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WHY VINTAGE GAY PORN?
I love visiting thrift stores and garage sales, and when you live in a predominantly gay neighborhood, you'll eventually find someone's gay porn collection for sale on the sidewalk. I am also a big supporter of recycling, because men are fickle, especially with porn. It doesn't take long for your favorite stroke magazine to end up on the bottom of the pile and eventually out in the garage sale or dumped in the trash. At the same time, any magazine you've grown tired of could easily be the hottest thing ever seen by someone else. I feel it's my duty to rescue forgotten old gay erotica magazines and movies for the next generation to enjoy.
During one of my many thrift store adventures, I recall buying a small stack of old physique magazines from the 1950's. At the time, I wasn't specifically looking for porn, but I figured that anything 50 years old and in good shape would have some value as a "collectable", and porn has the added appeal of being something you can jack off with.
When I built my first website back in 1995, I didn't know what to kind of content to include on it. Out of necessity I decided to scan a couple old physique magazines and put it on my site simply because they were kitchy and funny.
I've been working full time in the adult entertainment industry since 1996, so porn is on my mind all day. After a lifetime of junk collecting, I've had to scale back on buying big items. (Maintaining a collection of vintage console televisions and record players was quickly getting out of hand. I'm glad I got out of that phase!) I decided to focus my thrift store skills to searching for vintage gay porn magazines from the 1950's through the 1970's.
During one of my weekly visits to my favorite thrift store a few years ago, (don't ask me where it is, I won't reveal my sources!) I checked the spot behind the counter where they keep the most valuable items as well and the "adults only" material. Instead of finding a stack of old magazines, I spotted a box of gay porn movies on 8mm film. (For youngsters reading this, 8mm and Super 8 film was the format that preceded VHS tape.) I stood there for the longest time examining the thirty or forty little reels of film, some with colorful box covers and many in mysterious plain white covers. I decided to buy a couple reels just for the kitch value, but as soon as I got to the car, I turned right around and went back into the store to buy the rest.
A few weeks later, I was back at the same store. I've had several instances of clairvoyance in my life, and that moment proved to be another example. I saw a medium sized box behind the counter with the flaps completely closed. I asked to see the box, and without the slightest peek of its contents, I opened it to find 40 or 50 reels of vintage gay porn movies on 8mm! Do I have psychic abilities or x-ray vision? I don't know, but I now had a good start on a real collection of gay porn movies from the 1970's.
That second box of movies really tipped the scale. I've become obsessed with collecting everything in gay erotica prior to 1979. I soon discovered the joys and pitfalls of eBay. I've rounded out my collection significantly by careful shopping (and not so careful shopping) online to find items to complete various series. I've discovered that even in the days when gay porn was completely illegal or underground, there was a vast amount of product produced. There is no one source to find everything in gay erotica produced in that 30 year period, but I keep trying!
My collection of vintage gay porn magazines and films is now large enough to warrant a website of its own, hence the launch of VintageBareback.com.
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STATEMENT REGARDING UNPROTECTED ANAL SEX IN MOVIES
The first cases of AIDS appeared in the 1981 and it took a while to discover that the disease was sexually transmitted. The first campaigns promoting condom use and "safer sex" did not appear until 1983 or 1984. The earliest cases of HIV transmission may have occurred in the 1970's bit the disease was rare and no one knew the method of transmission.
Choosing to name this website "Vintage Bareback" may be considered controversial. "Bareback" is the colloquial term for anal sex without a condom, which is the most common form of HIV transmission in gay men. Is naming the site this way exploiting the term "bareback"? Possibly. But I feel it's simply a contemporary word to describe a pre-historic version of sex play that was commonly done in a bygone era. Naming this site VintageUnprotectedAnalSexThatIDoNotCondomeBecauseOfRiskOfInfection.com would be cumbersome and not very sexy.
I do not blame the producers and models of hardcore sex films in the 1970's with no prior knowledge of HIV transmission for contributing to the spread of the disease. I do, however, have ethical problems with producers and models who continue to engage in risky behavior on film today despite all warnings. I also have a problem with producers who flaunt unsafe sex acts on film as a fetish unto itself.
Presenting these "controversial" films and images on VintageBareback.com is not intended to encourage risky behavior by gay men today that have overwhelming amounts of information available to prevent the spread of AIDS. The bareback aspect of these movies will be treated as a fact of life during the time they were created.
STATEMENT ON COPYRIGHT
I respect the rights of photographers, directors, producer and artists to claim ownership to work they produce. I have done extensive research with the vintage gay porn material in my collection to assure that I have not violated anyone's rights. However, the nature of this material presents unique legal challenges.
Some of the material I present on VintageBareback.com was marginally illegal or even blatantly illegal to produce, distribute and possess at the time it was created. In the time period of of the 1950's through the 1970's, many people in the industry went to jail or had legitimate fear of incarceration. Through most of that period, the industry was anywhere from highly discrete to completely underground. Production was often financed by organized crime to either launder money or make a quick buck without regard to long term artistic endeavor. The result was huge amounts of adult material with no reference to who produced it. Other than a very small handful of gay porn pioneers that survived, the majority of the work created in the early days was considered disposable.
Another legal challenge that is unique to the gay side of the porn industry goes back to the AIDS crisis. Many of the producers, directors and stars of gay porn, as well as their business partners, employees and lovers died so long ago their work has become lost and forgotten. Families of the deceased often had no interest in the unsavory nature of their businesses and the material more or less fell into public domain.
Following the letter of the law regarding copyright, there should be no music sharing and no knock-off fashions, but it's an unfortunate fact of life in modern society. It is not my intention to steal potential income from any of my colleagues in the adult industry. If you are a legitimate copyright holder and find material on this site in violation, contact me and it will be removed immediately.
