Cleaning up gay porn
CommentsAs part of my ongoing attempt here at GaysDefendMarriage.com to propose ways the LGBT community can move away from harmful, selfish actions like demanding a redefinition of marriage, and toward a more moral, other-oriented vision of gay and lesbian life, I am devoting this blog post to the subject of cleaning up gay pornography.
I was terribly shocked and offended last week when I discovered the many pornographic titles sold to gay men that eroticize prison rape. As far as I can tell, those films have never received any protest from any other gay person or group, even though prison rape is a scandal plaguing our community, which is disproportionately affected by it. Similarly, my Web searches found five categories of gay male pornographic films that are highly problematic.
I am certainly not proposing censorship. But a more moral gay and lesbian community would demand that video companies that serve gay men stop producing such trash, that video stores stop carrying it, and that gay publications stop reviewing it.
This is a serious matter. It’s a basic psychological principle that when a person gets a strong reward, he is more inclined to favor the activity he was involved in at the time. Users of pornography with disturbing content receive very strong rewards, and LGBT people should fight against pornography that tends to reinforce questionable sexual attractions.
1. Anything with the word “boy”
I am fully aware that the actors in the films that use the word “boy” are over the age of 18. But people who watch Daddy’s Boys, Rudeboiz 8, Sauna Boys 3, Seattle Boyz House Party, and Boys Spanking Boys (among many others) run the risk at least subliminally of acting out pedophiliac fantasies. Given the terrible harm that has been done to real boys who have been molested by adult men - not all of whom are gay - I don’t think it’s too much to ask for the adult video companies to replace “boy” with “young adult” or “young man.” Feminist women have been very effective in getting society to call female college students women instead of girls or coeds, so way don’t LGBT people do the same with “boy”?
2. Nonconsensual sex
I found many videos that eroticize forcing straight men to have sex against their will. Some of the videos, like the “Bait Bus” series, ask a straight guy to sit blindfolded while a woman services him - only to find out later it’s really a gay guy. I have no idea if the “straight” guys are really straight, nor if they’re really surprised. The point is, tricking someone into same-sex relations against their will is only erotic to a seriously disturbed person, and I see no reason the LGBT community should cater to such sick fantasies. In addition, there’s a series of “Broke Straight Boys” videos - and again I don’t know if it’s acting or real and I don’t care - in which supposedly heterosexual young men are described as “doing it all for money so they can pay their rent.” If the stars of the movie - either their characters or in real life - literally cannot pay their rent unless they agree to engage in gay sex, that’s hardly consent. It is not sexy, and should not be tolerated by a moral LGBT community.
3. Incest
I know some LGBT people - including at this site - have suggested there’s nothing wrong with brother-brother incest unless you take the Bible into consideration. Even so, the vast majority of Americans oppose first-degree incest of all types - that’s why it’s called a taboo. I found at least 20 videos that eroticize incest, including Brother to Brother, Brother Load, and Twins 3.0. Some of these titles appear to use actors who only look like brothers. Others, especially those featuring twins, certainly use real brothers, some of whom don’t have sex with each other but some of whom do. Is the LGBT community really proud that some gay businesses are paying brothers to engage in incest with each other? I think we can do better.
4. Unsafe
Almost by definition, porn stars have multiple partners. So why do we tolerate the dozens of titles that brag that the sex is “bareback” (without condoms)? We should be concerned about the safety of the actors, but also about eroticizing a mode of sex that could get the viewers killed. Why is a bareback film more acceptable than a film of people playing Russian Roulette? Because that’s essentially what bareback films are. I’m not going to define “watersports” and “fisting” (google them if you have a strong stomach), but such activities are unhygienic at best, dangerous at worst. Why, exactly, do we tolerate them in gay-produced movies?
5. Offensive
Shockingly, gays have found a way to eroticize even the most sensitive of subjects. I find several videos including Black and Bound that eroticize the enslavement of African-Americans. Curious, I searched a few other touchy subjects and wouldn’t you know it - there’s gay Holocaust porn, too. Prominent gay director William Higgins made a film with the innocuous title Carlo and Friends with a sadomasochistic Nazi scene, albeit with a lengthy disclaimer that the film might be “very disturbing” to some viewers. You think? Finally, one would think that gay pornographers would stay away from eroticizing the sex scandals in the Catholic Church, given how many boys had their lives ruined when priests forced them to have gay sex. But no - there’s Our Trespasses, which somehow tries to make the Catholic Church controversies sexy. Is there anything some gay men won’t find erotic with a little music and a little lighting?
