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Coming of Age: Problematizing Gay Porn and the Eroticised Older Man

This essay discusses my experience of researching gay pornography over a twenty year period between 1992 and 2012 alongside an analysis of the contemporary re-emergence of the mature male as figure of sexual interest in gay pornography.

One of the functions that gay pornography performs has been to articulate ideals of sexual desire and alternative bodies and modes of representation have often been relegated from view or situated as abject.

The advent of the internet has created conditions in which a diversity of types and modes of representation can proliferate alongside an exponential expansion (and bifurcation) of the market. Recent years have seen the increased popularity of so-called ‘Daddy Porn’ catering for (and creating) an interest in the older man and the mature body as a site of erotic fascination.

The essay discusses the implications of this development by focusing on the narrative, discursive and representational strategies of texts that present the older male as a sexual figure. The essay assesses the extent to which ‘Daddy Porn’ might be regarded as a progressive turn or whether this mode of representation is a reassertion of patriarchal masculinity and a problematic eroticization of abusive power dynamics.

The essay is a summation of work that has formed the backbone of my research activities and output during the REF audit period. This piece also indicates the direction that future work will take as it is lays the groundwork for the research for the monograph More than Meets the Eye: Masculinity, Representation and Gay Pornography, IBTauris, 2015/16. This work has aided in mentoring colleagues such as Oliver Carter whose research interests intersect around questions of sexual representation. As a result, Carter has become involved as a peer reviewer for the Porn Studies journal (I am reviews editor and inner editorial board member).