it was nerve wracking going through customs it was my small defiance against those fuckers!

 

[haiducii]

Welcome to Golden Prague, capital of gay porn

Prague. Spring 2010. His Majesty King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni visits a seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during his private stay in the Czech Republic. A few streets away from the Czernin Palace, Martin Justel is knocking on the door of the film studio of W1lliam H1ggins (WH). He is 20, as old as the Czech democracy. In the terminology of the American gay sexual marketplace, he is a classic "twink", a thin, young, pretty boy.

"You can take off your clothes," says Rado Pauer, H1ggins' cameraman, as he walks over to Martin to hand him half of a blue pill, which he swallows without a question. Martin knows the drill already. At the end of the shoot, he will get cash in hand. That's all he can focus on. He will use it to pay rent and take his girlfriend out for dinner.

"Good work", says Pauer after capturing the final shot. "You can wash up now". Martin showers, gets dressed and pockets his wage: 3.000 Czech crowns (108 EUR, 81 GBP, 123 USD), the going rate for solo work. Check out this video HERE. Will he do it again? "I’ll see. Maybe I’ll find a job and I won’t be back," he says.

Like the vast majority of the thousands of "perfectly straight" Czech men performing in gay porn, he gets offended when asked whether he ever considered he might be gay. Martin is, he insists, only doing it for the money. Like many other guys, he is merely gay for pay. He describes himself as 100 % straight, like almost all other WH models, f.e. 18yo Alex, one of the Higgins latest ''hunting trophy''.

A short interview (1:10 min) with Alex you can download from GaviteX HERE (PW: haiducii).

A few months ago, Martin was unemployed and looking for a job. Youth unemployment rate in Czech Republic averaged 14.63 percent from 1993 until 2014, reaching an all time high of 21.60 percent in October of 2004. Paging through the help-wanted section of a newspaper, he noticed an ad for modeling. He came to the casting call of H1ggins' studio. He was selected as "model material", and he was flattered. Mainly, though, he needed the money. His girlfriend also liked the idea of him earning extra cash in porn. Engaging in sex with men doesn't make her jealous because it is all about ''just sex, not attraction'', he explains. ''She would mind if I did it with women.''

Czechoslovakia decriminalized homosexuality in 1961 (before Germany or Great Britain legalized it), though Communist police still clamped down on gay activity. The few clubs and baths where gays gathered were under surveillance by the secret police. Classified advertisements to meet persons of the same sex were banned by the Communist Party. It was illegal to produce porn, hetero- or homosexual, in communist Czechoslovakia. When communism ended, it was only a matter of time before somebody filled the hunger for porn by using local talent. Mr. H1ggins, 72, fit that bill.

For anyone unfamiliar with WH some background information is needed: "dean of gay porn", an Oklahoma native who went to a Christian school, began directing male erotic films in Hollywood, California, in 1977. After a long career based in the Los Angeles area, early in 1988, when the AIDS epidemic struck and made the American gay porn business a depressing place to be, he moved his operations to Amsterdam. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall he made his first trip to Prague. When he first visited Prague, he was amazed by how easy it was to get men to have sex. In 1997, he took up directing again as a ''retirement hobby''. Since that time his ''hobby'' has grown into a large ''porn factory''.

Pavel Rada, Czech-Canadian founder of Czech3oys studio, a starting point for many famous names in porn including Denis Reed, George Basten and others, shares the same opinion as WH: '' You won’t find 100% straight boys anywhere in the world that will drop there pants as fast as a Czech3oys model when he knows there's a ''reward'' for his efforts!''

In the Czech Republic, some 15 gay studios operate (5taxus, 3adpuppy, BF, BA, WH, etc.). They release a new DVD almost every day. They also post hundreds of sex scenes online weekly. American porn players enjoy much cheaper production costs. The area became a bustling gay adult movie center in the 90's when a producer named George Duroy discovered that, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain, there were a lot of extremely attractive, economically disadvantaged young men who were willing to do almost anything for money.

