Seed Money

YouTube, like that stalking ex-boyfriend who suddenly ambushes you when you're out buying groceries at Trader Joe's is sometimes almost welcome with its intruding algorithm. It was YouTube that decided to offer me this documentary (full-on!) and I am actually quite grateful it did. Vintage porn rules.

I am familiar with Falcon Studios, of course. It's one of those studios who provided me with more than one long, leisurely, pleasurable time with myself way back when I was starting to explore my body and all its possibilities. What I did not know was how it was created. Isn't it funny that we always kind of enjoy the product of erotica but seldom wonder where that product comes from? In this documentary we get a glimpse of how it used to be before and after the advent of Falcon Studios, one of the oldest and most famous of all the gay porn studios. Today many gay porn studios are owned by corporations (and it shows) and lack that je ne sais quoi that big gay porn studios used to have, but back in the day, they were the product of the sweat, cum and tears of many a gay man with a vision.

I still remember the first porn I ever saw. It was at school. I went to an all-boys catholic school and you know that in that environment, older boys are always sneaking off to distant corners to look at things that make them curious. They showed me the porn waiting for my reaction. It was straight porn, mind you, but it did make me curious about the whole thing. From that day on, I was hellbent on finding gay porn (and I did find it, natch) both written erotica and hard-core porn. I still enjoy it, to this day. Even though I do not enjoy studio porn as much as I used to (I've become slightly more cynical and more discerning with age, alas) I still sneak a peek here and there on the output of the big studios. 

But I love 'vintage' porn (I use quotations because for some porn made in the eighties and nineties is literally 'vintage' but for others it goes back even more) and I loved it when Upton did that series on vintage porn stars. I was FASCINATED. I have never found a stack of porn magazines in an attic or in the woods, but I have haunted more than one thrift store looking for some of those magazines that promised so many gay men in the sixties, seventies and eighties hours of pleasurable one-handed 'reading'. Vintage porn gives us a view of what gay erotica was in the time when gay sax was still in the DSM: Falcon Studios was founded by Chuck Holmes in 1971 and it's still putting out quality porn. It was not an easy journey and Chuck is no longer with us. He passed away in 2000, but his legacy lives on in the HIV/AIDS programs he founded, as well as many charitable foundations. The San Francisco LGBTQ Community Center is named in his honor.

Not bad for a gay man who did not want to see men having sex with dirty feet on the screen.

XOXO

P.S. Do you remember your first porno?