The history of gay porn cinema.

[haiducii]

The Porn King of New York

Michae1 Luca5, gay pornographic film actor, director, activist, writer and the founder and CEO of Luca5 Ent., New York's largest gay-adult-film porn conglomerate, was born in Moscow on March 10th, 1972 into a family of ''Russian intelligentsia''. His father, Lev Bregman, is an engineer; his mother, Elena Treivas, who passed away seven years ago, taught Russian literature. The Eighth Avenue offices of Luca5 Ent. are accessorized with antique-style furniture his mother left him, along with a collection of vintage cameras, framed family photos, rows of adult-industry awards, and a wall of his own press clips and magazine covers.

Growing up in a communist nation as a gay-Jewish boy, Lucas faced a great deal of oppression and discrimination. ''I have a very liberal Jewish family'', Lucas says, ''they are open-minded and respectful about my sexuality and, later, my choice of profession''. In grade school, Lucas experienced firsthand the abrasive forms of anti-Semitism and later in graduate school, the cruelty of homophobia. Quite early in life Lucas understood that he was a gay man and even with such intolerance, he never hid that fact. ''I was never in the closet'', states Lucas. ''Not to my family and not to my friends.''

The experience of harsh anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union led Lucas to form a strong bond with his Jewish distinctiveness and the state of Israel. ''I am very strongly connected to Israel. It is the only country after America where I feel at home. Israel has become the center of my life'', says Lucas. He learned early on what would be his minority struggle; even in grade school Jews were separated from Russians in class books, as Jewish was the official nationality on Lucas’ identification. Lucas was determined to hold on to his heritage and endured the bigotry. Out of this torment was born the foundation of a controversial worldview. Lucas is a self-proclaimed Jewish atheist and Zionist. ''I believe that people have created God'', Lucas states. ''Not the other way around.''

After graduating law school, he started a small travel agency that he claims was run out of business by the Russian mob. Seeking ''greater acceptance'', Lucas left for Germany, where he started his adult film career with a short stint in heterosexual porn, but said the experience was unfulfilling: ''It was really depressing … not because it was a straight movie, but because it was a German straight movie.'' In 1996, he appeared as "Ramzes Kairoff" in two gay porno films directed by C4dinot: ''Pressbook'' and ''Desirs voles''. ''I opened the door of my hotel room and I fucked the guy who walked in. I don’t know why he came to my hotel, and I don’t think the reason was given'', he remembers his role from ''Desirs voles''. In 1997 he came to the United States for a week, fell in love with the country and moved to New York City, where he adopted the nom de porn that stuck. ''I wanted to make money, and all I had was my body, so I used what I had'', he said. He began working as an exclusive model for F4lcon 5tudios. He started the US legalization process from scratch, getting his work permit, green card and finally becoming an American citizen.

By 1998, once it became obvious how much more Lucas could earn by producing and directing his own films, Luc45 Ent. was born and quickly became one of the top five gay adult companies in the world and the biggest on the east coast. The company took off; by 2001, Lucas had made enough to help his parents, his brother, Pavel, and his grandparents immigrate to the States. Lucas lives with his partner, 60-year-old Richard Winger, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. They got married in in October 2008 in Los Angeles, in that brief interlude when the California Supreme Court determined gay marriage was legal. ''I did it because the fight for equality had already become defined largely as a fight for marriage rights, and I wanted to support my community'', explains Lucas his decision to jump into marriage.

In 2009, he became a citizen of Israel and in 2010 he denounced his Russian citizenship. ''It was difficult to become legal citizen in America, but I did in 2004 and in 2009 I made an aliyah. America and Israel are the only two places where I feel at home. Israel gave me a feeling of comfort and belonging, and I wanted to become a citizen of the country that I considered to be mine. I do live in America. My business is here and I brought my family here in 2001, but I travel to Israel twice a year and I might retire to Israel. As for Russia, I was ashamed to be a part of such an evil country. I have absolutely no connections to it. It’s a dark and cruel place and I have horrifying memories of it. So it’s only logical that I denounced my citizenship'', explains Lucas his reasoning behind both moves.

In 2012, he made a doentary about a subject close to his heart: Israel. In his debut as a doentary filmmaker ''Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land'' , Lucas reveals the other side of life in the Jewish State. ''I hoped to show Israel as it is—a country that is not only a champion of gay rights in the Middle East, but also way ahead of many Western countries.'' He takes us to an Israeli gay wedding. He interviews an openly gay personal trainer, who shares his experience of coming out in the Israeli army, where homosexuality has been accepted since 1993. Throughout the film, Lucas makes it plainly obvious that much of Israel is a safe place to be openly gay. ''Israel is more progressive than the United States'', he observes. ''Undressing Israel'' is not the first time Lucas’s camera has ventured inside the State of Israel. In 2009, he raised many eyebrows when he produced ''Men of Israel'', the first adult film shot in Israel with an all-Sabra (Israeli-born) cast.



