Once upon a time, there were no gay and lesbian sections in the video stores, no queer film festivals, no debates over whether or not showing gay men having sex was good for the gay community's image. There were definitely no major theatrical releases of big-budget films in which gay men had sex, and certainly no one ever dreamed a film like that could ever be nominated for an Oscar.
Here, AfterElton.com takes a look back at the most important and groundbreaking gay male sex scenes in films. These are films that for the most part had a major American theatrical release, even if it was of limited scope, with a few groundbreaking foreign, art house and GLBT film festival movies included as well. These criteria are admittedly somewhat subjective, so if you feel we've missed a film that broke new ground with its use of sex between men, let us know.
14. Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Just another "going to summer camp" movie? Not really. Set in 1981, Wet Hot American Summer has become a cult favorite, especially among gay viewers for its unabashedly positive portrayal of a gay couple — sex and all. In fact, the gay couple is the only one in the film who even has a sex scene, and it's played more for heat than laughs.
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| Bradley Cooper (left) and Michael Ian Black |
They're well-liked by everyone at camp, and their relationship is taken as seriously as the genre allows — and more so than the heterosexual relationships in the film. The film actually took some criticism for being too gay-positive, or perhaps straight-negative, which is definitely something new for a mainstream flick.
Hotness: 8
Romance: 5
Significance: 10
13. Latter Days (2003)
Latter Days is a nicely produced, possibly overambitious film that portrays a young gay Mormon man who falls in love with an actor/waiter in Los Angeles while doing his missionary work. The film dips into melodrama once or twice, but their relationship, including a beautiful and erotic sex scene in an airport hotel, is extremely sweet and romantic. A happy ending and Mormon underwear — it's a first.
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| Steve Sandvos (left) and Wes Ramsey in Latter Days |
Hotness: 8
Romance: 8
Significance: 7
12. HellBent (2004)
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| Dylan Fergus in Hellbent |
HellBent was the brainchild of writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts and Joseph Wolf (Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street). It's set at West Hollywood 's Halloween Carnival and focuses on a group of gay men just trying to make it through the night without getting killed. There's no gay-bashing angle, just your standard teen slasher flick with hot gay men standing in for hetero teens.
One couple gets killed after having sex in a car, and the lead guy and his new fella have a big sex scene at the end before the killer attacks them. As ever in slasher flicks, the wages of sex are apparently violent death, but it's the sexual orientation-neutral approach that makes HellBent a queer film first.
Hotness: 5
Romance: 5
Significance: 10
11. Brother to Brother (2004)
Brother to Brother focuses on Perry (Anthony Mackie), a young gay artist who has been thrown out of his family home after his parents find out he's gay, and his friendship with Bruce Nugent (Roger Robinson), a down-on-his-luck poet and artist who was in his youth an intimate of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and other famous figures of the Harlem Renaissance.
In an tale told in black-and-white flashbacks, viewers see the artistic, political and sexual struggles of the circle around Hughes interwoven with Perry's experiences as a gay man in the black community, as a black man in the gay world, as a student and as an artist.
A controversial element of the film's sex scenes is that, with one unclear exception, every single sex act is between a black and a white man. Perry and his friends do discuss the racial issues in his short affair with a white fellow student, but it's still a surprisingly unexplored territory in the film.
The dearth of images of black gay men having sex in the movies can't be overstated, and for that reason this one pretty much goes off the significance meter.
Hotness: 5
Romance: 5
Significance: 10
10. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
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| Jake Gyllenhaal (left) and Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain |
It would be hard to find anything new to say about Brokeback Mountain, and that's kind of the point. In addition to adding the word "brokeback" to the American vocabulary as slang for "gay," there has never been a gay-themed film that broke so many records — and hearts.
Brokeback Mountain was nominated for a staggering number of awards. To quote AfterElton.com's Michael Jensen, "During the awards' season leading up to Sunday night's Oscars, Brokeback Mountain became the most honored movie in cinematic history. It had more Best Picture and Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List and Titanic combined. Just to name a few, Brokeback won various awards at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA's, Venice Film Festival, NY Film Critic's Circle, LA Film Critics, National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Nothing could be this big and not generate a certain amount of controversy. Brokeback was not a happy film, and given the shortage of counterbalancing images of gay men in mainstream cinema, its relentlessly grim story line was a little bitter to some gay viewers. It did not, however, shy away from the sexual nature of the bond between the two lovers, and their first sexual encounter was raw and explicit — so much so that it raised a great deal of controversy on its own.
Probably the biggest controversy of all, however, was that despite its record number of nominations and awards, Brokeback didn't win the Oscar for best picture, prompting an unprecedented outcry against the Academy for homophobia and an ad campaign paid for by the donations of fans praising the film.
Hotness: 7
Romance: 8
Significance: 10
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