Vintage Gay Loops

by David Stidler
October 29, 2009

At the time when the 8-mm films found here on VintageGayLoops were produced, the demand for porno films become so big that hetero films like “Deep Throat” and “Debbie Does Dallas” started showing up in the B-Rated movie theatres.

People were having a great time, but, of course, the government was against it. Porno flicks were declared obscene and racketeering laws came into effect so the authorities could go after the mob, which was funding everything. According to the rule book, if you were found producing or showing something obscene, they could take away your whole business.

During the 1970s, people like Playboy’s Hugh Hefner fought court battles in the name of first-amendment rights. There were a lot of arrests and the porno theatres were closed down.

These battles eventually lead to what is known today as community standards, where the decision to allow the distribution or exhibition of gay porn, or any porn for that matter, lies in the hands of the community. This is why nowadays you can go to a place like Palm Springs where there is a huge gay community and you will find the laws governing gay porn much more relaxed than right next door in Cathedral City. Each community, to a certain degree, can decide its own standards.

But then came video.

The gay porn industry exploded to a whole new level. Everybody and their mother got a video cassette recorder. Analog video cameras become available for about $1,000, providing a much cheaper option to film.

Most importantly, x-rated films moved from being shown in public theaters, to being seen in private homes. This shifted the position of government officials from being totally against adult film to saying, “Well, if it is in your own home, then I guess that’s okay.” Mind you, the government still wanted to regulate how the video stores handled it so children browsing for the latest Disney cartoon wouldn’t stumble on it (hence the creation of black-curtain sections at the back of shops that hid the adult products out of sight), but such regulations were insignificant along side the simple fact that adult film was now legal and easily accessible to the general public.

The effect was immediate. All of a sudden throughout America we started seeing that it was okay to carry certain gay porn. Every video store had an adult section. Certain shops in New York, San Francisco, even Chicago blossomed. Some started a mail-order business and they are still huge today. T.L.A., for instance, has been around forever and they have made a fortune.

In the beginning, video stores were not like they are today. In addition to giving them your credit card information in case you ruined the video cassette they paid a lot of money for, you also had to pay a membership fee, maybe $50 per year, plus the rental fee, unless you wanted to buy the video, which would cost as much as $120. But they could get you whatever you wanted; as long as the community standards were cool with it, the store would bring it in. In some case, even if the community standards weren’t cool with it but the store knew you, they’d bring it in; they just wouldn’t advertise that they had it. They would keep it for their gay customers and rent it out in a private, anonymous fashion.

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