The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, put a spotlight on that country's new anti-gay law, which criminalizes "gay propaganda''. Months before the Russian government passed a decree outlawing homosexual propaganda, Lucas became aware of the rising tide of homophobia in Russia and traveled there with a film team to get a first-hand account of the human rights crisis happening in the shadow of the Sochi Olympics. In the doentary ''Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda'' he interviews LGBT Russians about their marginalization by the government. They candidly express their fears and hopes in lieu of the extraordinary climate of hate that is being sanctioned by government officials. The most incredible interview is with Vitaly Milonov, the politician who supports the anti-gay law. It's a wonder if Milonov knew Lucas' history. Despite Lucas being one of the most successful, gay porn producers, Milonov, a clear homophobe, sat down and talked to him, telling Lucas that homosexuality is a disease, a virus for morality.



Today, Luca5 Ent., one of the world’s most recognized and prominent gay-adult-film companies, produces 30 adult movies a year. Lucas directs, produces and stars in his own films under his namesake banner. His studio has earned many nominations and wins from the GayVN Awards, the Oscars of the adult world. It produces award-winning erotic films with famously high production values including the highest budgeted adult films in the industry. His film La Dolce Vita (2006), the most expensive gay porn film ever made, received a record 14 AVN nominations, winning all 14 awards- a record that stands unbeaten. Watch the third scene from a gay pornographic remake of the Federico Fellini classic La Dolce Vita HERE.

Six years ago, Michae1 Luca5 was inducted in to the GayVN Hall of Fame. FrontPageMag(.)com cited him as "the most mainstreamed, provocative, and controversial figure in gay adult entertainment today. Having achieved a kind of crossover pop celebrity — he’s been profiled in The New Republic and has spoken at New York University, Rutgers and Yale — Lucas is ''a master self-promoter'', said Village Voice writer Michael Musto, whose column has chronicled episodes in Lucas’s career. ''Sometimes he’ll say things just for effect. But on Israel, he is sincere.'' While Lucas has become a lightning rod for criticism on gay web sites — ''arrogant, elitist, hypo- critical and racist'', one called him — Musto sees more hypocrisy behind the insults. ''People get very mean about him on web sites, anonymously. But when push comes to shove, they probably buy his movies'', he said. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Michae1 Luca5 is a dominant force in gay porn today. Alan Cumming, a Scottish-American actor who has appeared in numerous films, television shows and plays once said: ''Michael is so funny and opinionated and politically aware that I sometimes forget to look at his cock''. TBH, it never happens to me. Watch 10 inches of uncut Russian cock in action HERE.

 

[gorgik9]

Expanding the gay porn world & Going back to the deepest roots

What was the world of gay porn movie productions in the late 1980s ?

Or rather: where was it? A few places in the US (LA, SF, NY), Denmark and Holland. And in France Cadin0t had been doing his thing since 1980. Not a particularly big world, to be frank... Krist3n Bjorn would become one of the most important pioneers to radically change the gay porn world of the 1980s.

Krist3n Bjorn was born 1957 in London, England; son of a Russian mother and a British father who was stationed as a diplomat i Washington DC.

After graduating from high school, he set out to travel widely around the world (India, Asia, Europe) with the career goal of becoming a photographer for magazines like National Geographics.

But life took another turn when he arrived in San Fran in 1978 and encountered the gay community for the very first time. In 1980 he was photographed by Fred Bisonnes for Mand4te magazine, followed by two appearances in Falc0n videos (Biker's Liberty 1983, The New Breed 1983).

F4lcon chose the pseudonyme Krist3n Bj0rn because of his resemblance to Swedish tennis player Björn Borg.

Connecting porn film/video to the magazine market.

In the late 70s/early 80s, among the methods and business models F4lcon (and other gay porn studios) used to tighten their grip of the gay market was to produce color stills and make different kinds of magazines of their own.Anon URL

Let's look a bit at what F4lcon was doing that wasn't porn movies, and look at F4alcon's economic interactions with other areas in the gay porn market! Falc0n hired top class photographers to do at least two different but related things:

First making color photo sets of Falc0n models and sending them to the new kind of news stand gay magazines (Blu3eb0y, M4ndate, Pl4yguy, H0nch0 etc) that were emerging in the mid-to-late 70s. What was the commercial point of this? Two things - through these magazines the standardized F4lc0n aesthetics was spread to all and sundry; while the second point was, that F4lcon didn't get paid in $$$ for the photo sets, but in free advertising in the magazines.

But - second - Falcon had other photographers hired to shoot stills when the production unit + porn models were shooting movies. The purpose was to make make F4lc0n's own hardcore mags, often closely related to a single movie. Hence yet another moniker to disseminate F4lcon aestetics...

A Bjorn in Brazil
Having been a model himself Bjorn became a photographer just as he had wanted - a porn photographer. He arrived in Brazil in 1982 and was to spend eight years there until 1990. In 1989-90 he made his first own series of gay porn videos: "Tropical Heatwave", "Carnaval in Rio", and "Island Fever".

