Trying to Go Straight
I married soon after returning from the Army, and was quite content with my life. Sexually I felt satisfied and recognized little or no gay feelings. I was busy trying all the combinations of straight sex that newlyweds try. Each week or so I would come home with a new position that I had heard about or thought up on the train ride home.
This period lasted for about five years. By 1970, the sexual revolution had taken hold of America, and I was beginning to grow restless. The thoughts that had lain dormant for the past several years began to surface once more.
Slowly, gradually, I began to again entertain thoughts about sex with men. On the subway, I would look for crowded cars in the hope that I could press against some willing guy who was equally interested in some quick, harmless frottage. I found lots of them. The excitement from these encounters led me to realize that I needed to further explore the full range of my sexuality.
The Sexy Seventies: Porn Flicks Come of Age
Over the next few years, I spent a lot of time looking at dirty movies. At least a few times a month, I would find a reason to be working late, and would explore the increasingly ubiquitous sex film emporia of midtown Manhattan.
They started relatively mild, by today's standards, with "art films," mostly foreign, like "I Am Curious Yellow." Soon, "scientific" films exploring sexuality became available, and with some pseudo-scientist providing narrative comment, heavy breathing viewers could watch simulated sex acts on screen in living color. This was a lot better than the grainy black and white stag films of the 1950s.
A growing demand for gay erotica led to some theaters specializing in such films. At first they were limited to mild loops with young guys stripping down to briefs, and finally removing those, they would rub themselves to climax against the sheets. Masturbation with hands was not permitted.
Also, erotic male films by Andy Warhol, the Kuchar brothers, Kenneth Anger, and others were popular. No real sex was seen in these, but there was lots of nudity and several fascinating fetishes were shown (e.g. motorcycle guys in tight leather, drug induced group sex fantasies, bikini clad beach gods), and these were sometimes shown at limited after-hours viewings making them all the more exciting.
Within a few years, producers got bolder. Solo masturbation scenes were now graphically portrayed, and were soon joined by softcore sex, where the sucking and fucking were simulated, or if real, were performed just beyond the camera's view.
By the mid seventies, everything was fair game. Totally uncensored fuck films, straight and gay, were shown openly in a number of theaters in New York and in other large cities. I avidly watched the progression from tease sex to real sex on celluloid. I went to see both straight and gay films, but was especially fascinated with the gay, more forbidden, variety.