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Pornography has been with us for us likely as long as we’ve been humans. The Venus of Willendorf, one of the earliest known depictions of the female body, is believed by some to be a piece of erotic art. In the years that came after that, we built cities, figured out how agriculture works, and made more porn.
And it wasn’t always heterosexual.
The tomb of Nianknum and Knumhotep, which dates back to 2,400 BCE, features the two men kissing while gently holding each other’s shoulder and wrist. Other depictions of queer sexuality were more explicit. The ancient Greeks drew their porn on their dinnerware so you could see gay porn while making a toast at a party.
A more scandalous depiction can be found in a Turkish manuscript from 1773 that shows a group of men standing in a circle while penetrating each other, making a rather creative interpretation of an ouroboros. When the camera was finally invented, even the famously repressed Victorians got in on the fun and started making gay porn photos featuring men in women’s clothing. After that, it didn’t take long for gay porn films to be made, but figuring out what the first gay porn film was isn’t so easy.
The Gay Porn Films of the Early 1900s
As with a lot of ‘firsts’, there’s ambiguity in what counts as the first gay porn film. The 1930 short film The Surprise of a Knight is often credited with being the first gay porn film, but this isn’t entirely accurate since there have been earlier depictions of gay sex on video.
The early to mid-20th century saw the release of several stag films, a type of pornographic silent film that usually lasted around 10 minutes at most. It’s from these stag films that we see some of the very first gay porn films such as Le Manage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly, The Surprise of a Knight, and A Stiff Game.
1. Le Menage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly
Le Manage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly is the first gay porn film to depict queer sex. It is a 1920 silent film based on the opera Madame Butterfly that depicts both homosexual and bisexual sex between the titular Madame Butterfly, her husband, and their servants. The sex isn’t just implied either nor is it toned down as the film shows its characters fully nude and engaging in sex acts in front of the camera. One scene features a close-up shot of male-on-male penetration.
2. The Surprise of a Knight
The Surprise of a Knight, a silent gay porn film from 1929, has been called the first gay porn film, but a more accurate way of describing it is that it’s the first gay porn only film. While there are earlier stag films depicting homosexual sex between two men, they would either have a female sexual partner or have lesbian sex thrown into the mix.
That said, The Surprise of a Knight isn’t a clean-cut gay porn film either. The prevailing view at the time was that gay sex between men happened as part of, or incidental to, heterosexual sex. The film reflects this in its male characters who are given distinct “male” and “female” roles. One of the partners is dressed as a woman and it’s only later in the film that we’re shown that this character is a man.
3. A Stiff Game
The 1930 film A Stiff Game is another early gay porn film that stands out for its graphic depiction of homosexual sex and the fact that its characters are not dressed in clothes that imply a heterosexual norm between its two characters. A Stiff Game is also notable for another accomplishment — it’s one of the earliest interracial porn films. In one scene, an African-American man performs oral sex on a Caucasian American.
The Hays Code Made It Hard to Portray Queer Sexuality in Film
Depictions of gay sex in films in the early 1900s were surprisingly liberal for their time and while they were distributed in secret, they could still be found by anyone looking for gay porn. This all came to a screeching halt with the introduction of the Hays Code, a set of industry guidelines meant to appease the growing conservative attitudes that came at the heels of the Jazz Age once the Depression began. The Hays Code was created to try and curb the public perception that Hollywood was too depraved, an impression fueled by a series of scandals leading up to the creation of the code.
To be clear, the Hays Code wasn’t a censorship law imposed on Hollywood by the government or a media regulatory body. It was intended to be a list of suggestions about what not to include in your films so the government doesn’t knock on Hollywood’s door demanding more control. As pressures on the industry grew, however, the suggestions became rules. Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, a trade association, began to ask for scripts to be submitted for approval before they would release the films. Filmmakers could also be fined for violating the “guidelines” of the code.
To get around censorship regulations, filmmakers started adding homosexual subtext to their films a.k.a queercoding. Many of these films hid their gays in the form of villains and vampires whose implied same-sex attractions could now be disguised as a sign of their wickedness. The Code era 1936 film Dracula’s Daughter toes the line of regulations in its depictions of Countess Marya Zaleska who asks women to strip naked so she can draw them.
Today, queer pornographic films can be found with a quick Google search, but it’s still not as prevalent as porn films depicting heterosexual sex. Not to mention, while it’s relatively easy to find gay porn films directed at homosexual men and made for the consumption of homosexual men, finding queer porn made for homosexual women is rare enough that people online ask about how to find lesbian porn made for lesbian women.
Much of lesbian gay porn isn’t made for gay women, but for heterosexual men, a phenomenon pointed out by Slate: “[Lesbian porn] does not depict us, nor does it serve our needs as consumers of porn.”
One lesbian described the lesbian porn of the web as “Women with extra long fingernails…looking bored while idly thumbing one another’s [privates].”
While we still have a long way to go, looking back on the history of gay porn and the legacy of the first gay porn films is a reminder that we’ve already come a long way.
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