The History of Gay Porn, Part III

The previous two days' posts were written in 2011. The gay porn industry has changed quite dramatically since then. In 2011, Falcon Studios was mainly selling DVDs; now, Falcon is streaming most of their content. Yes, you can still buy DVDs of gay porn, but how many people actually do anymore? The internet has taken over the porn industry. Sites like Helix Studios, Sean Cody, Corbin Fisher, or Bel Ami are nearly all online now. Sean Cody has been bought by MindGeek, who owns Men.com and is arguably the largest of the studios at this point. Of the studios mentioned, Sean Cody is the only one who does not produce DVDs. Yet, the vast majority of their use is online.

Online companies also have to compete against free sites, such as Pornhub, XVideo or XTube. You also have gay porn blogs. While Blogger has largely done away with gay porn blogs, Tumblr is still alive and well. Tumblr only allows for a maximum of four minutes for a video, but considering that Tumblr is a short-form blog, it is made for quickly getting off. In the four minutes it allows, Tumblr gives you the best parts of a clip. Most of the websites for gay porn have 20-25 minute scenes.

The main thing is that gay porn in the last six years has become virtual. While this trend was begun in the early 2000s, since 2011, it has become more and more web-based. Whether you are into twinks (Helix), military men (Active Duty), college frat boys (Corbin Fisher or Sean Cody), Europeans (Bel Ami), or more masculine men (Men.com), there is something for you. There are even more specialized/fetish sites like Bound Gods, SpankingCentral, and others that are able to produce web-based content to a specialized audience that DVDs just didn’t really allow.

I think the days of big studios producing DVDs is a thing of the past. Falcon, Titan, Rascal, etc., are all producing mostly web-based content. Gay porn is also evolving in other way. You can get Helix and Corbin Fisher on Roku, bringing porn back to your big screen TV. How many other studios will follow and make themselves available on streaming TV, but it is definitely an alternative for those who don’t want a collection of DVDs. Porn has become more portable than ever, and this is a trend that I don't see going away.

Gay porn has also changed in one other major way. It is nearly all condomless these day. PrEP has allowed barebacking to become legitimate in porn again. In 2011, gay porn studios were still using condoms. Only studios on the edge such as Treasure Island Media allowed for condomless porn, but with frequent STD testing and PrEP barebacking is all the rage in gay porn again. Falcon was one of the last studios to start using condoms and it was one of the last to end the use of condoms.