As one of the pioneers Kr1sten Bj0rn vastly expanded the geography of the gay porn world, beginning with South America and the Caribbeans.
http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=498097
http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=498098

Emigrating to Australia, gay porn came to the land of Oz down under - g'day mate - through Bjorns aussie trilogy in 1992, followed by a couple of movies made in Canada/Quebec, but in 1993 he was back in Brazil again and a new series of South American films.

In 1995 Bjorn had his first work period in Central/Eastern Europe and Hungary in particular. It should be remembered from haiducii's earlier posts, that the turn of the decade 1990 were the years when William Higgins and Georges Duroy started making Praha into the porn capital of contemporary Europe, and as far as I know Kr!sten Bj0rn is making lots of productions in the Czech republic today: http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=497341

Kr1sten Bj0rn, D3nnis Bell and Bob Mizer.
But expanding the world of gay porn through his own productions wasn't Bj0rn's only importance. His early productions and in particular the movies he made in Brazil were to become a powerful source of inspiration to not only a new player, but a new kind of player, connecting us to the very roots of commercial popular gay culture. The roots bore names, they were baptized - Robert Henry "Bob" Mizer, Athl3t1c M0del Gu1ld, Phys1que P1ct0rial.

In 2003 gay businessman Dennis Bell of Los Angeles bought the Mizer estate with all it's gigantic archives - photos in millions, several thousands of 16mm films and video master tapes, big heaps of written doents and personal diaries - from Mizer's friend Wayne Stanley, who had inherited the estate after Mizer's death in 1992.

Stanley did the best he could, but taking care of large and complex archives is a) expensive; b) in need of professional expertise (also costing money). So Stanley sold to Bell, who promised to take care of the archives and let the world in general and the gay world in particular know of the riches Mizer had produced.

Much of what Bell found in the AMG archives had never been published, and quite a lot of films still evev un-developed. Many books and magazine articles on Mizer and his company had been published since his death, but not a single one of those writers have had any access to the archive of Mizer's personal diaries.

Taking care of big archives cost money, quite a lot of money, and how do you get reliable fundings - for old gay erotica and porn?

Bell have used a number of methods, beginning with how you can use a well known brand - AMG _ make a new version of it - AMGBr4z1l - then go down to Brazil, make yourself into a skilled videographer and porn director - and start producing, releasing and distributing high class gay porn obviously inspired by the porn aesthetics of Kr1st3n Bj0rn! http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=497783

Other methods are described in these YouTube-clips from Bob Mizer Foundation:





And then some about what already have been done to show previously un-known Mizeriana:

 

[haiducii]

An interlude

The top 3 most searched-for gay porn stars of 2014

Who is the most popular gay porn star of 2014? It’s time to find out! Remember, this list is based on internal WordPress and Google Analytics stats showing which gay porn star names generated the most page views referred from search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, etc.). The higher a name appears on the list, the more people are searching for him online.

#3. Bryan Silva

Bryan Silva, a 24-year-old sensation on the social media app Vine with nearly half a million followers, has worked with He1ix, NDS and C0rbin F1sher (Fuck! They must have lowered their standards!). Some of you may know him as ''Max Payne'' or ''Monster 4 A Cock''. In an interview with Complex he was asked what first drew him into working in porn. He responded: ''Just how everyone looked at me. Just me knowing that I’m going to be great and I’m going to succeed in life because when you stand out in a crowd, you know you’re going places. Always alpha male, always got to stand out.'' IMO, this guy is a joke. He's famous for being a moron on Vine. He doesn't look sexy or cute. He is nothing but skin and bones. He looks like Iola from Mama's family (TV sitcom aired on NBC in the 80's).

#2. Mick Lovell

Sadly Mick Lovell is retired (February or March 2013). The last thing Mick did for 3el4mi was when he attended the Cyber Sockets awards, Los Angeles in January 2013. He was nominated for "Best newcomer" but didn't win. 3el4mi told that Mick left because the pressure on him to quit porn in the end became too strong. My simple interpretation is that someone found out he did porn and put heavy pressure on him to quit. That someone could be his family, friends or girlfriend. 3el4mi star of the decade may be two years into his retirement at this point, but that hasn’t stopped the studio from dribbling out a bit more archived, classic Mick amazingness every few months. It doesn't surprise me. 3el4mi often releases their scenes a very long time after they are done.

#1. Johnny Rapid

The 22 year-old gay-for-pay porn star Johnny Rapid (whose real name is Hylan Taylor) got started in the adult industry in 2011, after M3n.com signed him to an exclusive long-term contract. Aside from his naked work, he's also very interested in cars and mechanics, and is, in fact, an actual Bieber fan. In a video for M3n.com, which Rapid exclusively performs for, he says the ''Baby'' singer would be paid $2 million for just a few hours work on the set of a porn film. The versatile actor says: ''It'll be easy...I'll do most of the work''. TBH, I love the way he looks right into the camera when he is getting fucked (Watch the video HERE!), BUT I changed my mind about him, when I heard that he was arrested after ''beating and choking his girlfriend''. He is cute but he is no man in any way. He's a monster.