In 1993, when the Czech Republic peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia in the so-called ''Velvet Divorce'', Duroy founded 3el 4mi, a gay pornographic film studio with offices in Bratislava, Prague and Budapest. Since then, the Czech Republic has gradually become one of the epicenters of world porn production. Both the Czech Republic and Hungary, a country where porno industry generated over 600 million Euros in 2008 (0.5% of GDP), became major sources of world porn production. Budapest kept most of the straight porn business, while Prague became known as the capital of gay porn.

Alan Capier (born as Marek Tomsu in 1983 in Bilovec, Czech Republic), an AV1 Films porn star and cameraman, who has also performed under the names Alan Clarke, Filip Nowotny, Felix Wallace, Felix Jakubec, Felix Lacroix, Marco Solero, Marko Solero, Marek, Bobby, Pavel Vlasek, Pat Matnevich, among others, has been in the business for almost ten years. He has been with more than 600 men and appeared in more than 100 hardcore films. As an openly gay man, Capier is a rarity on the Prague market and one of the few who can perform without erection-enhancing drugs.

As you noticed, Czech porn stars have more names than American models, it seems every company wants to rename the guys. These stage names are made to protect their privacy. Geoff Cooper, H1ggins' manager, sometimes pulls up an online list of the most popular names in Moldova and combines them either with descriptive Czech adjectives, such as "Chlupaty" (hairy) or "Dlouhy" (long), for last names or uses random, vaguely Czech-sounding names such as Justel.

In an exclusive interview with a porn star reviewer DeWayne from San Diego, published in 2008, Alan Capier candidly discusses his decison to work in the porn industry: ''I found the money offer as well as the possibility of becoming famous and having sex very tantalizing...'' In that interview, Alan also reveals his favourite movie from his porn career. It’s called Sperm in my hole. There's at least one reason to watch this scene HERE: The original high-protein diet!

The stage name Alan Capier was chosen by Vlado Iresch, a legendary Czech gay porn movie director. In 2007, Vlado Iresch, the director and the cameraman of AV1 Production, won the European Gay Porn Award for best director for the movie Hard Riders (2006). He directed more than 100 (exactly one hundred and thirty-one according to IMDb) movies in the past two decades. He has been shooting movies since 1995 (when he released a bi-sexual movie ''Pausen Stecher''), and in that time has produced several hundred films that have been sold right across the world. AV1 Fi1ms Prague and Vlado Iresch have been cooperating with 5taxus, €urocreme, 1karus, V1mpex, and Man's 3est for many years.

Vlado Iresch, one of my favourite twink movie directors of all times, knows how to direct a gay twink boy sex porn movie. The models are very good looking boys, who know how to perform, his locations are great and the close ups of the fucking and sucking action and many shots are terrific. If you don't believe me, just watch these two scenes of horny twinks on a winter vacation HERE.

In December 2014, Dream L0gistics, parent company of European gay porn producer 5taxus, announced that it has acquired the assets of Man's 3est. The company said the acquisition further strengthens its position in the European gay porn market.

Man's 3est was established in 1990 and has been operating as a producer and distributor of gay porn. They were specialized in twink movies that feature their exclusive models Jean Daniel Cadinot and Ikarus. Over the years, the company has produced 960 full-length movies and has employed various directors including Rolf Hammerschmidt, Vlado Iresch, Jamie Hendrix and Alex Schnegr.

5taxus intends to adopt the Man's 3est brand name and will continue to release new titles under this brand. Older movies will be digitally remastered, if necessary. The plan is to preserve and protect Man's 3est legacy as well as to further establish the brand.

Have weekend plans? Pack your bags and book your flight, Prague calling! Have fun and please be safe!

 

[gorgik9]

You know I'm just off to do...oh yes!...some shopping...but when I'm back home again in about an hour, I'm in for a juicy treat!!!

 

[gorgik9]

Eulogy on Chip Delany!

