March 1, 2007 | The Biz

San Francisco official gay porn capital

Last Saturday's GayVN Awards were moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco for a reason: the City by the Bay has gradually unseated Los Angeles as the world's largest concentration of gay adult filmmakers, many located in the city's South of Market and Potrero Hill neighborhoods.

With its large gay population, liberal views on sex, and healthy multi-media sector San Francisco has proved an ideal home to the gay porn industry; it's only natural that the annual awards would follow.

Porn certainly has a history here. It's where Falcon started and this week COLT celebrated its 40th anniversary with a lavish party.

"Now that a critical mass of companies can be found here in San Francisco, more outside companies find it beneficial to relocate here to take advantage of the porn-friendly climate," said Chris Ward, co-founder and president of Raging Stallion told the San Francisco Chronicle.

It also helps that the Bay area is also home to some of the world's biggest Internet entrepreneurs -- including Tim Valente of streaming video site NakedSword.com -- as the future of the industry is clearly online.

So what does the flowering of gay porn in San Francisco mean? Porn historian Jeffrey Escoffier says it best:

"It certainly shows an acceptance of gay sexuality," he told the Chronicle, "but it also shows an increasing acceptance of pornography as a form of popular culture."

• Hub of all that's hot [San Francisco Chronicle]