Demystifying Gay Porn

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Before the OnlyFans, streaming and internet — the gay adult entertainment industry of the 1980's became a cultural force that changed gay history forever.

In this Season 5 prologue of DGP, we explore how VHS technology, the AIDS crisis, and a new generation of filmmakers and stars transformed gay adult cinema from underground entertainment into a powerful form of visibility, identity, and survival.

This is the first part of the story of the 1980s gay porn revolution — the people, the films, and the moment that reshaped the industry.
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In the 1970s, gay erotica was just coming in to its own and it was revolutionary. Bold, new ideas from filmmakers and underground studios transformed the landscape of sexuality, freedom, and representation. 
From the rise of artistic adult cinema to the creation of openly gay narratives, discover how these trailblazers helped shift culture, challenge censorship, and change the way the world saw love and identity.
*Video Podcast of this episode premieres on Thursday October 16th at 7:00pm on Youtube.
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The early days of making porn films were a grey zone which was very vast and unexplored. You could tell a story while making a hardcore film. In 1974 legendary filmmaker Toby Ross made his first film. Chances are… you’ve never heard of him. But he was filming gay stories when Hollywood didn’t even acknowledge we existed.
Ross was known for playful, sexy films—but there is one film in his collection that is something else entirely. Part art film, part psychodrama, part vintage porno. 
Big Bill Eld, was only in a handful of titles during the golden age of gay erotica but his unforgettable image and legacy has endured the test of time. 
On this episode we are going to celebrate the strange, bold, kinda beautiful world of Toby Ross, a prolific visual storyteller who was one of the first of his kind on the west coast making thought provoking and innovative gay porn films with full-on plots, characters, even comedy.
We will explore one of the most slept-on films in gay erotic film history Do Me Evil. This isn't your typical vintage gay adult film. It’s a fever dream, a noir, a psycho-sexual puzzle, and yes — it still has plenty of skin. 
And we are going to celebrate Bill Eld, a star whose career began as big as his well..and faded into obscurity just quick. 
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Arthur J Bressan Jr. was of the few iconic filmmakers in the history of gay erotic cinema that saw the importance of weaving and capturing  our history while at the same time making it okay to watch educational stuff with your porn. 
Arthur J. Bressan's gay erotic feature film, Passing Strangers, was a departure from the gay erotic film genre and is one of the first notable examples of his unique tendency to integrate erotic sequences into conventional queer narratives.
The  fresh-faced gay adult film star Johnny Dawes became an accidental porn star and managed to work for many of the biggest studios of the golden age.  

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Chuck Holmes was a gay adult film pioneer and gay rights activist who founded Falcon Studios in the early 1970s and reshaped the golden age of gay porn into the industry it is today. 

 Widely acknowledged as the best erotica gay video for all time, The Other Side of Aspen, Falcon’s 1978 hit became an instance classic, spawned several sequels and remains a best seller.

If there was ever a superstar that is well-known, much loved and remembered today from the golden gay of gay erotica…that superstar is Al Parker.  The epitome of the everyday man, who can fit in to any scenario, Al Parker became an instant eye-catching success after posing for the very magazine company that years earlier had begun his own sexual awakening. 
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