For iltman & mikk33 especially!

Here's a link to a short biography written by the man himself; the writer "K. Leslie Steiner" is just one of Delany's pseudonyms: Anon URL

The first pic is Chip as a very handsome young man of 18, and since he's born in Harlem on April Fools's Day 1942, this means that the photo is from 1960.

The next pic is probably from 10-15 years later...

But cutest and sexiest is Chip today!

This is Chip and his partner/lover/friend Dennis Rickett on the cover of the second edition of Bread and Wine, published in 2014; written by Delany and with arts by Mia Wolf.

Fred Barney Taylor's 2007 Delany-doentary :

 

[dargelos]

Here is a short introduction.

 

[gorgik9]

Here is a short introduction.

Thanks dargelos! I didn't remember there's this nice trailer to Fred Barney Taylor's docu. It's a pity that as far as I know the only way to get hold of the docu is to email Taylor's company Maestromedia and buy a copy from them. I think it cost me about $ 40 when I bought it some 5 years ago (this price included air mail from N.Y. to Sweden).

Here's a link to Maestromedia:
Anon URL

 

[gorgik9]

Some comments on haiducii's great Praha-post, and mostly on W1ll14m H1gg1ns early career!

First a few words on the two Vlado Iresch-clips - I came immediately to start thinking about one of the C4din0t-classics from the mid-80s, Classe de Neige (1985). But to be frank, I think C4din0t is better; of course this is a matter of taste...

On to mr H1ggins, who became one of the two dominating american gay porn directors from the late 70s on. The other was of course Chuck H0lmes with F4lcon Stud1os and what I find interesting is, that it was a particular movie, The Other Side of Aspen (1978), that paved the way for F4lcon as a dominant studio making porn features, and not 8mm shorts any longer, though Holmes made 8mm compilations and transferred them to video in the hugely popular series F4lc0n Video Pac.

The Other side of Aspen is one of the most economically successful gay porn vids ever, and I guess that big part of the success-formula has got to do with, that Holmes hired Casey Donovan, the very first real gay porn star, to appear in the F4lc0n movie, together with this new coming star, whose real name was Andrew "Drew" Okun, but known to all and sundry as - AL PARKER!

H1gg1ns started his own two companies - the production company L4guna Pac1fic and the distribution company C4talina - in the later part of the 70s, and just as with H0lmes it was one specific movie that made H1gg1n's luck, The Boys of Venice.

It was an episode film and didn't really have a lead, but the central figure in one of the episodes became one of the most popular actors in the L4guna P4cific-movies, KIP NOLL :

Other actors very popular with H1gg1ns in the late 70s / early 80s were

Jon King

J.W. King

John Davenport

But I'll have to end with the cutest of all cutipies in my book, Johan Paulik! I know, i know not a Czech from Praha but a Slovak from Bratislava, but hey, he was the supercutest in the B3lAm1 crowd.

First a pic of a very young Johan from - I think - the first B3lAm1-movie he made in 1995, and then a series of pics from Howard Roffman's photo book Johan Paulik published in 2001.

 

[haiducii]

First a few words on the two Vlado Iresch-clips - I came immediately to start thinking about one of the C4din0t-classics from the mid-80s, Classe de Neige (1985). But to be frank, I think C4din0t is better; of course this is a matter of taste...

Your comparison of Classe de Neige and Snow Adventures is perfect! :thumbs up:

Watch the hottest C4dinot's Ski Fever movie scene HERE.

Oh, yeah, French teens really enjoy skiing

 

[gorgik9]

Porn, cinema and other theaters...Sort of...

What is a movie without its audience, without its reception?

NOTHING!!! NADA!!!

So this post will be about that very special environment of film reception which was porn theaters and other theaters in 1970s and 80s New York. One of our first and biggest problems coming to terms with porn theaters as a receptive environment are the many, many misguided images and stories about what a porn cinema and its oh-so-sleazy audience "naturally must be" in so many "serious" non-porn movies and novels, more often than not made or written by oh-so-hetero-oh-so-upper middle class men.

