Raising A Family on Gay Porn
Documenting community lost in an industry gone online
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Rachel Mason’s “Circus of
Books,” on Netfl ix, begins
by introducing her
parents, a now-elderly
couple. She fi lms them sitting on
their couch, while cutting in home
movies of the family’s beach outings
in the 1970s. The elephant in
the room quickly steps out of the
shadows to clear up these scenes’
slight awkwardness: her parents
have made a living running Circus
of Books, a Los Angeles store that
sold gay porn beginning in 1976. In
the ‘80s they became involved with
distributing and producing it.
Circus of Books became a community
center and a sex club. In
the ‘70s, the lines between adult
movies and “mainstream” queer
art were far more blurred than
they are now. If American directors
wanted to make fi lms like “My
Own Private Idaho,” “My Beautiful
Laundrette,” or “Poison” at that
time, they had few opportunities
to do so, so many talented gay
fi lmmakers wound up directing
hardcore porn. Arthur J. Bressan
moved back and forth between it,
documentaries, and narrative features.
The fact that folks had to
pay to go a theater to watch porn
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They wrote the song but then
Broadway shut down the next
day, and the performers could not
get together to record it due to social
distancing mandates. LaPook
called in a panic asking how they
could make it happen, but by then
Rudetsky and Wesley were occupied
with “Stars in the House.”
LaPook offered to give medical advice
on the fi rst episode, which was
such a sensation that he appears
on every show.
Not long after the show’s debut,
the couple introduced a spinoff
called “Plays in the House,” readings
of cherished plays, often by
the original stars. The live readings
stream twice a week, but not
in the ‘70s — even if they left after
achieving orgasm — meant that
narrative ambition was compatible
with extremely explicit sex.
Karen and Barry Mason weren’t
especially interested in gay porn.
He had gone to fi lm school with
Jim Morrison and worked on the
special effects of “2001: A Space
Odyssey” and “Star Trek,” but in
the ‘70s, he needed a new way to
earn an income. Karen shows her
daughter a list of titles whose profits
paid for her college education.
While the idea of funding school off
titles like “Confessions of a 2-Dick
Slut” might make one guffaw, Karen
also says she never watched the
fi lms they produced. She treats
the sex business with detachment,
buying sex toys as though she were
selecting any old merchandise.
The Masons became the distributor
for Hustler magazine and
other Larry Flynt publications, including
the gay Blueboy. “Circus
of Books” interviews Flynt about
this period. Feminist author Laura
Kipnis has written that contrary to
the depiction of the man as a free
speech pioneer in Milos Forman’s
“The People vs. Larry Flynt,” the
real value of Hustler lay in its very
embrace of offensiveness and what
we’d now call trolling, connecting
archived due to single-use rights.
Not surprisingly, these are not
polished productions. Truth be
told, the technical problems and
other glitches enhance the charm.
During “The Tale of the Allergist’s
Wife,” for example, Faith Prince’s
dog started barking and she improvised
a line to explain the disruption,
then got up and disappeared
from the screen to wrangle
the pup.
During “The Heidi Chronicles”
there were so many folks on the
platform that cast members were
being kicked off and the show
stopped cold. Rudetsky was able to
stay on with one of the actors.
“I tried doing an impromptu
interview but he was crazy shy,
giggling, and giving one-word an-
“bourgeois bodily discretion to political
and social hypocrisy.” “Circus
of Books” winds up domesticating
porn, literally turning it into
a middle-class family business —
though its very wholesomeness
and optimism are subversive.
The fi lm also depicts a time when
a lack of discretion could make you
a social pariah or even get you arrested.
Karen struggled to reconcile
her work with her conservative
Jewish values. The Masons were
very cagey about which friends
they told what they did, and even
the most tolerant approved only on
a partial basis. Sound familiar?
At a time when the majority of
gay men had to stay in the closet,
the Masons wound up in that
same closet. A more serious problem
arose when they got caught up
in the Reagan administration’s attempt
to censor porn, with Barry
getting prosecuted for shipping fi ve
videotapes to Pennsylvania.
In its last half, “Circus of Books’
becomes a more personal story.
Rachel does not reveal much about
herself. But she explores the way
her family compartmentalized
things. Her mother’s contradictions
came to a breaking point when Rachel’s
brother Josh came out. Rachel
is queer herself, and she mentions
STREAMING FILM
that her circle of punk and
artist friends in high school might
have been “too gay,” scaring her
more conventional brother away
from accepting his identity.
But the fact that her own son
is gay broke down barriers Karen
had established in her mind,
where she felt okay making money
off gay men but still thought being
gay was wrong on some level. After
initial reluctance, the Masons
joined PFLAG and participated in
Pride Parades.
That’s a heartwarming, uplifting
story. But the other arc of “Circus
of Books” is a downward trajectory.
Rachel fi lms the business shutting
down. Thanks to Pornhub and the
ubiquity of porn online elsewhere,
one can watch vast quantities of it
without ever going outside, much
less buying magazines and DVDs.
But that’s led to the death of community
represented by bars and
places like Circus of Books.
The possibilities for human connection
even in the most casual
sex have moved online. “Circus of
Books” describes the ways retail
stores forge community, rather
than just being capitalist outposts,
and suggests what we’ve lost now
that we’re trapped at home — involuntarily
or otherwise.
swers. He is an amazing actor but
did not want to speak as himself.
When we resumed, people lost their
place. The mistakes humanize the
actors. We don’t care because it’s
entertaining nonetheless.”
“Stars in the House” is a surprise
hit, though it’s tricky to measure
exact viewership. Rudetsky says
they attract thousands of viewers
per live episode, and since most
shows are archived via Facebook
➤ FOR GEEKS, continued on p.19
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GayCityNews.com | April 23 - May 6, 2020 17
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