Unless you’re over a certain age, the name Chuck Holmes probably won’t mean anything to you. But he’s a man that has had a surprisingly significant impact on how we define ourselves as queer men.

In 1971, Holmes established Falcon Studios. Falcon quickly set the standard for what gay porn should look like – effectively defining the genre of studio-produced erotic films.

The aesthetic of the films created by Falcon Studios was shaped by the the type of models and actors that Holmes and his team cast in their productions  -  white, blond, college guys that didn’t look gay, guys that could pass as straight, guys that fulfilled the all-American ideal of what a desirable young man should be.

Holmes was an interesting character, and his attitudes and perceptions were obviously a product of his time, but much of the confusion about what it means to be a gay man today  -  and this whole Masc4Masc bullshit that we often seem to get caught up in  -  probably has some foundation in the insecurity and internalised homophobia that drove the casting decisions at Falcon Studios.

Holmes cast actors such as Al Parker, Casey Donovan, Dick Fisk, Jeff Turk, and Kevin Williams as the epitome of gay male sexuality. They’re attractive guys, and it’s great to watch them having sex. They’re white guys. The films that they star in emphasise and celebrate their macho masculinity. They’re so butch that they can pass for being straight. We can pretend that they’re straight, we can fantasise that they’re straight, we can fantasise that straight guys might be interested in having sex with other guys. It’s a fantasy that leads us to convince ourselves that if we could pass for being straight then other guys might be interested in having sex with us.

There’s nothing wrong with fantasising about having sex with straight guys, but it starts getting a bit toxic when that fantasy leads you to modifying your own behaviour and your own identity. If the message that you’re getting is that guys are only interested in having sex with other guys who look and act as straight as the guys in classic porn films from Falcon Studios, then you start to view anyone who doesn’t measure up to that fantasy as being somehow lesser, somehow inferior. That’s crazy. It makes no sense. It’s damaging, and it’s dangerous.

It’s easy to appreciate that we shouldn’t be measuring ourselves against what we see on screen in porn – whether that’s our bodies, the sex we’re having, or the men we’re dating – but it’s inevitable that subconsciously we’re being shaped to some extent by what we’re watching, and by what’s fuelling our fantasies.

Chuck Holmes and Falcon Studios deserve their place in our queer history, but let’s try and leave their outdated view of the world well and truly in our past.

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