Five Things We Miss from Porn of Yesteryear

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We've seen a lot of changes in porn from the early days of film-to-VHS to the current slate of social media self-made stars. And depending on your age and how long you've been ingesting porn, some of us more ravenously than others, the "yesteryear" of porn might be pre-condom and pre-AIDS, condom-filled safer sex, or you have only been finding skin to whack to on the internet. And if the latter describes you, guess what, you can go back and revisit those early pre-condom years! Because everything old is new again, as they say.

So I put the question "What do you miss from porn of yesteryear" out to my friends and followers and got a few interesting responses back. Some were a bit unexpected, and some were definitely era-specific, which only made yer boy Hank here feel old and awesome! Here are their answers in no particular order.

Plots

My straight, cis male friend Al simply responded "plots." This might sound funny coming from a breeder dude, but if you think about it, more men can get off on a premise and plotline that leads into the sex just as much as their female counterparts. A lot of guys aren't just about the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am. They like to work up to the action. One commenter on the question of whether people like plots in porn over at The Straight Dope Message Board said "Absolutely. It’s a pity that modern porn is just a bunch of random scenes. I actually tend to make up the character’s backstory when I watch a plotless one."

Joe Gage's "Heatstroke", "L.A. Tool & Die", "Kansas City Trucking Co.", "El Paso Wrecking Corp", and "Closed Set" all available from https://t.co/GpQZZMCMy0 https://t.co/zGRUJK2w8e

Joe Gage's "Heatstroke", "L.A. Tool & Die", "Kansas City Trucking Co.", "El Paso Wrecking Corp", and "Closed Set" all available from https://t.co/GpQZZMCMy0 https://t.co/zGRUJK2w8e

— DildoCacophony (@DildoCacophony) December 13, 2022

And while in vintage porn you had a smidgen of plot which was mostly a set-up premise to establish their relationships, one of the most revered classic gay porn films of all time is actually a plot-driven trilogy, the seminal Joe Gage "Workingman Trilogy" ending with the fantastic L. A. Tool and Die. Plot-heavy films have made a comeback with the advent of easier-to-use digital technology and talented writers and directors more willing to work in the industry. Just look at all the awards and nominations reaped on projects like Falcon/NakedSword's The Swords series.

Photo courtesy of NakedSword.

Cruising

"Kids these days don't know how to cruise. The apps ruined cruising." So writes Jake, a late-year Gen-Xer I have to agree with. In retro porn, there was a sense of masculinity and excitement that came with walking down the street, seeing a guy, the heads turn, one stops, contemplates, then follows the other into an alley, a closed place of business, a garage. The sex occurred and they were on their way. This was shown often in Colt Studio shorts and the like. It's the opposite of the plot-driven variety where all they needed was a short scenario, and they were on like Donkey Kong! Now, you can choose from a plethora of randy men viewed on your phone, swiping right or left, narrowing it down and chatting to get the details only to be flaked on! And where did we learn to cruise? From porn!

Click that pic for something even more fun.

The excitement of searching

One friend talked about the tingle in his gut, the trepidation of walking into a local video store and slowly making his way to the adult section, and perusing the tapes, then nervously handing it over to the cashier to ring up. While to the modern guy, this might seem like an Orwellian nightmare, there was an anxious excitement of illicit behavior that coupled with the actual porn itself added to the thrill. The fact that the gratification wasn't as instant as it is today made one feel like they were getting away with something naughty. And that simply compounded the eroticism of the whole venture.

Culled and crafted collections

The first response I got was the one that hammered home that I was flinging my question to a large group of men of widely varied ages and experiences. My buddy Josh wrote, "There's nothing in particular I really miss aside from the way that (before Tumblr went anti-smut), you could find a Tumblr page full of stuff curated by someone with similar tastes, and from there you could usually find more like that by seeing who they liked and followed." This speaks more to the manner and culture of viewing porn, and how today's Millennials and other Post-Xers acquire their porn. The ease of sites like Tumblr to group one's various tastes together for even easier consumption created a feeding frenzy, and when Tumblr removed the really good stuff, the backlash was instantaneous. (But wait...is it coming back?)

Getting away with it

This is a point of view of a decidedly older viewer. "Back in the day before so much of gay life was accepted and legalized, our sex was illicit and dirty and fun. It was secretive and underground. Mom and Dad never knew. when we hooked up there was a sense of danger." Now of course, yes, we have it much better today. Who wants a lack of safety held over our heads just to get off? But the sense of danger my friend spoke of, the trembling excitement that you were doing something naughty, even illegal, was a sexual turn-on of sorts. This was depicted so often in those films and shorts of the 70's and 80's, in the work of Joe Gage, Colt Studios, in the films of Al Parker's Surge Studios. That sense of taboo pleasures is all but gone in today's offerings. Forbidden fruit doesn't taste as sweet when it's handed to you on a gleaming platter.

One final note; I'm just so glad that body hair made a triumphant return after the 80s, and that bodies of varying shapes and sizes have found acceptance in mainstream porn. Go Bears!

What are you missing about old-school porn?

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