Arab men are now one of the hottest niches in gay porn.

The niche is not exactly new; it is the Arab nature of it — primarily those young Arabs who have flocked to Europe for work — that gives it a new face.

Visual Aids? Above are several scenes from Arab Men (Part I), one of the most popular titles in this category; at right the porn star Huessein, who through his adopted porn name and porn bio promotes his Turkish ancestry and who set off a comments war in these pages when we dared to describe him — and please don’t start up again — as “a beautiful ugly man.”

But the niche itself — well, it’s a classic archetype of the erotic imagination.

The Great Dark Man, Quentin Crisp used to call this eternal figure. Not exactly dreamboats, but dream brutes.

The Great Dark Man, while never fully detailed in Crisp’s brightly-lit epigrammatic prose, could be readily inferred from the writer’s autobiography The Naked Civil Servant.

The politically correct reader is certain to disagree with me, but it seems clear that our fey, outre Quentin had a rather Jane Eyre-ish sense of himself — as a lowly, compliant substitute female — whom this Great Dark Man would set off, as black velvet sets off pale but completely artificial pearls. (read the full article)

There was a time when the portmanteau term “cumshot” wasn’t a fixture in the English lexicon.

Before mass media forms made us intrinsically self-aware of our appearances and physical prowesses, it’s doubtful the male climax carried the visual wallop it does now. More likely it was internalized — regardless of the sexual pairing — and not subject to the self-direction and theatricality that it is now.

Porn forever changed how we have sex. Thanks to the visual medium of sex, we’re aware of how to frame, position, and pace the act. Certainly the bulk of our sexual fantasies are staged just like fuck flicks, with awkward transitions edited out and big finishes lensed at ideal angles in the porn shoots of our minds. That’s not necessarily wholly bad or good; it could be argued that porn has created unrealistic expectations and a glut of camera-fetishizing narcissists, but I can say it helped me figure out exactly what I want, who I want if from, and how I want it.

It’s not enough to just hit the mark anymore — you have to time the big finish, choose what body part you want to land it on, and really deliver a gusher of a crescendo. The element of performance — of offering a bravura turn — now preoccupies us. I remember seeing a stand-up act on TV in which a comedian related how everyone in L.A. was an aspiring star; when he stopped at a gas station, even the attendant told him he was an actor, and he knew exactly what sort when he finished pumping, pulled out of the tank, and proceeded to spray all over the windshield. (read the full article)

That dick! Those lips. The legend.

The mantle of legend demands an epic quality and universal recognition that few can command, especially within the turnstile world of porn.

If there’s a face of gay porn, it’s larger-than-life Jeff Stryker — he of the hillbilly drawl and raging ramrod — the rarest of stars whose status extends beyond the porn arena and secures an immortal place in the collective consciousness.

Stryker’s ascension to stardom in 1985 during smut’s Video Revolution is the mythic porn equivalent of Marilyn Monroe‘s.

Young Midwesterner Charles Peyton was discovered via a typical modeling ad by directors Matt Sterling and John Travis.

As Norma Jean was made over into Marilyn, Stryker was manufactured into the cherub-faced, Goliath-endowed hard body we know today (some claiming as with Monroe that a cosmetic facial enhancement was involved in bringing the new creation to life) and thrust into the spotlight with a PR machine at his back. (read the full article)

We can claim innocence, but we have all been guilty of perusing the clientele of certain men’s “dating” sites such as Manhunt, Grindr, LifeOut, or Scruff.  

These sites have essentially grown into the 21^st century edition of cruising. While there is a site that caters to every type of guy, they all usually feature the ability to post a profile picture. Not that I look thoroughly through these sites or anything, but I have become increasingly aware of the poor choices made with these pictures. As the classy gentlemen that we all are — and seeing how we would hate for our friends or family find out that we are on such sinful sites — we prefer not to use “face pics.” This no-face practice has led to a trend in profile picture subjects that are simply comical.

Let me break it down: (read the full article)

Ever wonder how, where, and when the vulgarities of our society got their starts?

