A Ramble On How and Why I Love Dirty Movies

This is an idea that I have been kind of throwing around in my head since I started this blog. Why is that, while not arousing to me, do I tend to enjoy watching straight erotic content over gay erotic content? Now, for clarification, this pertains to watching material as entertainment, not as an aid to an orgasm. That is a different blog post that I will never write, because... ya'll don't need access to my spank bank thank you very much. 

So, what is it about straight erotic content that I find entertaining? Oddly, I think it may be nostalgia. For clarification, when I use the term erotic content I am referring to mainstream, softcore and hardcore material. When I was growing up in the 90's, hardcore material was not easily accessible. Outside of finding the odd dirty magazine at your friend's house, you really had to work to get your hands on smut. And if you were looking for gay smut? Unless a family member was a closet case who couldn't hide their stash for shit, you were really out of luck. Yes, I had the internet growing up, but it was attached to the single family computer that was in a central location, and the parents knew how to check the history. 

With exposure and access to hardcore material, especially gay material, I was left with either mainstream film and TV depictions of sex and sexuality, and softcore late night films. Gay softcore really wasn't a thing back in the 90's. At least not on good old Cinemax. If there was a mainstream film on the subject I can promise you it was not sexy. Usually it was either a coming out drama, an AIDs drama, or both! Real fun stuff. There were a few movies here and there that were not feature length very special episodes, but those were not really focused on the sex part of sexuality. While I adore films like The Birdcage, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and To Wong Foo those movies were pretty much sexless.

That meant that if I wanted to see something dirty I was left with sneaking downstairs to watch late night Cinemax. That was what I had, and to a degree, that was kind of shaped a lot of my views on sex and sexuality. Luckily there were shows like Real Sex that delved into realistic depictions of the wonderful world of sexuality, but there was also campy, goofy stuff like Emmanuelle in Space and Passion Cove. The struggle was real when it came to trying to catch a glimpse of a naked man.

While is waiting for those brief glimpses of male nudity I would end up having to watch the rest of the surrounding movie, which usually meant being subjected to some of the goofiest, cheesiest thrillers, dramas and comedies. Were these movies good? Mostly, no. Bikini Bistro is never going to be remembered for its witty writing and elegant filming. It will, however, be remembered for being a movie about a bistro where the staff wears bikinis and has a lot of sex in the kitchen. Note, never eat the food at a bikini bistro... 

Those films, for better or worse, shaped what I found entertaining when it came to erotic content. Note, I did not say arousing. Most of those movies had nothing to offer a gay viewer like myself when it came to the bump and grind portion of the evening. They weren't intended for gay audiences. You could go through a whole sex scene and the guy barely shows up on camera. There wouldn't even be a quick shot of his butt. Nothing. So, to stave of the sexual frustration, I focused on the camp of these films. I loved bad movies growing up. Troma was a staple in my viewing habits by the time I reached my teen years. These movies were cut from the same cloth as a lot of the low budget horror and sci-fi movies I was obsessed with. They also shared a lot of the same actors and directors. So there was a familiarity. 

When it comes to hardcore pornography, things went a little differently. I remember the first full length porn film I had ever seen. Yes, I had seen plenty of clips online by this point, and even plenty of gay porn once I figured out how to clear the browser history on the computer, but I had never seen an entire adult film from start to finish. Then I found the soundtrack to Misty Beethoven: The Musical in Borders. I snatched it up and listened to it on repeat. The songs were filthy and funny. I needed to see the movie! So I sucked it up, went to my local Tower Records and found it. My first full length porno was a straight porno musical. 

That seems oddly fitting. 

I didn't really care about the sex stuff. It was straight sex, and while I have no issue with seeing a naked female body, it just did nothing for me. The horrid dialogue, campy musical numbers and singing penis however won me over. After that it was off to the races to see as many dirty movies as I could. Straight, gay, didn't care. I wanted to see it all, experience it all. I was obsessed with the mixture of storytelling and graphic sex. Even if the storytelling wasn't all that good. The kicker was that straight porn tended to have more campy and over the top material than the gay films I was finding. So I gravitated towards that material, because I wasn't really here for the porn. I was here for the plot, dammit! I'm the one who fast forwards through the bits that everyone else wants to watch. 

I know, I probably need therapy. 

Now, that is not to say that kind campy material doesn't exist in the world of gay erotic films. Dante's Cove and The Lair are amazing examples of mixing camp, horror and gay sex. Neither shied away from the nudity either. The Lair was even created by one of the B-movie masters, Fred Olen Ray. He didn't even need to bring in another director to handle the sexy bits. He directed every episode of that show, and he did it pretty damn well. Those shows were my jam back in my early 20's. On the movie front, Socket is still one of the best low budget attempts I have ever seen at erotic body horror. I have also found plenty of gay adult films that worked wonderfully as intended, and some that worked better as MST3K material. 

This whole post has essentially been a ramble, but basically, this is kind of why I watch what I watch, and why I enjoy what I enjoy. I am a product of what I was exposed to, and