 

[gorgik9]

I've got a confession to make!

Haiducii's clip of Johnny Rapid today is actually, factually the very first piece of Rapid porno I've ever watched! Yeah, yeah I invite all of you to a bit of LOL : "- Now we know how preciously little professor gorgik knows about CONTEMPORARY gay porn - ha ha!"

Very true - but that's why it's great to have a sidekick who will teach myself a lot!

What I don't like - of course - is that the Porno Rapid have managed to make himself into IRL Rabid, a Rabid dog into beating and choking others. But Rapid/Rabid could be an introduction to the feminism/anti-porn feminism post which I'll post in a couple of weeks.

But it's a pity on the sexy porno boy Rapid, who obviously can make erotic magic happen!

 

[haiducii]

What I don't like - of course - is that the Porno Rapid have managed to make himself into IRL Rabid, a Rabid dog into beating and choking others.

Agree. ''I do my porn, and then I go home to my girlfriend. I have sex with her until she bleeds'', he said. Disgusting! It sounds like RAPE. This guy is nuts!

But Rapid/Rabid could be an introduction to the feminism/anti-porn feminism post which I'll post in a couple of weeks.

We work hand in hand.

 

[W!nston]

Posted by haiducii

Aside from his naked work, he's also very interested in cars and mechanics, and is, in fact, an actual Bieber fan.

While I'm not really surprised he is a fan of 'the Biebs' I have to say that is enough to turn me off.

If the allegations of domestic violence are proven he needs counseling. He obviously has issues. I think we all do to some degree. I've never met anyone who is perfect... except my partner

 

[nysander]

The top 3 most searched-for gay porn stars of 2014

Who is the most popular gay porn star of 2014? It’s time to find out! Remember, this list is based on internal WordPress and Google Analytics stats showing which gay porn star names generated the most page views referred from search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, etc.). The higher a name appears on the list, the more people are searching for him online.



#1. Johnny Rapid


The 22 year-old gay-for-pay porn star Johnny Rapid (whose real name is Hylan Taylor) got started in the adult industry in 2011, after M3n.com signed him to an exclusive long-term contract.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think he appeared in a couple of videos for Bukk@keB0ys befor starting his contract with M3n.com.

 

[haiducii]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think he appeared in a couple of videos for Bukk@keB0ys befor starting his contract with M3n.com.

According to the ''Gay Erotic Video Index'', he works exclusivelly for M3n.com.

LINK

 

[W!nston]

I have several BukkakeBoys videos with JR. He gets to fuck the bottom bareback in some of them. I'm not sure when he became a M3n exclusive. Maybe M3N bought out BukkakeBoys.

 

[haiducii]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think he appeared in a couple of videos for Bukk@keB0ys befor starting his contract with M3n.com.

You are right!

He was one of the guys in Cameron Davis' Christmas Wish from 3ukkake 3oys.

Johnny's first scene at M3N was in 2011. It was also the same year that his 3ukkake scene was released.

 

[gorgik9]

Cadinot & Mahgrebine homoeroticism

Let's start this post with a catalogue of downlad files!

Tendres adolescents (1980)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499006
Scouts (1981)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499008
Sacré Collège (1983)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499025
Le voyage à Venise (1986)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499429
Deuxième Sous-sol (alt title: Street Smart) (1987)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=497972
Chaleurs (1987)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499540
Pension Complète (1988)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=499440
Hammam (2004)http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=498341

Since I already talked about Cadinot as a moviemaker in general in an earlier post, I will focus on a special topic represented by two of the films above, Chaleur (1987) and Hammam (2004).

The topic could be baptized - "Homoeroticism in the Mahgreb"!

It's a topic that Cadinot introduced on two levels in the 1980s: First in that it's quite obvious he was fond of using actors and models from the Mahgreb -area (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Marocco) and other parts of West Africa.

Second through two movies, Harem (1984) and Chaleur (1987).

Cadinot returned mightily to this topic in a long series of films in the late part of his career: Hammam (2004) and then the powerful Nomades-tetralogy (Nomades (2005); Plaisirs d'Orient (2005); Portes du Désir (2006); Princes Pervers (2006))

Some poetry and poets.

First two pieces of poetry! Let's guess who wrote them (same poet behind both) and when they were written:

There are men who like women
And who make women glad;
But, as for me, all pleasures comes
In the body of a lad!
When, barely past his fifteenth year
Tendrils of hair begin
To form on his cheeks...[...]
A boy at that age no longer fears
The things we dream of doing
With him, and he's lost his childish soul
That never thought of screwing!

The second piece from the same poet:

Now, I'll take a glass of some clear red wine,
Passed around the table by a saqi so fine [...]
A coltish gazelle who's been well brought up,
Trained from his childhood to serve those who sup -
Now in full blossom of flirting and smiles,
His smell...as sweet as his wiles,
With a beautiful butt, and a handsome cock
Flexing inside his pants as he walks;
Invite him to drink, and then drink again:
He'll open his pants and give you free rain!


Surely, this poet must be a GH member, mustn't he? Surely - "a beautiful butt and a handsome cock"?