A friend once asked me who gave the very first blowjob (I guessed one of those slutty Ancient Romans, maybe even Caligula himself), and that in turn had me positing who might have coined the slurs and filthspeak — specifically the ones centering around sex acts — that we take for granted today.

I’m sure there must be renderings of pictographic proto-porn in Neanderthal caves, and certainly the tribe had some verbal classification for the males of the clan who wanted to go all Quest For Fire on each other’s asses. The word “fuck” is often misidentified as a medieval acronym (“For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” or “Fornication Under Consent of the King”), though it does date back to at least 15th Century Germany. “Fag” and “Faggot” had nothing to do with sexual orientation in their original British context until around 1914 in (natch) America when they supplanted “Fairy” and became common nomenclature in straight and gay circles for demarcating an effeminate man from a straight or straight-seeming one. (read the full article)

Wit so sharp it requires a scabbard and a tetanus shot.

Hat tip to Joe My God.

Today, 32 year’s ago, Harvey Milk and San Francisco mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White.

We remember Harvey!

Trade. Jailbird. Gay for Pay.

Those would be the names for the men seen in these photos.

Men from the San Francisco of a quarter century ago, tattooed drifters picked up from lowlife saloons along the Tenderloin, in the lobbies of boozy single-men hotels, outside of store-front clinics where you could sell your blood by the pint.

David Hurles came upon these idle, pent-up studs like a stroke of good luck, a chance to make some easy money, and all they had to do was jerk off while he snapped pictures and made tapes of them talking about their lives.

A skinny unassuming guy, Hurles had made a name for himself in locally produced porn reels, thanks to his oversized organ and his double-jointed ability to auto-fellate (always an ice-breaker).

Now he was in business for himself: “Old Reliable” as he called his “tape and picture” company, and as he himself became known to millions of mail-order fans with a taste for sexy psychos.

Hurles specialized in an extreme type of marginalized man. Rough trade is too tame a word. These guys seemed to be fresh out of Alcatraz and two steps away from San Quentin.

Their arrogant sneers and frequent bird-flipping at the camera seemed to dismiss not merely the gay viewer but the whole stinking world. They appealed to an intense sort of bottom man — one who thrilled to their bullying trash talk, to the torrents of rage, the hint of violence. (read the full article)

Eighth grade was a tough year for me. I was 13 years old in 1998, in an oppressive yet typical American middle school where “pack of wolves” could accurately describe the student body. I was a big-eyed late-bloomer who enjoyed class more than recess and was irrepressibly talkative. Quickly, I became a focal-point of abuse for my male peers, most of whom were bigger than me, had girlfriends and some of these guys were even shaving.

It was also the year Matthew Shepard was murdered, and the news felt personal. His death coincided with my realization that I was gay. Though I was still in the closet, bullies at my school gleefully pointed out that Matthew Shepard and I shared a first name. They taunted me as they poked fun at Shepard’s story, making clear that even murder is fair game for expressing disdain for homosexuality. (read the full article)

It is hard to discuss Bayard Rustin without noting our current moment in history, when race and sexual orientation intersect in unprecedented, tumultuous ways.

The first black American president claims positions that would make him the greatest advocate for LGBT rights ever to grace the Oval Office, more gay-friendly than any of his white predecessors. Yet President Obama is paradoxically under closer scrutiny from LGBT groups than any former president was — both because the moment is so ripe for change and because he has yet done little to fulfill his promises.

Similarly, the aftermath of Proposition 8 in California last November brought group tensions to a head, when some pro-gay commentators placed the blame for the insidious law’s passage on the votes of black Californians. Same-sex marriage advocates lamented the lack of understanding from a group that has faced similar discrimination, and LGBT people of color (who obviously did not vote for Proposition 8 ) faced a cruel backlash from their white peers at a time when they, too, were reeling from the shock that their right to marry was revoked.

Progress happens when we put aside defensiveness and focus on the truth: that all people deserve to be treated with dignity, fair judgment, and respect. The life of Bayard Rustin (pictured above with Martin Luther King Jr.) proves that LGBT Americans and black Americans are indebted to each other, and are more alike than different, having been intertwined for generations. (read the full article)