Gay Porn, Gay Marriage, and the Last Temptation of the Supremes

Brent Everett and Steve Peña, Dirk Caber and Jesse Jackman and of course, Billy and Seth Santoro, have all gone onto a set to make porn, and all gone before a judge to be married. Today, a trio of lawyers goes before the nine justices of the Supreme Court to finally secure the right of marriage for entire country. It’s a really big deal! And far from the first connection between gay porn and gay rights.

In “How Gay Porn Helped Build the Gay Rights Movement” that appeared this March in the Huffington Post, Michael Stabile, one of co-founders of The Sword, discussed the days when almost all erotica was illegal, and the fact that some of the early gay political activists were also gay pornographers.

Long before the internet, the postal service was the only means of distribution and sending “smut” through the postal service carried long prison sentences. It was two gay pornographers who won a court victory about sending nudes in the mail and cleared the way for beefcake magazines… which eventually cleared the way for The Sword and all the porn we so freely cover here.

Back in the uptight Eisenhower years, we could have been fired, denied housing and exposed to public ridicule with virtually no legal recourse for decades. To the very disenfranchised gay community then, this wasn’t just smut, it was a beacon of hope of what could be. What the early “muscle mags” like Tomorrow’s Man and Physique Pictorial, and later 8mm loops from a company that would eventually become Falcon Studios did was for a few moments, was not demonize us for our sexuality, but rather gave us a reason to celebrate it.

With celebration comes pride. A pride that eventually we could not contain in our bedrooms, but we demanded in all areas of our life, including our right to marry the person we love. So Trenton Ducati and his go-go boy and Theo Ford and his hairdresser got married and many rolled their eyes. But that fact they could marry at all is no laughing matter. And while gay porn didn’t get us all the way to the Supreme Court today, what they decide in June could allow us all the freedom, in every state, to say “I Do” in the future.

 
 
The freshly married Trenton & David

 
 

Theo & Shawn post nuptial smooch

 
 
The scene outside the Supreme Court today …

But since it’s porn that helped get us here, while we are in the gayborhood… a couple of scene with the Santoro’s:
first up from CocksureMen

 
 

 
 
And their scene from Lucas Entertainment:

[CocksureMen: Billy & Seth]
[Lucas Entertainment: Billy & Seth]