No, this poetry wasn't written by any GH member.

It was written around the turn of the century 800 AD by the most famous and beloved of all Arab poets, Abu Nuwas (d. ca 815) who lived in Baghdad under Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid and in the age of Thousand and One Night. This pattern of homoeroticism is repeated in moslem poetry written in Persian (lets say Omar Khayyam, Jallaluddin Rumi, Sa'di) and Osman Turkish poets in the early modern epoch.

Most of Abu Nuwas homoerotic poetry was included in editions of his works centuries after centuries, and still in the editions of 1898 and 1905. But in the 1937 edition strange things started happening - most homoerotic poems were excluded, and - even more strange - arab intellectuals started arguing, that Abu Nuwas probably wasn't a genuine arab at all, and most probably a son of a Persian woman.

This is seriously strange, as strange as if English scholars suddenly started seriously arguing, that William Shakespeare wasn't english at all, but French or Spanish.

European modernity and male homosexuality as the cause of oriental belatedness.

To crack this historical Enigma code, we'll have to go back to the years around 1800 and Napoléon Bonapartes grand expedition to Egypt in 1797-1801 and what happened after, and more particularly the consequenses of all grand scholarly, scientific and artistic projects and descriptions that Napoléon commissioned. (Among the most important projects was the young philologist Jean-Francois Champollion who in the 1820s managed to dechipher the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system.)

But those French projects also became the point of departure of some long and deep discussions among scholars in the Moslem world:

- Once upon a time, ancient Egypt had been glorious, but that was very, very, very long time ago, millennia ago. Egypt and the rest of the Osman empire seemed backwards compared to Europe.

The big question from the late 19th century on became: - Why didn't the Moslem world modernize? What were the causes for the backwardness of the Moslem world?

Meet Iraj Mirza!

Iraj Mirza, poet and staunch advocate of a modern Iranian state, thought he had a clue, and it had to do with male homosexuality, or more precisely: the popularity of male same-sex sexuality in Moslem countries.

Mirza wrote and published the verse satire Aref Nameh in 1921, directing his wry verses against fellow poet Aref of Qazvin, who was also a well known boylover. Iraj Mirza wrote:

Oh Lord, what thing is this pedomania
That plagues Aref and greater Teherania?
Why only in this commonwealth
Does sodomy take place with little stealth?
The European with his lofty bearing
Knows not the ins and outs of garcon-tearing.

Mirza makes his polemical and political point - as long as Iran holds on to archaic customs like the separation ofthe sexes and allegiance to a decadent monarchy, Persian men will not shed their pederastic predilections and the nation will remain caught in a regressive past, unable to enter the era of modernity that Iraj Mirza associated with European virtues of constitutional government and heterosexual normativity.

To be modern, you must first become heterosexual! Iraj Mirza again:

The cunt's your homeland, the anus too exotic -
So what's your problem, why so unpatriotic?
How can you have your motherland at heart
If you think kun[anus] and kos[vagina] exchangeable bodily parts?

Mirza was far from the only Moslem intellectual in the early 20th century who thought, that social, political and cultural modernization presupposes masculinization and heteronormalization.

Among the more important examples were all the problems that started surrounding Abu Nuwas and his popular poetry. In 1937 the big homophobic modernizing trend started, and most male homoerotic poems were excluded in the new edition. The Arab world got it's own version of Bowdlerization...

To the modern nationalist Arab mind, Abu Nuwas predilection for things homoerotic could be "explained" if he had been been the child of a Persian - not Arab - woman, since "everybody knew" that Persians were effeminate and keen on same-sex erotics, compared to the ultra-masculine Arabs.

So sure, Abu Nuwas "must" have been a homosexual Persian. "Everybody" knew that - 1000 years after his death.

Comparing traditional Moslem and Christian ideologies of sexuality.

In this chapter we'll look into a couple of central notions in the Quran, then look at the major traditions of Islamic law (sharia), and - thirdly - compare it to the medieval catholic moral theology.

So let's talk about the in the Quran non-existent word and concept homosexuality, just as non-existent as heterosexuality; remember that both words were coinde by the german-hungarian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny in late 1860s.

The quran, on the other hand, was written in the first half of the 7th century AD, and the central notion to us is liwat ("crimes belonging to Lot's people"), figuring in Sura 7:78-82; 26:165-166;27: 54-55; 29: 28-29. (A sura is a chapter of the Quran.)

Traditional schools of Islamic law.

So what is "the crime belonging to Lot's people"? It is anal intercourse, aka buttfucking. To do a more nuanced legal analysis, we must first get aquainted with the important category of hadd(singular)/hudud (plural), and also learn a bit about the most influential schools of Islamic law (madhhab).

Hadd/hudud means "the limits of God", i.e. crimes who's punishment are defined by God himself and not up to any human judge to decide, which usually means extremely cruel punishment - execution by stoning or 100 whiplashes.