Sorry - I’m not the least bit interested in helping scolds clean up people’s fantasies.
Brother Load? Man you had to search for that one, right. A quick Internet check tells me that it came out in 1983. Were you even of legal age then? So, I’m supposed to be all offended that there’s a twenty-five year old porn movies with a title that suggests incest? For that matter, “Our Trespasses” came out in 1996, well before the Catholic priest abuse scandal. Give me a moment to work up my outrage.
And William Higgins? Did you do your research from a personal collection of 80s and 90s gay porn? If you’ve got the stuff hidden in the back of your closet, you can fess up. We won’t think any worse of you than we already do.
And on the straight side, there’s the infamous “Hannah Does Her Sisters.” Oh, for shame on those straight people. They must now all denounce this film that most of them have never seen or heard of. (I’m aware it’s lesbian porn, but was marketed for those apparently evil straight men who get off on women pretending to be sisters as they have lesbian sex).
A million years ago (back when “Brother Load” was still fairly current), I worked in a video store (we had videotapes), so I’m well aware what the state of porn was in the early 80s.
There were lots of movies, both gay and straight, dealing with themes that were too extreme for me. I’m aware that in the decades since, the adult film industry has continued to make such films.
I know that there’s a lot of porn out there that I wouldn’t find the least bit arousing. I also know that much porn is made under exploitive conditions (by actors who are sometimes repeating participants in their own exploitation). And?
I’m not enough of a scold to say, “oh, you’re evil and disgusting for watching porn,” even if there are movies out there that include activities that would work against arousal for me (including, of course, all heterosexual porn).
But admit it: you’ve made it quite clear in other posts and other places, that you’re opposed to gay sex, not just gay porn that contravenes some tidy and polite impulse.
Your opposition to same-sex marriages likewise originates in your understanding of the objection in the Torah to gay sex (in that oh, so, tortured phrase).
Mark B-
I’m not surprised. Given that you don’t appear to believe there’s any legitimate source of morality outside of your own sense of reason, how could you find something “wrong” about the promotion of pornographic films that eroticize African-American slavery?
John D-
Yes, some of the titles I selected are old, but they’re still being promoted to gay men. If, for example, LGBT people had any sense of shame about a film that eroticizes sex in the Catholic Church, that title would not still be for sale.
I am opposed to gay sex, but I rarely try to convince people not to have gay sex. As a member of the LGBT community who finds a lot of disturbing and immoral behavior in those who share my identity, I prefer to focus on those things I might actually convince people to stop doing (like joking about prison rape) rather than those I will be ignored about (like having gay sex).
And no, my opposition to same-sex marriage has zero to do with the Torah’s prohibition of gay sex. I have both religious and secular objections to redefining marriage, but the verse in Leviticus about “as you would a woman” is not related to any of the objections.
David: ‘I’m not surprised. Given that you don’t appear to believe there’s any legitimate source of morality outside of your own sense of reason, how could you find something “wrong” about the promotion of pornographic films that eroticize African-American slavery?’
Que? You claim to see no problem with guys thinking that other guys are hot, despite the fact that a death penalty supposedly mandated by God while not actually intended to be implemented is an indication as to how evil gay sex is. So what’s the problem with guys thinking that black slaves are hot? Of course it would be the height of bad manners to invite ones black friends around to watch slave porn, but I don’t see that you have any grounds to complain unless you’re about to start crusading for the elimination of all gay porn. Which of course is exactly where I expect this is going.
I’ve heard of Broke Straight Boys. There was some other stuff in your post I really didn’t want to know about. Thanks!
I consume far more erotic fiction than actual graphic pornography. There’s a lot of it available free, and some is of pretty good quality (and a lot isn’t, of course). An annoying habit of some writers is to get a good “normal” gay story going and then to suddenly introduce incest, bisexuality, sadomasochism, humiliation, non-consensual sex or other things I’m not interested in. (In literary fiction, that’s fine, but in erotic fiction most people tend to read within a fairly well defined area.)
TRiG.
Thank You, you’re the only gay person I know to be against porn.
but still, I think that there sould be gay marrage now!