The History of Gay Sex - The Origins of Gay Porn, Obscenity and the Supreme Court

The Origins of Gay Porn, Obscenity and the Supreme Court

03/20/21 • 45 min

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As the first episode in a series, we discuss the origins of gay porn beginning after world war II. Exploring the world of Bob Mizer, we cover the grandfather of beefcake magazines and photography that flourished in the 1950s and laid the foundation for gay porn. However, there were double standards between material for gay and straight audiences that questioned the legality of these magazines leading to a court case that goes all the way to the Supreme Court.

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Ancient Greek Homosexuality and Pederasty

Journey back over 2,500 years to examine one of our earliest examples of homosexuality in history. In ancient times the Greeks created an institutionalized form of homosexuality called pederasty that was a rite of passage for adolescent males. This institution involved socially created sexual practices unlike anything we can imagine today.

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Gay Porn Goes Hardcore

As softcore porn begins to take off in the late 1960s, we focus on the story of the gay movie in southern California in the then infamous Park Theatre. As theatre goers are given more sexually explicit content they keep demanding more and more and eventually sex on the screen is no longer simulated aka it goes hardcore. But the government still finds such material to be obscene until the landmark Supreme Court decision Miller V California in 1973 which fully opens the door to sex on the silver screen across America.