So does liwat constitute a hadd-crime or not? You'll get different answers depending on what school of law you consult. There are very many schools, but the following five are by far the most influential, namely the Hanafite, Malikite, Shafi'ite, Hanbalite, and Jafarite schools, of which the Jafarite school belongs to shi'ite islam, while all the other are od Sunni islam.

There were two important things that made Hanafite law special: First it was the only tradition that did not consider liwat among the hadd-crimes.

Second it was the law school ordered by the Osman Empire saying that the judge (qadin) must follow the Hanafite school if the plaintiff was going to be able to require legal assistance from the state.

Unique for Shafi'ite law was, that according to this school the penetrated male partner in liwat could never undergo death penalty and be executed.

Distinguishing Jafarite law in shi'ite islam was, that only male same-sex anal intercourse could constitute liwat, while anal intercourse among married male/female couples was explicitely allowed.

So in traditional islamic law we had prohibitions against anal sex, while only in Jafarite law heterosexual anal sex was explicitely allowed.

We had forms of non-procreative sexuality explicitely allowed, while other forms (oral sex, mutual masturbation) were judicially - if not necessarily morally - neutral.

And this was very different from the high middle age christian sexual ideology.

Medieval catholic sexuality.

The catholic sexual ideology stood on three legs: first only procreative sexual acts were allowed, and every kind of non-procreative act strictly prohibited, for which the theological motivation was, that God created sexuality for baby making - and absolutely nothing else.

But - second - these procreative acts were allowed to happen only within the borders of marriage, and, pray, the correct christian kind of marriage, defined by the catholic church as one of the seven sacraments.

The third thing was that dark scary figure - the Sodomite.

The transformation of the Sodomite from an inhabitant of the ancient and ficticious city of Sodom (Genesis 19), to a member of that particular species Sodomite, whos essence is totally defined by the dreaded sin of lechery, Sodomy, is a long and complex story in catholic theology which starts with the writings of Jerome, Ambrose, Augustin and pope Gregory the Great.

The development of the catholic notion of Sodomy got a special Moslem impetus in the tenth century, in connection to the martyrdom of a teenage christian boy named Pelagius (not the famous Pelagius from the fifth century, St Augustines opponent).

The story was, that young Pelagius was an exceptionally beautiful boy, who caught the eye of the great boylover, Ummayad caliph Abd al Rahman III of Cordoba, Spain, who wanted cutiepie Pelagius as his new boytoy.

But the not only beautiful but also exceptionally pious Pelagius didn't like the idea, and since you couldn't say no to the caliph, the boy was executed. (Hence - don't be too pious. It can get you killed.)

There were three text written on Pelagius in the 960s - a vita on Saint Pelagius, a verse biography written by the German nun Hrotswita and a Mozarab liturgy. You could maybe say, that St Pelagius became the special Anti-Sodomy saint - even if the notions of Sodomy and Sodomite still weren't fully articulated.

That articulation came with Peter Damian's book Liber Gomorrhianus (Book of Gomorrah ca 1050; Peter Damian, 1007-72, was a monk and later cardinal.)

In his opinion, sodomy and the sodomite were things and figures making havoc in monasteries. The serious problem according to Peter Damian was what happened all too often between adult monks and cute young oblates.

In the early 13th century, all the necessary ingredients to construct what we consider the catholic theology of sexual ethics had come in place, and the strong focus on pastoral theology after the 4th Lateran council in 1215 gave the impetus to start writing book after book after book on vices and virtues, and in particular peccata luxuriae contra naturae, sins of lechery agains nature. Sin had become a very complex scholastic system of thought.

In traditional catholic theology there are seven cardinal vices: Superbia (Pride), Invidia (Envy), Ira (Wrath), Acedia (Sloth), Avaricia (Avarice), Luxuria (Lechery), Gula (Gluttony).

Concerning luxuria, lechery, it's of particular importance to distinguish between natural and unnatural sins, where an unnatural sin is an action against Gods creative purpose. As you all - ??? - know, the creative purpose of the genitals (pricks & cunts) is procreation, hence: all non-procreative sex acts are unnatural lecherous sins.

If we were to make a complete catalogue of 13th century theologians writing on this subject, the list would be long. Paul of Hungary and Wilhelm of Auvergne were among the first, but the two most influential were Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus.

Let's look at Aquinas definitions! He classified four different sins of lechery contra natura:

First: Mollities (masturbation, onania)
Second: Bestialitas (intercourse with an animal of a different species)
Third: Connubitus indebitus (heterosexual oral or anal sex)
Fourth: Vitium sodomiti (same-sex sexual acts)

There's a difference between theology and law, and so far as I know no one has ever seriously considered mollities a crime, and I don't know enough to have any definite opinion on connubitus indebitus.

But there's no question what so ever that bestialitas and vitium sodomiti has been the cause of human bloodshed for centuries.

The difference in sexual ideology between christianity and the moslem worl have been profound, and the opportunities for misunderstanding very rich.

Christian travelling to the Osman Empire from late 15th century to 1914.

