HISTORY OFGAY PORN
Three thousand years of desire
A history of gay erotic art, photography and film
From the painted cups of Athens to the physique studios of Los Angeles and the streaming age, the story of how men have pictured other men, and how the world tried to stop them
The eras
13 chapters, each one a long read with its own timeline and sources
c. 600 BC – AD 400
Greece and Rome
Painted vases, the Warren Cup and the frescoes of Pompeii
400 – 1400
The Middle Ages
Sodomy, sin and the first pictures of male couples
1400 – 1700
Renaissance and Baroque
Michelangelo, Caravaggio and the return of the male nude
1700 – 1880
Neoclassicism and the camera
Winckelmann's ideal and the first nude daguerreotypes
1880 – 1930
The Arcadian photographers
Von Gloeden, Plüschow and the dream of the South
1915 – 1960
Stag films
The first explicit films, shown in secret to men only
1945 – 1968
The physique era
Bob Mizer, posing straps and the fight with the Post Office
1968 – 1975
Out on the screen
After Stonewall, Boys in the Sand reaches Manhattan cinemas
1975 – 1985
The studio age
Colt, Falcon and the birth of an industry
1982 – 1998
The AIDS years
Loss, safer sex and the condom on set
1985 – 2005
VHS to DVD
Home video, European studios and the first stars
1995 – 2015
The internet
Paysites, tube sites and the amateur revolution
2016 – today
The creator economy
OnlyFans, PrEP and age verification laws
Greece and Rome
The Warren Cup
The Roman silver cup that waited decades for a museum willing to show it
Greece and Rome
The Secret Cabinet of Naples
The locked room where the erotic finds of Pompeii were kept from view
The Arcadian photographers
Eugen Sandow
The strongman who sold his body on cabinet cards
Stag films
The Surprise of a Knight
The oldest known American film with sex only between men
The physique era
Bob Mizer and the Athletic Model Guild
The Los Angeles studio of posing straps, catalogues and 8mm films
Out on the screen
Boys in the Sand
Wakefield Poole's 1971 film and the queue on 55th Street