BijouBlog

Lon Flexx, born David Lee Anderson, was one of those performers who did so much and died so young. He wasn't wild and at times unfocused like the great nineteenth century opera singer Maria Malibran who would ride a horse all day and sing all night and also find time to visit a hospital for dying children, or like THE Judy, who could sing and dance and act all night but killed herself to do it. Lon, as one Bijou reviewer notes, “might have been fucking like Whitney and Bobby on a crack binge, but at Little Jackie-O always shone through the sweat.” 

Lon made over thirty gay porn films, the bulk of which were made between 1989 and 1992, including two Bijou classics, He-Devils and Tough Guys Do Dance. He made other films such as Sleeping Under the Stars (according to one gossipy source, Lon wore a hairpiece in this one), Heat in the Night, and Davey and The Cruisers. 
 

One memorable scene in He-Devils features Lon Flexx dreaming of beefcake Alex Stone in a railroad tunnel. Alex strips from macho clothing and fondles his chest and tits. Rubbing his tits hard, Alex jacks off as the camera offers larger-than-life close-ups. Both Lon and Alex take to beating off in this red-lighted segment. 

Later, after Lon wakes, his buddy and traveler, Michael Braun, imagines himself with lovely Lon in a bathroom of a hotel. Uncut and handsome Michael sucks Lon off before being fucked up the ass. Their oral sex is excellently photographed, too, with lots of saliva dripping from cock and mouth. 
 

In one scene from Tough Guys Do Dance, called “Phone Call From a Stranger,” a young man in a tuxedo (Lon Flexx) is seen cruising dark alleys when a nearby pay phone rings. He answers it and a mysterious voice instructs him to come to an apartment across the street. He arrives to find a nude man masturbating. The man reveals an extraordinarily large cock. The young visitor slowly strips out of his clothes and joins the stranger for sex that is sensuous and also somewhat threatening. 

The consensus about Lon's legacy is that he was passionate, not mechanical, in his performances. He combined, as he shows in the scene from Tough Guys Do Dance, sensuality and power. 
 

And perhaps the power came from a confidence about his own sexuality. In an interview with Manshots magazine in October 1990, he mentions how he danced with other guys in a straight bar after helping in a fundraising drive for a local opera company (class act, he was!) when he was going to the University of Oklahoma. Not exactly the jolly tearoom for gays, especially in the 1980s.

Lon reflected, “We danced all night – and sure we got some stares, even some gawks, but nobody said a word to us. And at the same time, at the other college, guys were getting beat up for just attending gay meetings on campus. People don't mess with you when you feel strongly about something. I never forgot that, and that's how I decided to live my life.” 

And he lived his life with power and passion and integrity, but we lost him too soon, as he succumbed to something unfortunately more powerful, AIDS, at the age of thirty. 

“An overly sensitive person, incapable of dealing with any opinions that differ from their own. These people can often be seen congregating in ‘safe zones’ on college campuses.” 

Thus saith the Urban Dictionary, perhaps summarizing this new idiom bandied about by mostly conservative pundits. 

I find the comparison, actually, rather inept, because what is snowflake, literally? 

Wikepedia gives you the answer: 

A snowflake is either a single ice crystal or an aggregation of ice crystals which falls through the Earth's atmosphere as snow. Each flake nucleates around a dust particle in supersaturated air masses by attracting supercooled cloud water droplets, which freeze and accrete in crystal form. Complex shapes emerge as the flake moves through differing temperature and humidity zones in the atmosphere, such that individual snowflakes differ in detail from one another, but may be categorized in eight broad classifications and at least 80 individual variants. 

What I am getting from this definition is strength and diversity. In fact, no two snowflakes actually look alike (like people, even twins). Perhaps the fear of diversity could perhaps be read into the pundits’ use of the word here, but, as the definition above states, a snowflake or a group of snowflakes are originally ice crystal. Yes, the original ice melts, but its impact as snow can be quite powerful: 

Once snowflakes land and accumulate, they undergo metamorphosis with changes in temperature and coalesce into a snowpack. The characteristics of the snowpack reflect the changed nature of the constituent snow crystals. 
 

Yes, get a bunch of snowflakes together, and watch out. The resulting impact, morphing the sarcastic words of Ida in Mildred Pierce when she pointedly refers to Mildred’s gigolo boyfriend/husband/stepfather and lover of the spoiled Veda (eerily like the winner of the election in his narcissism and amorality): Don't look now, Junior, but you're standing next to a falling snowpack. 
 

I wish the retro Chicagoland figure Suzy Snowflake could, like Glinda threatens to do to the Wicked Witch of the West, just say begone, lest someone drop a house on you, to the forces of evil that are taking over this land. 
 

In fact, at this juncture, it’s small comfort to lapse into the cliché that after winter comes spring, which would not occur without the healing, cleansing darkness and beauty (just look at snowflakes close-up) of winter. 

I do think, though, that snowflakes like me who really believe in truth and beauty, if not causing a violent avalanche, can work behind the scenes, like the seed in the ground growing secretly, to overcome the evil so that we don’t face a silent spring where no birds sing. 

While going through the Bijou Video file cabinets in search of inspiration, George Payne of Centurians of Rome fame (and one of my initial gay porn crushes, ah, those “mesmerizing dark eyes”) reveals all in an absolutely fabulous 1979 interview with Mandate magazine, called “The Pleasure Payne Principle.” 
 

Digging deeper into his inimitable sex appeal, which a previous interview inMandate defined as luminosity, George is definitely clear about his physicality: I'm not a muscle man … I'm only five feet, seven inches tall, and weight one-hundred-fifty-five pounds.” Big things come in small packages. He always seems tall to me; perhaps it is his carriage, reminding me of another small person who filled the screen, my gay icon, Joan Crawford. 