Let's get in the mood for misunderstandings with a YouTube-clip from Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 movie Boogie Nights :



There's a scene in the first half of the movie - I'm sorry I don't have a clip of exactly this scene - where porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) talks about the kind of porn movie he want to make (and engage young Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) to become an actor in). Horner says, that it's a movie so well made, true to life and romantic, that when the audience have squirted their love juices, they can't get up from their seats and walk away because they'll have to sit in their own sperm puddle to find out how the story end. It'll be that kind of great storytelling.

What director Paul Thomas Andersson does is to - trough the medium of Horner/Reynolds - project an image of the 70s porn theater, which tells us a) that the audience is male; b) the audience is homogenously heterosexual; c) the audience might sometimes wank their own sorry puddin's, but otherwise than that, they're only watching the movie. They're not watching their neighbours wanking their puddin's while wanking their own, or sucking their neighbours fat schlong in the seats, or getting their own boner sucked and licked.

As so, so many other writers and moviemaker, Paul Thomas Anderson is just to naïve and heteronormative to understand what went on in the 70s and 80s porn theaters. And the objection that Anderson was thinking only of straight porn movies playing only in straight theaters doesn't really work at all. As Sam Delany, Alan Hollinghurst and our own follower dargelos can tell us, there was probably more man-on-man cocksucking going on in the straight theaters than in the gay theaters. (Now this is a possible spin off to a whole new thread, which maybe could be baptized: "I don't believe in the Hetero/Homo-dichotomy".)

But let matters take quite another twist! What if the entertainment that goes on in the porn theaters isn't cinema at all??? Now I've got haiducii to vouch for, that I haven't gone totally crazy, well at least not crazier than my ordinary nutty Swedish self...

I mean everybody knows, that cinema was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1890 (the Kinetograph) and by brothers Lumière in 1895 (the Cinématograph) and the main difference between those two inventions for making moving images was, that the Cinématograph could project the moving images onto a screen, which Edison's Kinetograph didn't.

But that's just it : Cinema isn't a technical invention. It's a cultural category, a cultural institution!

Here I'm following canadian film scholar André Gaudreault's radicalization of the concept Cinema of Attractions that he and Tom Gunning coined in 1986-87. Gaudreault's problem with the original concept is, that it's still talking about a kind of cinema, which in Gaudreault's point of view didn't occur until the 1910s. So "in the beginning" wasn't an earlier kind of cinema. It was something OTHER than cinema, but pray what?

To our needs it's more important to get some understanding what cinema as a cultural institution could be. What should we mean by the concept "institution"? (Now we're really getting into the University seminar, among sociologists, historians and film scholars...) :

A cultural institution is a normative power subjecting individuals to certain practices, on pain of sanctions. An institution regulates and sanctions. It is a normalizing system which is structured in order to produce - in its area of influence - certain particulat forms of behaviours.

The institution "cinema" appeared only after rules, which are the corollary of production codes and norms, took on the force of law.

When the institution cinema is safely emerging - let's say 1907-1915 - we will also see all those things that we - the last 100 years - have taken for granted in connection with cinema: Film stars; trade journals & fan magazines; grandiose cinema theaters; specialized distributors working in between producers renting their movies -not selling them - to the owners of the theaters.

But men sucking the the cocks of other horny men in seats of the salons beneeth the screen? Hardly a behaviour that could be considered a regular part of the institution cinema...

It's rather the question of using film projectors and a silver screen in the context of a non-cinematic entertainment. Let's think about how Georges Méliès used the Cinématograph in his fairy theater and other kinds of stage entertainment...

OK enough with all this theory! Two new movies to download, Wakefield Poole's Bijou (1972) http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=497251

and Jack Deveau's Times Square Strip (1982) http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=497422

Poole's Bijou could also be looked upon as an introduction to my next post about the aesthetic broad variety in 70s american gay porn.

