Thinking Critically about Gay Porn

What fascinates me about the realm of the gay porn in particular (and any porn in general) is the extent to which the cultural, administrative and executive centres of power in our modern society are so virulently opposed to, afraid of, or disgusted by it. Because when you stop for a moment and think critically about what you're actually seeing, you realize that it's just people having sex, which shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Of course, the topic very quickly becomes far more complicated when onto the "pure" depictions of sex we pile on any number of other considerations: financial, emotional, and sexual exploitation; issues of consent; degrees of obscenity; portrayals of violence; control over the final product; and on and on it goes. Obviously, this is an area fraught with peril, and one who ventures here ought to use caution. Thankfully, there are several explorers who've come before us and have taken the time to present their findings -- some more objectively than others.

BOOKS
In his book, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall, Thomas Waugh, an internationally acclaimed scholar of queer images -- both moving and static -- presents a witty, well-researched, and evocative account of how pre-Stonewall gay men around the world attempted to foster a sense of community, belonging, and meaning through the distribution and enjoyment of images that affirmed their sexual proclivities.

The study was further refined with the publication of Out/Lines: Gay Underground Erotic Graphics From Before Stonewall, and, two years later, Lust Unearthed: Vintage Gay Graphics From the DuBek Collection, both of which present vast new treasure troves of pictures -- many of which are never-before published.

What makes Waugh's studies so gratifying to read (and gaze upon) is the pervasive sense that you're being taken lovingly by the hand of someone who is much more than a mere aficionado. His liberal-minded and conscientious sexual politics are girded by a rigorous, academy-honed intelligence that stands as a blinding beacon of celebratory light against the apocalyptic and apoplectic rant of dogmatic conservatives.

Which brings us to Christopher Kendall. To be fair, Kendall is hardly a ranting, frothy-mouthed right-winger, and his book, Gay Male Pornography: An Issue Of Sex Discrimination, is a very well-mannered study which attempts to argue that gay male pornography is ultimately harmful -- not only to the gay community, but to larger society in general -- because of the way in which it upholds the gender-based power differential between actors who are dominant and those that are submissive (i.e. the penetrator vs. the penetrated).

Although his arguments can at first appear to be quite persuasive, they're not always particularly sensitive to the nuances that exist either in the erotic material itself, or in the minds of those who consume it. And my blood curdles at the prospect of his proposal, which is to considerably increase the amount of government regulation over the production and distribution of erotic material. Leaving aside the disturbing fact that Kendall never actually provides a clear set of criteria for how such government censors ought to judge what's allowed and what's not, I shudder to think about all those nameless, faceless, and unaccountable civil servants -- most likely from the culturally dominant, heterosexual demographic -- who will ultimately be the gatekeepers of what I'm permitted to see and think about.

Todd G. Morrison's Eclectic Views on Gay Male Pornography: Pornucopia is a fantastic addition to the literature, for it's the first to assemble in one volume a myriad of scholars from all points on the debate's compass. Taken together, their arguments help to "flesh out" the various questions that surround the production and consumption of gay porn. Here's an excerpt of some of those questions from the opening chapter of the book itself: "What is the relationship between exposure to gay male pornography and self-assessments of attractiveness? What are viewers' perceptions of this medium in terms of the messages it disseminates about gay male sexuality, masculinity, femininity, the ageing process, and safer sex? Does gay male pornography serve any important educative functions? And how important is this medium to gay male culture?" Lots to chew on here, and it's tasty as well as nourishing.

INTERNET ARTICLES
Don Shewey - What I Like and Don't Like About Gay Male Porn

MOVIES
Shooting Porn (comment coming soon...)

Thinking Critically about the Male Sex Trade

FLESHING IT OUT
My exploration of the gay male sex trade was inspired by the desire to create a theatrical play that dealt with (among other things) the quest for queer beauty in a world of queer cliché. It goes without saying that both the porn industry and the sex-trade industry are not only inter-related, but riddled with clichés. My objective, therefore, was to expose these clichés as completely flaccid, lampoon them as a source of eroticism, and then spend some time with characters who could take me (and my audience) beyond the surface-level stereotypes of pornographers and their models; hustlers and their "agents". The result of my efforts was Sir Richard Wadd, Pornographer.

SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES
One of the first non-fiction books I read on the subject was Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture, a dazzling and thoroughly researched work by Mack Friedman. Given that Friedman is a former hustler himself, his text commands a considerable authority. In fact, there's a particular passage in the book that became the genesis for the character of Kevin -- a tragic discussion about how underage kids are falling through the cracks of a sex trade that is suddenly online (and, by extension, theoretically legal and safe).

