Joseph Lovett's documentary Gay Sex In The 70s has an intentionally provocative title, but anyone with any knowledge of gay history will know what it signifies. In 1969, the Stonewall Riots in New York effectively beat back the criminalization of homosexual acts in the city, and in 1981, the first cases of AIDS began to curtail promiscuous sexual behavior among gay men. The decade between was a free-for-all, with gay sex occurring openly in bars, bathhouses, parks, and piers. Homosexuals from Middle American small towns came to New York looking for a sense of community, and instead found an opportunity to let their libidos loose in ways that even straight people couldn't. The liberated atmosphere spread to the high and low arts, and the mainstream began to adopt gay fashion and gay mannerisms without even realizing it.
Lovett's lively, impassioned, well-structured documentary is enhanced by stacks of explicit photos and the reminiscences of men who lived through the decade. And "lived" is the right word. The interviewees are mostly professionals and intellectuals, and though they're slightly smirky about their past exploits, they're far from ashamed. They boast about the danger of stepping into pitch-dark truck bays in the meatpacking district, risking getting robbed for the sake of an anonymous encounter, and they wax rhapsodic about the wonderland that was Fire Island, which became a sovereign homeland for homosexuals, and the ultimate symbol of gay acceptance. But hedonism begat harder hedonism, and the scene evolved from pot-smoking and outdoor trysts to poppers and leather bars. Gay-specific STDs like anal warts and throat gonorrhea gave way to an AIDS epidemic that spread widely, in part because the symptoms were slow to develop and in part because its victims were too used to having odd ailments.
Lovett tries too hard to put a positive spin on how AIDS has affected the personal responsibility of gay men today, and he misses a chance to make a broader point. His evocation of gay New York's golden age is so entrancing that it might make viewers ache a little, and wonder why, in today's repressive climate, people can see sex, drugs, and gambling on TV, but can't find local, public places to put the dream into action. Lovett's narrow scope in Gay Sex In The 70s produces an understandably narrow conclusion, but it still would've been thrilling for Lovett to insist more firmly on the citizenry's inalienable right to fuck and get fucked.