22.16 Are there books on the history of gay porn?
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This article is from the Sex Movies FAQ, by director@gti.net (The Director) with numerous contributions by others.
22.16 Are there books on the history of gay porn?
Tim Evanson passes along this book and review that you
may want to check out:
John R. Burger, ONE-HANDED HISTORIES: THE EROTO-POLITICS
OF GAY MALE VIDEO PORNOGRAPHY, Harrington Park Press,
1995.
LCCN: HQ76.B86 1994 ISBN: 1560238526
Tim says: I bought the book. It's not really so much a
book on how to make porn as it is a short history of gay
porn in the 1950s and 1960s, and some of the politics
revealed by gay porn. The books 7 chapters (covering
only 106 pages, however) cover the sociological theory of
"popular memory", the history of gay porn from the 1950s
and still photography to "art" gay porn of the late 1960s
and the rise of the "studio" porn of the late 1970s. It
then describes two big problems in gay porn -- racism and
ageism -- and one improvement -- sadomasochism. It also
covers the issues of prostitution, gay porn "tricks of
the trade", and AIDS. An obvious and possibly belabored
thread about how gay politics suffuses gay porn
culminates in a final chapter on activists in porn, the
"queer" identity of porn stars, and coming out themes in
gay porn.
IMHO, the book's political points are highly belabored.
The author makes a great deal out of gay porn, turning it
into "serious" statements when you or I might say, "It's
just PORN, stupid!" The author also draws conclusions
from isolated examples in gay porn, often using the same
films over and over to prove his point.
Overall, for someone looking for a good history of porn's
rise from the early 1950s to about 1975, this is the book
to consult. It has a GREAT bibliography, although most
of the materials really can't be found by the average
scholar with even a good college library (two oft-used
sources are "The Guide" and "Manshots," neither of which
are archived ANYWHERE but the Library of Congress, to my
knowledge). The author also takes as gospel many of the
statements contained in gay porn magazines and by porn
stars, when it is often clear that such statements are
NOT accurate. But then, the author isn't interested in
accuracy per se, but rather "what the public BELIEVES is
true" (which is the definition of the "popular memory"
sociological theory he uses).
But for my $11.95, it was a good buy.
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