MovieChat Forums > Gay Sex in the 70s (2005) Discussion > This Film Is Embarrassing and Disgusting

This Film Is Embarrassing and Disgusting

posted 17 years ago by Brian Scott Mednick
21 replies | jump to latest

I feel sorry for any gay youths who might stumble upon this film. It shows gay life as nothing more than a series of frequent, unsafe, anonymous sexual encounters. Yes, this sort of thing did go on in the pre-AIDS 1970s, but the film offers no insight beyond the fact that gay guys were screwing like crazy with no cares about anything.

None of the interviewees are particularly engaging, nor do they offer anything truly enlightening or funny. Furthermore, it devotes surprisingly little time to the AIDS crisis, and visually, the clips of campy '70s gay porn films get tiring quickly.

The film made me feel yucky. It tells about an era where sex was everywhere but it is devoid of any joy or heart. Worse, at only 71 minutes, it is also just plain boring.

[–] Orpheum-3 17 years ago

I will respectfully disagree with your take on this film. The topic of the documentary was Gay sex in the 70s. It was not Gay culture in the 70s, or Gay politics in the 70s. It was specifically about the sex. It devoted suprisingly little time to the AIDS crisis because, as the narrator stated at the opening, it was about post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS sex in Manhattan.

I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, but you're criticizing the document for not doing things it was never created to do.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Orpheum-3 17 years ago

Which types *do* make a good influence for the gay community? Who gets to decide?

I'm not trying to be contentious, it sounds to me like your preference for monagamy and picket fences is being projected onto the rest of queerdom. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, to be sure, and I wish any queer people who want to mirror the hetero lifestyle all the luck in the world.

But to assert that the gay community is a monolith, that there is one right way for queers to be, that throwing off the shackles of middle-class morality is somehow damaging to the image we portray to heteros and therefore is bad for us - all of that smacks of trying way too hard to live the hetero dream.

Even heteros don't live the hetero dream anymore.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Orpheum-3 17 years ago

Why on earth would the sex necessarily have to be unprotected? Go back and read your original post, then read my response. Nothing in either of those missives, as brief as they were, had anything to do with spreading disease.

You rail against people who have sex for the sake of having sex and who take drugs for the sake of taking drugs because they "don't make a good influence on the gay community."

Exactly what *would*, then, "make a good influence on the gay community?"

I'm all for people learning from the mistakes of the past. Having the sex wasn't the mistake. Not being careful about it was.

[–] Brian Scott Mednick 17 years ago

The worst thing is that the film is just plain boring. Dullsville. The 1970s had to be a lot of fun but you do not get that sense from the film.

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[–] tomtkh 13 years ago

Too bad I'm reading this YEARS later - Orpheum-3 you are quite boring as well. You like to argue a LOT, whether you're right or wrong. In this case you are completely WRONG!!

[–] AltaireIII 16 years ago

"I feel sorry for any gay youths who might stumble upon this film. It shows gay life as nothing more than a series of frequent, unsafe, anonymous sexual encounters. Yes, this sort of thing did go on in the pre-AIDS 1970s, but the film offers no insight beyond the fact that gay guys were screwing like crazy with no cares about anything. "

Unsafe sexual encounters? They were not unsafe. Other than the ordinary run of the mill sexually transmitted diseases that everyone faced, there was nothing out there that required what is now known as safe sex.

One final comment and this comes from someone who came of age before AIDS hit, nobody was ever forced to partake in any of that. Those that did wanted to.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] tomtkh 14 years ago

I TOTALLY agree with you Brian. The film was not only disgusting, but depressing. If I thought all gay life was like this, I would really wish there WAS a way to switch to heterosexuality!! Watching these idiots brag about their promiscuous lifestyle and appear to actually MISS it is a grim reminder of what caused the AIDS epidemic in the first place (or at least one major cause). I didn't watch the entire movie, I couldn't stomach it. I watched it online on Netflix, and sped through toward the end, and the entire film is just interviews with self-absorbed idiots. What really bothers me is that if straight people see this, they will more likely be far more homophobic than they already are!!

My strong advice to people is to NOT watch or rent this movie!!

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] tomtkh 13 years ago

I totally agree, Brian. I didn't watch all of it, it was too depressing. What's pathetic is so many gay men LOVE this lifestyle, to just sleep around with no emotion whatsoever for the other guy. It really is disgusting, and this sort of thing still happens today, just at a different level. I'm so glad that I'm not the only one that was appalled by this train wreck of a film!!

[–] rgcustomer 11 years ago

I especially liked the part where tomtkh came back a year later to make essentially the same sort of comment on this thread that he already made here, and elsewhere.

[–] tomtkh 11 years ago

by rgcustomer
I especially liked the part where tomtkh came back a year later to make essentially the same sort of comment on this thread that he already made here, and elsewhere.

My plan is to come back once a year and repeat the same statement. Hopefully at least ONE smart person will take my advice. The only people who love this film are sex addicts.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] nameismike69 8 years ago

HIV and AIDS happened because of the 1970's too much butt sex between too many men caused a bacteria infected epidemic... Did ever happen in the history of the world before all this liberation.... NO.... So it wasn't the monkeys or the government. It was gay male human beings... that went into the bloodstream through the anal cavity and then become a hetro illness and even through a bad needle and whatever else... that could spread it... Sad but true... Since internet and the 21 century the behavior on both sexes has become so massively rancid... I'm surprised it's not back again even worse so then it was in the 1980's and 90's... But whatever we'll see what the future brings...

[–] BothellWitch (7) 6 years ago

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