OAKLAND, Calif.—Lavender Lounge Studios has launched a new website devoted to vintage gay porn. VintageBareback.com was developed as a showcase for rare and collectible gay erotica including movies, magazines and still photos, according to owner Mark Kliem.
“In the past two years, my personal collection of vintage gay porn has grown large enough to warrant building a separate website,” he said. “The most exciting part has been the purchase of 400 or more gay porn movies on 8mm and Super 8 film. I have already transferred a big chunk of them to digital format to show on VintageBareback.com.”
Lavender Lounge also acquired hundreds of gay erotic magazines from the 1950s-70s.
“I’ve been scouring eBay and garage sales for the most obscure old porn,” Kliem said. “Gay imagery of any kind, even the most innocent or mundane, was considered shocking at the time, so you can imagine how rare it was to find nudity or hardcore gay sex in print. We’ve forgotten how secretive and underground the adult industry was at the time. As a result, most of the old magazines I’ve unearthed have no masthead, no contact address and no copyright information.”
According to Kliem, what historically was considered a “deviant” sexual identity has bound gay men together throughout time. Vintage magazines and films frequently were the only connections gay men shared with other members of the “tribe.” More than just mere exploitation of naked bodies, classic gay erotica embodies a time capsule of how the homosexual community lived, dressed and connected when there were no rules, norms or precedent.
“Building this site is a labor of love for me,” Kliem said. “I will be approaching the material from a somewhat historical perspective without being too scholarly and dull. The homepage is essentially a blog, so I will be using that forum to connect the dots between various cultural references and always looking for humor along the way.”
LavenderLounge.com has served as Kliem’s flagship since 1999, and vintage gay porn always has played a role in the site’s content, complementing original material. Over the years, Lavender Lounge’s vintage erotica section became one of the website’s most popular areas. It only made sense to Kliem, when he began subdividing the flagship into niche-specific sites, that vintage gay porn receive its own destination. VintageBareback.com represents the second phase in Lavender Lounge’s redistricting.
Current Lavender Lounge members may access VintageBareback.com with their existing passwords. Conversely, new members of VintageBareback.com also receive full access to Lavender Lounge.
An affiliate program paying 50 percent revshare for all signups is located at LavenderLounge.biz.