From 1453 on, there was a new political and military big power in eastern Europe, Asia Minor and the Middle East - the Osman (or Ottoman) Empire - with Istanbul as it's center, where it's ruler, the Sultan, lived in the grandiose Topkapi Palace.

Wien was under siege no less than 4 times in the 16th and 17th century, but the relation between the Osman Empire and Europe wasn't only about military hostility. It was also a question of diplomacy, trade, commerce and good old curiosity.

European travellers wrote travelogues in the thousands already before the turn of the century 1600, and several protestant princes were notably more scared of the catholic emperor and catholic kings than of the Sultan in Istanbul - Elisabeth of England versus Filip II of Spain is a well known example, far from the only example.

Sodomy in early modern travelogues.

Among the many topics described and commented upon, few were as popular as the predilection for boylove of moslem men. Here's George Manwaring using an astonishingly neutral and non-moralistic jargon in his 1599 travelogue, when he explains how café owners attract clientele by "keeping young boys: in some houses they have a dozen, some more, some less".

Sir John Chardin commented on coffeehouses in a more directly moralistic language in his 1720 book, and said that they served as "nothing else in Reality, but Shopes for Sodomy".

French writer Michel Baudier wrote in his 1626 travelogue in chapter 14 titeled "Of the filthy & unnatural lust of the [Pashas] and of the great men of the Court", in which he writes that "...they abandon their affections to young Boyes, and desperately follow the allurement of their beauties...This abominable vice is so ordinary in the Turks court, as you shall hardly find one [pasha] that is not miserably inclined toward it".

Scot traweller William Lithgow wrote in 1632, that "worst of all, in the Summer time, they openly Lycentiate three-thousand common Stewes of Sodomitical boyes. Nay, I have seene at mid-day, in the very Market place, the Moores buggering these filthy Carrion and without shame and punishment go freely away."

European Orientalist art, and finally getting back to Cadinot.

A rough definition of what I mean by orientalist art could be, that it's a broad popular tradition in European visual art, mostly in traditional art media (oil painting, watercolor, drawing, etching, mezzotint ingraving etc) but also somewhat in photography, a tradition starting in the early 19th century and for many practical purposes ending after WWI and characterized by groups of specific topics.

But to not get too shallow, let's talk a bit about the Orient and Orientalism before we get back to Orientalist art.

In geography it's pretty simple: The Orient is where the sun rises (in the east), in opposition to the Occident where the sun sets (in the west).

Orientalism is the scholarly field about "everything" pertaining to "the Orient", the "eastern world", emerging mainly in branches of linguistics and philology such as Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese.

The dominant point of view in Orientalist studies was the detailed articulation of the eternal differences between East and West - the West being characterized by dynamic historical change, while the East eternally the same; the East is despotism but the West constitutional monarchy (or aristocracy or democracy); the East is strict segregation of the sexes, while the West is cooperation of the different sexes; in the West every man is at least potentially free and equal to every other man, while in the East only one man, the despotic ruler, is free, and all other men are subjected to the ruler and - figuratively or literally - emasculated. The despot will cut off other mens balls and make them Eunuchs, castrates.

I'm using Edward Saids immensely influential study Orientalism (1978) on the emergens of the Orientalist field of academic study. But I think Said deserves not only praise, but also harsh criticism. Among the more fundamental problems in Saids book was and is his hopeless heteronormativity, and his almost total blindness to the homoerotics of orientalism.

Bur let's moove on to orientalist art, and think of it as articulations in visual art of the topics of East/West difference we've talked about! Let's get some examples!

We have a series of paintings representing a handfull ofcentral themes in 19th century orientalist art:

womens life in private and imperial harems/seraglios & systematic segregation of the sexes; despotic rule & emasculation.

So we have European artists gazing at a single oriental woman or a groups of oriental women, or at an oriental man gazing at one or many women. But we also have European artists gazing at emasculated men, trusted by the ruler (ruler of household or of Empire)to be the guardian of the women. The Chief Black Eunuch was a very important official in the Topkapi Palace...

So in European orientalist art in the 19th century, there's not that much of the strident male homoeroticism we found in the travelogues of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. But won't we find some traces in the visual arts? Oh yes we will - if we know what to look for!

From my point of view, Jean-Daniel Cadinot's gay porn movies belongs to a long tradtion of popular male homoerotic orientalism.

 

[dargelos]

Just pressing the button seems such scant thanks for all the hours of work that goes into preparing an epic post like the one above.

 

[gorgik9]

Just pressing the button seems such scant thanks for all the hours of work that goes into preparing an epic post like the one above.

I'm honored by your appreciation dargelos

 

[W!nston]

It's ironic how the tables have turned in the past 100 years.

Homosexuality was apparently so common in the Arab world before this fellow Iraj Mirza and his ilk began a their campaign to make the Eastern world more like what they perceived the Western world to be. Homosexuality was labeled as the cause the East fell behind the West in some ways. How did he come to that conclusion?

I thought the more civilized, educated and enlightened world a thousand years ago was the East. Science, mathematics, language, art and basically everything that denotes civilization was developed in the East and copied by the West. Why did Mirza think homosexuality was responsible for the lack of modernization? Wouldn't the more likely cause be a lazy, complacent or apathetic leader who failed to move the culture forward?

