the same day several years ago.

the same day several years ago, a finish friend who was dying of AIDS called me frantically from the hospital to ask a favor. Things were going badly, he said, and he might not at any time make it back home, likewise the time had come. He wanted me to journey over to his apartment and make it "presentable" to friends and family who would dispose of his things after he died.

He had a beautiful apartment, the proceed of years of antique hunting and his impeccable taste, in this way I asked him what he meant at presentable. There was a slight hesitation. "You know," he finally rasped. "Get rid of the porn." He then emanateed to give me a list of his unseen stash of magazines and videos.

A not many hours later I found myself digging from one side closets and excavating under beds for advanced in years copies of Playgirl and young horse publications, Boys of Venice, and Bigger Than stupendous He died a week later, and I've been struck eternally since by the irony.

single of the things I lov about my friend was his incredibly unclose attitude about sex. He was fearlessly promiscuous in the best thinking principle meaning that he never met a human frame he didn't like, an attribute he translated to the erotic--he not met a person he didn't like to have sex with. moreover though chatty about his winnings he was deeply closeted about his porn collection--so ashamed that as he prepared to die, the greatest in number pressing thing on his mind was figuring disclosed how to get rid of the evidence and make his apartment presentable.

I don't think he was alone in that, and that's too bad. For gay men porn is perhaps the gayest form of entertainment we have (this pretends much less true for lesbians), the individual that speaks most directly to what makes us gay--our sexuality. Entertainment can't get by heart much more sexual than direct representations of sex a great deal more erotic than scenes of blatant eroticism. Porn, in all its black-white, bi-trans, vanilla-S/M diversity, also is probably more sexually influential than any other ingredient of gay life. For example, one gay historians argue that the practice of rimming, which was almost unknown before the 1970 became commonplace during that decade when it became de rigueur in gay films. And during the '80 there were bitter battles athwart wearing condoms in videos, partly to defend the actors but also because prevention activists knew that porn could help either eroticize or marginalize safe sex

in addition despite its inherent gayness, diversity, and influence, porn is still the crazy aunt in the attic of gay life, the form of entertainment that dare not speak its name. It rakes in centurys of millions a year, now sometimes it's hard to find a single gay man at a party who acknowledges knowing who view Ryker is.

There are probably destinys of reasons for this. common may be the old feminist critique of porn as exploitation. Another, I suspect, is plain aged pride. After all, porn is designed as an aid to masturbation, and while gay men accompany to be pretty frank about the sex they're having, they're many times a lot less frank about the sex they're not. For a certain quantity of people, acknowledging porn is tantamount to admitting loneliness.

moreover that's too bad. Sexertainment is big business and an essential part of gay life, and as lengthy as we deny it, we fix ourselves up for all sorts of question s Not the least being that although porn helps define what it means to be gay, helps shape the eroticism of the nearest generation, and helps determine our ideas of safe sex it's still disproportionately controll at talentless, apolitical sleazeballs, in part because talented, politically conscious folk don't want anything to do with it. (Not all, according to the way. There are a swell folks in the porn biz.)

nevertheless we should get real. Just as gay activists fight for better prospect on prime-time TV, we should part with some quality time thinking about this massive form of entertainment. It's time we acknowledge its immense power, work to make it better, and admit that it's a vital, and vitally important, part of millions of our lives.

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