The main error in this regard is that before AIDS is mentioned, the film rolls out endless tales and pictures of hedonistic joy, set, as mentioned, to a groovy disco soundtrack, then fills the second act with trite reflections on how gay men were so marginalised, that society and their parents rejected them or threatened them with electro-shock therapy in the 1950s and so on and that therefore they were driven to the big smoke where an explosion of mutual acceptance and love expressed through sex was inevitable. Having covered its bases thus, the interesting reflections on AIDS that follow are undermined. The interviewees talk intelligently about AIDS, noting, for example, that the long dormancy period of HIV let "the whole thing get out the door before we could control it" and that "we fucked and fucked and fucked for four years before we realised what we were passing around and how", but it isn't long until Larry Kramer appears and celebrates the sense of brotherhood that came out of the early AIDS years (almost hilariously, Kramer sentimentally notes how wonderful it seemed to him that the same guys he partied with on Fire Island were now the ones that helped form the Gay Men's Health Crisis) and other talkers use words like "heroic" and phrases liked "transcend the limitations that had been placed on us at the time".

Production values are fairly poor, mini-DV level, and the format becomes repetitive quite quickly, but it's worth sitting through the (short 71 minute) running time to hearold gays remember seeing Shirley MacLaine in the audience at Bette Midler's show at the St. Marks Baths, where Midler marched in with a basket of poppers that she handed out to the crowd, or thinking about using condoms in the late 1970s but deciding not to. Unfortuantely, though details like this are juicy, we already knew that atmosphere that existed in gay New York in the 1970s, and all this movie does is dutifully and rather mindlessly chronicle it.

Additionally, the title is rather misleading as though we hear a lot about sex venues and see the odd xxx-pic or clip, there isn't a great deal of gay sex in Gay Sex in the 70's. There must be at least one hard-core leather queen still alive that could have shared with us the gory details of handball, douching and slings.

Related Reading:
Nighthawks
The Other Side of Aspen

Review by Mark Adnum