The Booksellers: Directed by D.W. Young. Wh Parker Posey, Fran Lebowz, Gay Tale, Rose Annis. A behd-the-scen look at the New York rare book world." data-id="ma
Contents:
THE MOM-AND-POP BOOKSTORE THAT SOLD GAY PORN: 'CIRC OF BOOKS'
* gay bookstore documentary *
Long before the ter ma easier than ever for people to fd like-md folks, gay bookstor were metropolan statns where an eager (or utly cur) dividual uld disver their sexual inty—and meet others like them. Of urse, “bookstore” is a slightly more rpectable term for what Circ of Books actually was; while did sell LGBTQ lerature, the bulk of s ventory volved sex, makg proprietors Karen and Barry Mason two of the biggt distributors of gay porn the while the Masons were at the center of LA’s queer muny, they were hardly out and proud about their work their private liv.
Directed by the Masons’ dghter Rachel, Circ of Books, executive produced by Ryan Murphy, works bt as a love letter to her parents, two surprisgly passnate figur the gay muny who wouldn’t have been so nnected if they weren’t sellg porn and sex toys to their clientele. ) Wh bs boomg the gayborhood, the Masons expand their enterprise the ls ostentat Silver Lake neighborhood—jt up Sunset Boulevard om the Black Cat, where pre-Stonewall monstratns took place 1967 after the gay bar was raid by the rise of the Masons’ most empire cid wh both the burgeong AIDS crisis and the moral panic agast pornography led by Reagan Republins and the Christian right, which led to Barry Mason beg nvicted on obsceny charg (a flimsy se that amounted to him beg ma an example the middle of a culture war). Karen’s abily to partmentalize her work om her own inty is pecially fascatg as we watch her attend a tra show dited to sex toys one scene, only to learn she stggled to e to terms wh her gay son another.
The documentary is centered on a straight-owned Los Angel bookstore that was at one pot the largt distributor of gay pornography the untry. * gay bookstore documentary *
Her relig life as a member of the Los Angel Jewish muny was direct odds wh her profsnal experience—orrg bulk shipments of DVDs, dildos, and poppers to sell to her mostly gay male ctomers—wh the two sis kept as separate as evable element of the documentary is that the Masons’ Circ of Books ultimately failed—and you don’t have to live Los Angel to know why the shop shutters by the end of the documentary. The gay bookstore, as an stutn, was threatened by two cultural shifts.
Gay men no longer have to hang around the alley behd a porn shop to fd sexual partners—and not jt bee of hookup apps like Grdr.
You n see no better evince of this than the newt eratn of the Wt Hollywood Circ of Books, which reopened and rebrand as Chi Chi Lae’s Circ, now a hybrid sex shop and art gallery that speaks to the gentrifitn of gay culture. Before Sean Penn played the charismatic, martyred gay polician a dramatized film, we got to see the real Harvey Milk this documentary om director Rob Epste.