And his diet, which has obviously worked, consists of one meal a day, a lot of coffee, and too many cigarettes. Again, he seems to be channeling Joan; that was her diet, especially in the early days of MGM. 

And there's another parallel to Joan (not the porn! Joan did not make any porn loops). George was on his own since he was fifteen. Yes, he's totally self-made. He had to drop out of college to care for a sick relative, but he was always self-supporting. Early gigs before his porn career included singing at the Big Top, a porno theater in a take-off of the soap opera spoof, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. He even did imitations of Bela Lugosi! 

Another interesting tidbit about George. He never stripped live on stage, and he also never played a heavy leather guy (my heart faints when I imagine him in full leather), because, he says, “I always leave alone in films – meaning I live alone – which is something I do in my private life.” 
 

It's like he understood, like Joan, the whole royal “daylight and magic” dichotomy; he entices the most by always leaving the viewer (and his captors in Centurians of Rome) hungering for more, beginning with that stargaze that says silently: “I dare you to want me. And if I do take you, or let you take me, it will be more than you ever dared.” 
 

1986 was a scary time. The AIDS crisis was at its height, and according to one gay rag from the period, called Bohemian Bugle (for the Las Vegas/Reno crowd), the Lyndon LaRouche anti-gay initiative as on the ballots. This initiative, had it passed, would have allowed persons with AIDS, and even persons suspected of AIDS, to be fired from jobs, expelled as students or teachers, and even subject to involuntary quarantine and medical observation. Yes, frightening, and it showed at that time the baleful influence of Anita Bryant was still present, and the fear and ignorance about AIDS heightened Bryant supporter's homophobia to the point of hysteria. 

And yet, in 1986, even though AIDS had begun to decimate the population of gay porn stars, many stars were still active and expanding their repertoire. For example, Rick “Humongous” Donovan, in an interview with Bill Brody of the Bohemian Bugle, proclaims that in his new movie Dynastud will focus on showing “more affection” between the players. In fact, more kissing will occur. He claims that much of this shift from just showing varying types of sexual positions comes from his “being more comfortable with strangers.” (Some might call this statement an attempt to grope with the artistic license that comes from suspension of belief in the film genre!) 
 

Anonymous, impersonal sex (in real life and in porn) can of course be a turn on, and the focus on the sex act itself is obviously aimed at the viewer's dick rather than his heart is a key element in pornography, but one wonders if there is something in this statement that reflects a shift in emphasis. AIDS was directly caused by sex, and much of the sex was anonymous, occurring in places like bathhouses. Why not then try and show show that sex and affection, even love, don't need to bifurcate in the experience of gay men? 

Now, what's really interesting about Donovan's statement is that many of the earlier gay porn, pre-AIDS, pre-condom filmmakers were concerned as well with affection, and romance, essentially, relationships as well. Directors such as Jack Deveau, Tom DeSimone, and Steve Scott all made movies with stories that focused on diverse, complex relationships between gay men, as they now had an audience that was able to wrestle with these issues as well as express long-repressed fantasies in the wake of Stonewall and the sexual liberation tangent of the 1970s. 

So many of the Bijou Classics we carry show this development, trying to make the sex an organic part of the plot and character development in gay porn films.

For example, there is Peter de Rome's Adam and Yves, set in Paris, and the city itself is something of a character in the film as it probes the mysterious relationship between Michael Hardwick and Marcus Giovanni. 
 

And there is The Idol, a porn film from Tom DeSimone some have called the "ultimate coming out story." It realistically and sensitively examines emotional, psychological and sexual exploration with honesty and a point of view, a rare accomplishment in adult film. 

Paralleling the story of The Idol, the Steve Scott film Track Meet (theatrically released in 1976) presents a the tension in coming out and self-acceptance for a young track star (lean, long-legged, saucer-eyed Gavin Geoffrey). Romance, strength, affection and lovemaking are explored by Gavin as he discovers himself and the world of gay sex. 

Check out some of Bijou's classic “story porn” titles at our website,bijouworld.com, and you can also stream them instantly at bijougayporn.com. 
 

This year's Summer Olympics is perhaps the most openly LGBTQ, despite an undercurrent of homophobia. For example, a marriage proposal between two women occurred, Tom Daley brought his fiance Dustin Lance Black, and Chris Mosier (pictured below) became the first out transgender athlete on the U.S. men’s national team when he qualified in the sprint duathlon earlier this year.  
 

Still, though the path to full acceptance based on merit is still rocky at times, one must remember that it was just thirty years ago the main venue for LGBTQ athletes to compete was not the mainstream Olympics, but the Gay Games, held in San Francisco. Guest M.C. Rita Mae Brown introduced the event, which featured 3,482 athletes from 17 countries, 37 states, 261 cities, in 17 sports. Some of the competitions included women's power lifting, long distance running, women's softball, men's baseball, swimming, track, volleyball, wrestling, soccer, racquetball, basketball, golf, and tennis. 

The founder and president of the Gay Games, Dr. Tom Waddell, gave a speech about the games the Procession of the Arts. The mayor of San Francisco at the time, Dianne Feinstein, offered her support to this groundbreaking event. 

  

Too often the Summer Olympics for many gay men (stereotyped as not exactly sports-oriented), has been more of a “ogle at bulges” fest (OK, I am so “guilty” of this!) than a celebration of athletic achievement in the face of often very difficult obstacles (more so for many openly LGBTQ athletes). 

I say rejoice in the beautiful bodies (oh, that Tongan flagbearer, currently the hit of Instagram) and the progress of LGBTQ equality, but also remember, in this case, that it's what you can do is ultimately the both the reason for and the spirit of this event, not who you are or aren't.