But the up coming post is haiducii's, and it's gonna be something really, really juicy : The greatest gay porn master of all times, J3an-Daniel C4din0t.

 

[haiducii]

C4dinot aka The master of erotic photography and film

Jean Daniel C4dinot (JDC), French photographer, writer, producer and director, was born on this day 71 years ago in Paris, at the foot of Montmartre hill in the Batignoles Quarter. JDC, son of a tailor, made a joke: ''My father dressed people, I undressed them later on.'' This isn't a fairy tail; C'est la Vie!

Artistically inclined, the teenaged JDC hoped to become a painter and in the face of parental opposition ran away from home at seventeen. He studied industrial drawing at the Ecole des Arts et Metiers in Paris, but his teachers told him that he had no talent. He dicovered the camera at nineteen thanks to a portrait photographer Richard 4vedon and began taking evening classes in photography, while supporting himself by working during the day as a messenger or a warehouse packer.

JDC started his professional career taking studio photographs of actors and actresses. He also took nude photographs of male friends on the side and by 1975-1976 he was selling his erotic pictures to homosexual magazines. In 1975 he had the opportunity to edit the first photo-books of male nudes in France. Under the generic title Masculin, he subsequently published 25 albums. With a run of 250,000 copies, the road was open for cinema. His erotic photographic art is simply world class. HERE is a little tour of what to expect in his male-nude photography book ''Premiere'', published in 2002.

In 1978, JDC established his own production company, French 4rt, and issued his first 16mm film "Tendres adolescents". He made more than 60 films (some of them ranks in the all-time top echelon of gay adult filmmaking), usually limiting himself to directing no more than four a year; some under the pseudonym Tony Dark. His films are intensely personal. ''I never try to know what the public will like or not, I don't do the market studies...I make the films that I want to see.'' Directing, he explains, is ''my personal therapy''. ''Through my films, I settle scores with my parents, with society, with the Church.'' He claims that his movies are all autobiographical in origin: ''My movies are my past private life...from the age of twelve when I became aware of my homosexuality, with all of the problems of religion and existentialism."

For example, JDC did not spend time in a reformatory, the setting of Les Minets Sauvages (Tough & Tender, 1984), yet the film nevertheless derives from his own experience: "It is a transposition of my vacations as an adolescent in religious camps," he explained. "The universe was, for me, similar (like a concentration camp, and the product of hierarchy among the teen-agers). The same with the time I spent in the Boy Scouts."

Tough & Tender (1984) is one of gay erotica's greatest directors proffers up one of the most sinister, brutal and hot-as-sin porns ever made. It's a must-own for any collector. A world-famous Swedish professional porn reviewer gorgik9 once said: ''In my opinion, this is the great dark masterpiece with a long, scary group rape scene! And C4dinot is without a doubt the Bergman of gay porn - so damn good at handling his actors...'' HERE is the movie, judge it for yourself!

The time JDC spent in the Boy Scouts is used to good effect in Le Jeu de piste: Scouts 2 (Hot on the Trail, 1984), a movie that is notable for its fetishization not only of youth and genitalia, but also of underwear, especially jockey style briefs.

JDC explained his embrace of filmmaking as an expression of gay activism: "The still photo became too limiting. I quickly reached its boundaries and I had a desire for action and movement," he remarks. "I wanted to go further, to tell our collective stories as gay men. Video enabled me to do just that. I have to say that when I'm shooting photos I prefer to work as an artist and make artistic photos because otherwise it's not long before it gets pornographic and I don't like that. In that sense there was a progressive evolution towards films in order for me to tell stories about men. In a way it was my first gay activism to illustrate our sexual stories."

JDC always claims: ''Pornography is life, it's sex, and life cannot be pornographic.'' While he disliked the term "pornography," because of its pejorative implications, he had no apologies for the depictions of sexual action that animate his films. This action is often raw and even brutal, but sometimes tender and sweet.

