Gay Sex in the 70s (very long)

[paul]

Interesting but somewhat lengthy article about the upcoming movie of the same name. Apparently among other interesting things you'll get in this movie is the music. Wanna guess what this music is? :D
Anyway, read on. I would have linked this but it's a Salon Premium:

"Gay Sex in the 70s": An age of revolution -- and also mustaches
One of the interviewees in Joseph Lovett's "Gay Sex in the 70s," an African-American photographer in his mid-50s, is asked by the director whether it was true that gay New York in that legendary decade experienced a period of sexual indulgence unknown since the late Roman Empire. It's been a sober conversation to that point, and you can see the guy processing the question for a second, wondering whether he's supposed to say something diplomatic. Then a slow smile creeps across his face -- and it's not a sad or rueful smile or anything like that, either -- and you know what the answer is.

Lovett's film is a finely balanced and loving work of history, which never tries to sugarcoat elements of the explosion of gay sexuality three decades ago that may seem excessive or disturbing to some contemporary viewers. He's well aware that some people, both gay and otherwise, view the sexual revolution of the 1970s and the deadly epidemic that followed through a moral lens, and you can read his movie that way if you insist on it.

But as a veteran producer and director of TV specials and documentaries about AIDS and other deadly disorders, Lovett says, "I've done my share of equating sex with death." What he's after here, instead, is recapturing what he calls "a time of exploration, a time of surprise," which not only galvanized a nascent gay community -- no such thing really existed before the Stonewall uprising in 1969 -- but transformed all Americans' ideas about sex and sexuality, regardless of our gender or those of our preferred partners.

Mixing contemporary interviews with the era's survivors -- sadly, that's the only word to use -- and often startling file footage and still images, Lovett distills the slightly dangerous vibe of an almost unrecognizable New York. In a city plagued by crime, suburban emigration and a crumbling infrastructure, young gay men poured in by the thousands after 1969, claiming its abandoned spaces as zones of sexual adventure. Gay bars bloomed in every neighborhood, empty health clubs were reborn as the now-legendary bathhouses. The decrepit Hudson River piers and the tractor-trailers parked overnight in the meat-packing district became well-known cruising spots -- although maybe it's euphemistic to refer to sex in complete darkness with someone you can't see as "cruising."

When Lovett telephones me from his Manhattan production office, I suggest that it takes balls to put all this stuff in a film, even 30 years later. Was he concerned at all, I wondered, about how the James Dobsons and Samuel Alitos of the world would react to this movie and its tales of legendary debauchery? He sighs sadly. "It disturbs me that you have asked that question," he says. "I was a child during the McCarthy period, and I saw what keeping silent did. I do believe in telling the truth about who we are and where we've been. I believe the truth will set you free."

Those who hate gay people, he suggests, aren't likely to hate them less if he conceals the truth about how easy it was to get a blow job on the piers of lower Manhattan in 1975. And of course he's right. It's not as if Phyllis Schlafly doesn't know that gay men have a reputation for sexual libertinage (which has always seemed suspiciously fascinating to activists on the far right), and Lovett is trying to put the raunchy delights of the piers and the trucks and the bars in a larger context. Ultimately, this movie is less about sex per se, he says, than the liberation that came with it.

"It's about the end of repression, and what lifting repression can do to you, and for you," he continues. "I wanted to look at the wonderful things that happened along with that -- the fact that so many gay people began to accept themselves, and came out to the other people in their lives. They began to be able to incorporate their fantasies into their sense of the future, which was very important. You didn't have to be somebody who segmented your personality, who kept your sensual life locked in a little box."

Whether you find yourself shocked or delighted (or both) by all the mustachioed man-flesh on display, "Gay Sex in the 70s" is an often-hilarious tribute to its city and its era, full of pumping disco tunes, scenes from vintage porn films and Fire Island parties, and the none-too-subtle posters that advertised bathhouses and all-night booty-shaking hoedowns. It doesn't shy away from the question of how the party ended, with the arrival of a catastrophe that devastated the gay community and made impossible demands on its newfound sense of identity and unity. Lovett's film should remind all of us that the homosexual experience in America, however you wish to interpret it, is that of a distinct and harshly oppressed minority.

"We have been vilified, we have been attacked in streets, we've had laws made against us," says Lovett. "We are like the Jews in Germany, and I do not make that comparison lightly. We need to talk about who we really are. We can't try to appease the far right, because they can't be appeased. With this film, I get to sit in the theater and hear people laugh. Then they come to me afterwards and say, 'Thank you, I never knew about that,' or 'Thank you -- I had forgotten that you could have sex without fear, without thinking about death.'"

"Gay Sex in the 70s" opens Nov. 4 at the Quad Cinema in New York, Nov. 18 at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles and Jan. 20, 2006, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, with more cities to follow.

[Videoskooter]

Yeah Paul U got me here! Now I was expecting pics after reading "Very Long" in the title.

[DiscoMan]

I remember going to Provincetown in the early and mid '70s and having some of the most fun times ever. That town was absolutely off the wall then!

The gay world seemed so laid back then (at least P-town was). Far less uptight than many straight people I knew. How did I cum to go to Provincetown, you might ask; a very dear, dear friend of mine (still is going on 40 years) is as queer as any queer I've ever met. But what a good time we had in P-town from '71 to '76!!!!! :D

[paul]

So Discoman, did you 2 guys get drunk then one thing led to another?

[paul]

Yeah Paul U got me here! Now I was expecting pics after reading "Very Long" in the title.

If I posted "the ole sauseeg" Bernie would surely censor it 8)

[DiscoMan]

Yes, but I always sat with my back to the wall.

[Angelina77]

Darnit!! I thought I was going to see some naughty pics :P Better close my eyes n wish harder next time while I wait for the thread to load ;););)

[paul]

The old sauseeg:

[DiscoMan]

It looks like someone's finger. :P

[SandraDee]

Thought I'd better contibute to this thread as no gay person has actually said anything yet! I often think how cruel the timing was that just as gay men achieved self-acceptance & some sort of liberation, along came this deadly & sinister disease to devastate our lives. I came out & went on the gay scene just as the AIDS crisis was at full tilt in the media in the mid 80s & although I consider myself lucky that I had the info on safe sex, I went for many years always associating sex with illness/death & it's only in recent years in my late 30s that I was able to cope with the psychological scars this left. Interesting article Paul.

[SandraDee]

It looks like someone's finger. :P

On a lighter note, I have to agree with DM, it is like a finger. I'd have to think twice about going anywhere near a dick shaped like that! :-?

[paul]

Well if anyone here catches this flick, I'd love to read the reviews. Hell, if I catch it I'll post my take. 8)

[Rab]

Yes, but I always sat with my back to the wall.

AH HA!, I knew it!