WHAT REALLY LAYS BEHIND
GAY PORN
reality always beats fiction!
by:Sune Knudsn
Few years ago when I was studying at the university, I had a summer-job at a video shop in Copenhagen. It was not an ordinary video shop, but a shop selling gay porn. As part of my job I had to categorize all the incoming films, and that was quite a job. I had to sit for hours watching the movies and fill in every detailed scheme, and tick-in boxes; what kind of porn action it took place, what kind of people took the part (skin color etc), the number of the tapes… etc.
Those made me think about the mechanisms imbedded in gay porn; that it is all about positions, fulfillment and clichés. The films rarely have a plot, a message nor do they offer a view on the world or relations between people. The sexual action is totally detached from the social world. That could be okay – we know that from other kinds of fiction like fairytales – but it leaves they viewer with an unrealistic and cold picture of sex between men. Physical only, and that’s the straight image gay porn gives.
For a lot of young men coming out of the closet, gay porn – weather in film or on print – is their first source when it comes to knowledge of same sex sexual activities; it’s always there, without even a caution. And their seldom sees it elsewhere, so they are kind of left with the porn. And that’s not only what they’re so they are also left with the unrealistic and one-eyed version of gay sex, where the feelings and emotions were and are sexually contempt, which gives an emotionless sexually charged image of what a real gay relationship (is not really about) to those outers. So where exactly the emotions and feelings are? Is there a special video for that too? Where are the social relations? And where are all the difficult and embarrassing things about sex? The real world?
I remember my own sexual debut. It was far form the picture that the gay porn movies sets – for better and for worse, It took time to find out the ups and downs of gay sex, some experiences, I appreciated others I would rather have been without. It was a journey, but it was my journey. Having to say that, I think gay porn is pretty much like tourist advertising – the pictures in the catalogues are always shining and the texts promise you heaven on earth, but it is almost better to see the destination and the real thing with your own eyes. Bon voyage!