For over 35 years, the gay porn shop Circus of Books gave Los Angeles’ LGBT+ community a space to socialize and celebrate without judgment. Now a new Netflix documentary will explore how two of "the least radical people" became America's biggest distributors of gay porn. 

 

Meet Karen and Barry Mason, the "nice Jewish couple" who ran the gay bookstore from 1982 to 2019. 

 

They actually started their X-rated career back in 1976; they were struggling with the recession and took on a job as distributors for the relatively new publication Hustler magazine.

 

A few years later, in 1982, they took over a West Hollywood adult store called Book Circus and changed its name to Circus of Books. The new job almost landed Barry in prison, as police where arresting people across Ronald Reagan's America if they were guilty of selling "smut".

 

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit, the Mason's ensured their store became a refuge for LA's LGBT community, including the store’s own employees, many of whom were stricken by the disease which in that era was almost always fatal.

 

The two closed the store last year.

 

“It’s sad to close, but people aren’t buying magazines or renting videos anymore," Karen said at the time. "They’re getting them on the internet now. This store used to have a steady stream of customers all day long. Now we get a few an hour. It’s just not worth it anymore; it’s too much work.”

 

 

In case you are wondering, their biggest seller was porn star Jeff Stryker’s 1986 film, “Bigger than Life.” 

 

 

The store does live on in a sense; this year ChiChi LaRue opened Chi Chi LaRue’s Circus.

 

The documentary, created by Ryan Murphy and the couple's daughter Rachel, begins airing on Netflix on April 22.