October 23, 2022 | The Biz

Gay porn gets official Oxford Encyclopedia post

Dr Joseph Brennan has helped bring gay porn to the hallowed halls of academia, after being asked to write an entry on gay pornography for the prestigious Oxford Research Encyclopedias.

The Encyclopedias are an invitation-only initiative of Oxford University Press, and offer articles that have been written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars.
 
“Being invited to write the first survey on gay pornography for the Oxford project has been a career-defining honour for me,” Dr Brennan said.

 Elliot Finn, Evan Knox, Jayden Marcos, Julian Brady, Justin Matthews - Next Door Studios

He explained: "Nowhere is such a project more vital or timely than on topics as culturally loaded and historically underrepresented, even suppressed, as gay pornography—or simply, gay porn. The study of gay porn overcame erasure and underrepresentation in the literature to thrive today as a vibrant subfield of porn studies, with its impact keenly felt in the wider humanities and social sciences as well—something that its inclusion and selection as a free featured entry in Oxford Research Encyclopedias is testament to.”
 
The porn we all know and love really came into being in the 1970s, when there was an erosion of many of the cultural inhibitions and legal restrictions on explicit gay sexual content.

Straight hardcore porn was also coming into its own at the time, yet the gay variety came as part of a wider, gay sexual subcultural, which was exploding with explicit homosexual representation for a community finally able to move beyond generations of hidden-ness, prejudice, and criminalisation.

Dr Brennan's entry, titled “Gay Pornography”, covers the rise and fall of the studio system, while also exploring bareback and gay-for-pay elements of the industry.

After reading the article, you'll be able to share a considered opinion on gay porn at your next family dinner.
 
You can check out the article here.