I love this stuff, gorgik. Please follow up with more about these ancient roots of gay porn

 

[gorgik9]

It's ironic how the tables have turned in the past 100 years.

Homosexuality was apparently so common in the Arab world before this fellow Iraj Mirza and his ilk began a their campaign to make the Eastern world more like what they perceived the Western world to be. Homosexuality was labeled as the cause the East fell behind the West in some ways. How did he come to that conclusion?

I thought the more civilized, educated and enlightened world a thousand years ago was the East. Science, mathematics, language, art and basically everything that denotes civilization was developed in the East and copied by the West. Why did Mirza think homosexuality was responsible for the lack of modernization? Wouldn't the more likely cause be a lazy, complacent or apathetic leader who failed to move the culture forward?

I love this stuff, gorgik. Please follow up with more about these ancient roots of gay porn

Thanks for these complex and important questions sniffit!

I think I would maybe point to a set of probable causes:

First a kind of long term cause - the long term discussion in the moslem world that had been going on ever since Napoléons egyptian expedition.

Then what we could name kind of a semi-long term situation emerging from about 1870 - the "wonderful" psychiatric science of sexual psychopathology, i.e. the very modern and very European (to be more specific: German-Austrian-French) and very scientific way of thinking about sexuality.

But "modern" and "scientific" doesn't necessarily mean "good for the gays" - more often it meant more hellish and efficient ways of making life painful for the gay boys and girls. Remember that in terms of what psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and psychologists can do to harm you, they are a hundred times more dangerous than any christian minister, priest or theologian.

But the short term causes - looking at it from Iraj Mirza's writings in 1921 - was probably the most important: In 1918 EVERYTHING came crushing down, and everything was up for grabs.

WWI utterly destroyed no less than three gigantic Empires - the Tsarist Empire i St Petersburg, the catholic Habsburg Empire i Vienna, and - the moslem Osman Empire centered in Istanbul. (OK Iraj Mirza's Persia/Iran never had been directly a part of the Osman Empire, since it was it's own empire under the Shah of the Safavide dynasty, but of course Mirza and persian/iranian society were as affected by the great historical rough and tumble as everybody else...)

And since every kind of modern European Nationalist had proclaimed, that the Future was the Glory Land of Masculinity and Heterosexuality, then why shouldn't a guy like Iraj Mirza think the same?

Hrrmmm...maybe I should make a post on Nationalism and Heterosexuality as political ideal? I'll have to ask haiducii what he thinks...

 

[W!nston]

maybe I should make a post on Nationalism and Heterosexuality as political ideal

I would read it with zeal

 

[gorgik9]

Spring break!!!

Hello y'all

I've recently had a chat with haiducii, and we've decided we urgently need a spring break from all the writing and posting in this thread.

But we're not abandoning this thread It's just that we need some time to do some reading and thinking, and get some inspiration to let this thread go on as a high quality thread. We like to give you more than stereotype standard fare - but that means quite a lot of work...

Soooo as great Dame Vera Lynn said once upon a time...



:cheers::heart::heart::heart::cheers:

 

[mikk33]

amazing post, as ever @gorgik9, all from the cadinot reference. It also brings to mind the work of the poet C.P.Cavafy, (1863-1933), from Alexandria, Egypt. he celebrated the wonder of the male body and Hellenistic youth:
"his mind is sick with longing, the kisses are there on his mouth,
his flesh, all of it, suffers unremittingly, from desire, 'the feel of the other body on his,
he wants to be joined with it again"
Although never published in book form, in his lifetime, his work was copied for friends
and in literary magazines.

 

[gorgik9]

amazing post, as ever @gorgik9, all from the cadinot reference. It also brings to mind the work of the poet C.P.Cavafy, (1863-1933), from Alexandria, Egypt. he celebrated the wonder of the male body and Hellenistic youth:
"his mind is sick with longing, the kisses are there on his mouth,
his flesh, all of it, suffers unremittingly, from desire, 'the feel of the other body on his,
he wants to be joined with it again"
Although never published in book form, in his lifetime, his work was copied for friends
and in literary magazines.

Thanks mikk for reminding me of Constantine Cavafy - one of my big favs in modern poetry whos elegic tone I just love,love and love; the poet who teaches us about waiting for the Barbarians...

And I think it's essential to also mention Daniel Mendelsohn's magnificent english translations of Cavafy's Collected Poems + his wonderful volumes of esseys. Mendelsohn is as broadminded and witty as his erudition is unfathomable!

 

[gorgik9]

We'll start posting again soon!!!

Hello everybody :big hug:

I've just talked to haiducii and we said, that we'll start posting in early April, which isn't particularly far away.

We'll probably start with some horny Brits totally Ruling the Waves - which I hope you'll like:cheers:



I guess you know the guy singing the solo on stage is a guy from Tr1g4, but you knew that, didn't you :rofl::rofl::rofl: