"He was treating me like trash, and I was loving it...": perspectives in gay male pornography

As the topic of gay male pornography has received limited attention from social scientists, little is known about how gay men perceive this medium. In the current study, a focus group methodology was used whereby participants examined specific scenes from commercially available gay pornography in terms of the messages they disseminate about the body and gay sexuality, in general. Findings suggest that discussants tended to view the medium from a utilitarian perspective. They saw pornography as a masturbatory aid, and did not believe that it possessed much significance vis-à-vis gay men's attitudes and behaviours. Those who identified potentially negative influences of this medium saw them as transitory and most likely to occur among gay men other than themselves.