Michel Dorais has produced Canada's version of the study with Rent Boys: The World Of Male Sex Trade Workers, and it has a certain cachet in that it operates within a fairly narrow and rigorously defined academic framework.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SUPPLY CURVE
John Rechy's City of Night is a classic, a claim that few will dispute. Although I found myself a tad distracted by his prose style, I nevertheless enjoyed the slow and steady progression of the narrator toward a certain degree of insight, given that Rechy's closet is a remarably paradoxical place.

David Henry Sterry's Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent is the 1970's version of Rechy's work, but the heterosexual protagonist never quite seems to crack the surface of his clients or tell a particularly rivetting tale.

Moving into the 80's & 90's, I admit to feeling particularly underwhelmed by Rick Whitaker's Assuming the Position: A Memoir of Hustling, as I found his detatched, pseudo-philosophical reflections on hustling to be borderline insulting. It's not that I wanted to read something lurid -- it's that I wanted to read something compelling. So I gleaned little from his work, and ultimately found it to be quite forgettable.

Suburban Hustler: Stories of a Hi-Tech Callboy is a collection of short stories that are notable because of their embrace of the Internet as the new playing field of the sex-trade.

So after all that autobiographical reading, it was actually Friedman's straightforward historical study that actually provided me with the clearest foundation upon which to build my fiction and my characters for Sir Richard Wadd.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DEMAND CURVE
Approaching the subject from the perspective of the consumer, I was slightly foolish in that I judged a book by its cover and ended up buying the very badly written Hustlers, Escorts, and Porn Stars : The Insider's Guide to Male Prostitution in America. I can't strees enough how facile and useless the writing is here. It professes to be a book that will help men navigate the world of male commerce, but it's really just a collection of obvious facts that most dimwits could figure out on their own.

A far more competent author is Joseph Itiel, and he's put out into the world some very thoughtful and insightful reflections on what it means to purchase sex from other men. Notable titles include A Consumer's Guide to Male Hustlers and Sex Workers As Virtual Boyfriends.

FILMS
I didn't do much research in front of the screen, but one particularly dark and brutal film which stands out is Mandragora, by Wiktor Grodecki. It's a remarkable, no-holds-barred portrayal of Prague's drug-addled, AIDS-infected, male prostitution/pornography underworld. The same filmmaker has made a documentary version of the story called Body Without Soul, and it seems to have been a follow-up to the fictionalized tale.

Also worth noting is a small, low-budget, but exceedingly noble Canadian film entitled Sugar. There's also its considerably less accomplished, slighly richer cousin, Twist.

And no list of this nature would be complete without Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, which I admire for its parallels with Sir Richard Wadd, as embodied by the character of Bob Pigeon (aka Shakespeare's Falstaff).

Other Seekers

I'm always fascinated by the way in which other artists apply their craft in the investigation of themes that are similar to those being explored here. (If you know of any others, please contact me.)

James Bidgood, by Bruce Benderson (comment coming soon...)

Pink Narcissus (comment coming soon...)

MIKEL
Photographer "Mikel" produces luscious images that tantalize the senses. And while his models are often naked, to call them "nudes" in the classical sense seems somewhat inappropriate, since Mikel very deliberately crafts his images to be borderline pornographic. In his own words:

"...My work is very sexually confronting because it almost casualizes nudity with an exhibitionist's comfort. The segregating line between art and pornography [especially with the male body] has been in near perpetual dispute; my critical community sometimes can't decipher what I'm going for, and I fucking love that. That fine line (art vs. porno) excites me, and challenges me to cross censor boundaries while still producing work that is artistically pleasing."

Visit his site at www.ToxicBoy.net.

WILLIAM E. JONES
In The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography, William E. Jones seems to have used a similar approach to porn that I used in my own short film, Paradise Attempted (See Blog - Consideration #2). By focusing on the faces of the models (as opposed to their bodies) he is attempting to humanize the young men by paradoxically showcasing them in the process of literally being objectified at the hands of a faceless pornographer.

Here's an excerpt from the review of Fred Camper, writing in the Chicago Reader when the video was presented at the Chicago Underground Film Festival in 2000:

The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography, a 20-minute tape by William E. Jones, is a fascinating critique of Eastern Europe in the ’90’s that combines deeply disturbing imagery with genuine insight. Jones compiles excerpts from gay porn but shows no genitalia and focuses instead on faces smiling or frowning for the camera. The tape ends with a long series of screen tests in which a British pornographer quizzes prospective actors ("What do you think about when you masturbate?") and gratuitously fondles them; they’re completely exposed while only his hands are visible, a clear articulation of the power relationship. Jones’s argument reaches past the commodification of sex: smiles and even thoughts are pinned down for the camera like butterflies, youths robbed of their privacy and their souls for "the money."

MICHAEL KIRWAN
Comment coming soon...