His movies always tell a story, usually featuring interesting and strong narratives. They also usually involve a journey, either literally, as in Harem (Sex Bazaar, 1982) and Chaleurs (Sex Oasis, 1987), which feature young Frenchmen in North Africa; or figuratively, as in Les Minets Sauvages (Tough and Tender, 1984), which chronicles the search for love in a boys' reformatory. In Stop surprise (Sex Drive, 1984), the journey is imaginary. There the protagonist is supposedly running away from home, but in the end it turns out to be a dream. Of course, all the journeys are picaresque; they, quite naturally, involve many adventures, especially of the sexual kind.

Another characteristic of his movies is that they feature young men (not professionals) in their late teens or early twenties. Regarding his young actors, JDC had this to say: "I can't film somebody who doesn't give me an erection, that's evident...To me they represent the freshness and innocence of youth. They are provocative: a 20-year-old is more subversive than a 30-year-old; there is not yet the weight of socialization and education on his shoulders; he is not yet molded into society. I like the freshness but also the intelligence of these guys. I do not choose Apollo-type men with big penises. I want men that could be your average next door neighbors, fresh, natural without any complexes regarding their sexuality or their sexual tastes."

In devising his sex scenes, JDC stated: "I write a scenario that fits the young guys. This is the essence of my films. The performers do not portray things that are imposed on them by me, but things they like to do themselves. These 'puppies' kiss each other with real passion, with real lust. It is emotions that make my particular style. I tell a story. I don't do things that are 'robotical' like we often tend to see in the porn industry, my scenarios are based on the actors' tastes."

In 1992 he bought and restored a farm, which he subsequently utilized as his studio. "It is very satisfying to have this studio now," he commented, "to live with the actors for many days, to discuss with them and understand their personalities, which helps me to develop scenes. Here, there is space for more than a dozen people and each youth can do whatever pleases him, whether it is staying with the group and having fun or having some privacy."

His movies earned an international audience and numerous accolades. In 1997 JDC was honored with a Venus Award as Best Director at the International Erotic Film Awards in Berlin, the first time the organization recognized gay erotic films. In 2002, he won an AVN award, the adult Oscars in Los Angeles, for his entire body of work, and another Venus for C'est La Vie (2001).

JDC had no complexes or reservations about either his homoseuallity or his career as a photographer and director. He was pleased that his mother Jeanne played bit parts in two movies from 1987: ''Escalier de service'' and '' Deuxieme Sous-sol'' aka Street Smart. I wonder if she ever saw the finished product? He passed away on April 23, 2008 of an apparent heart attack.

The final entry on his blog, written on the day of his death, is as follows:
My final bow,
mercredi 23 avril 2008
Dear friends, critics and others,
If you're reading these words I will have put down my camera, switched off the lights, drawn the curtains and taken my final bow. May all the efforts and work of a whole life, the quest for the moment of pure truth in the sublime communion of two beings under the spell of the undefinable desire for the other, inspire those who inherit my heart.

After his death, the company French 4rt was being headed by Francois Orenn, a classically trained pianist who started working for JDC as a score composer and who managed the company from 2002. Two unfinished films by JDC, Subversion and Le Culte d'Eros, have since been released by him. Orenn has also begun directing films of his own in the typical Cadinot style (Anges et Demons and L'Avarice) and with C4dinot's technical crew.

In 2013, 5tudioPresse and P1nk TV jointly acquired the C4dinot trademark and exclusive distribution rights on all C4dinot movies, including previously unreleased material. The website "C4dinot.fr" is owned by 5tudioPresse, which is known to own other gay labels such 5ketboy (foot fetish and sneakers), C1tebeur (French bad boys and Arab men), BoL4tino (Brazilian and Latino guys) etc.

From a reform school to a boy scout trail, from a desert oasis to an emergency room, JDC helped to create a world where international, interracial, often BDSM sex became something special yet, at the same time, something routine and believable, and often expected and desirable. For many gay men, he made the VCR a window into a world of wonder like no other.