Introduction: Gay Porn Right Away

The connection here between societal, gay0Day cultural and state changes and developments in gay porn is not a trivial one. These events, whilst variously informative, nonetheless climate as if they be a part of to a distant past, so it is perchance more surprising for the benefit of porn scholars to note that it is at once during 30 years since Thomas Waugh wrote the foundational essay ‘Men’s Smut: Gay vs Level’, in which he noted the centrality of homoeroticism to gay culture:

I belong to a cultural and political context – the urban gay man's community/ies – in which soiled pictures prepare a hard-won centrality, both historically and at present. (1985, 30)