Gay Sex in the ‘70s comes out inthe Castro on Jan. 20. Photo by Tom Biaci

“I wanted the good part of the era to be told before we all died,” says filmmaker Joseph Lovett from his home in New York about why he made his documentary, Gay Sex in the ‘70s. The film depicts gay male sexual behavior during the period between the Stonewall riots and the onset of the AIDS crisis. “It was such a sexually charged era, we wanted to capture that. This is a film about sex,” Lovett explains. To wit, Lovett does capture this era of sex artfully. His film showcases the piers, the baths, and the trucks in New York City where gay men could go to have sex with just about anyone just about anytime. Using personal narratives, photographs, and films from the period, he constructs a mosaic about this particular time and place, creating a very moving gay history in the process. Lovett interviews several of his friends about the time, and their experiences, including the artist Tom Bianchi and the activist Larry Kramer, as well as lesser known folks, such as Arnie Kantrowitz and Alvin Baltrop. These interviews reveal fascinating personal stories about being gay and sexually active in the free love era. And if the filmmaker limited the interviews to his friends, and his setting to New York, this was a deliberate decision on his part. “I planned to interview more people, and better-known people,” he said, “but after we did these interviews, we felt we had the story. It’s a short film, not an opus on the era. I had no interest in doing a survey piece.”

Significantly, Lovett himself is interviewed on camera about his experiences during the decade, and his observations are quite illuminating. “I didn’t want to pretend that I wasn’t part of the period. I thought it was just more honest to be in it. It’s my period, too,” he says, defending his inclusion in the film. Besides, Lovett, acknowledges, “When you ask anyone you know to talk about intimate details of their lives, it’s not fair not to do it yourself.” As for his own memories of the era, Lovett said that he did go to Studio 54 “a bit,” and he frequented clubs like The 10th Floor, Paradise Garage, and the Saint, as well as places like the St. Marks Baths. But he claims, “I never went to the trucks. I went to the piers once, just to have the experience. It was less scary than I thought it would be.”

Growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovett became started to become political in his college days. “I think breaking through that [puritanical society] was really important. The Gay Revolution was part of other revolutions I was part of—I was a strike leader at Columbia in 1968. I marched against the war, and for civil rights, and for women’s rights. You could go to jail for having a gay sexual experience or smoking a joint [at that time]. These were all revolutionary acts, especially coming from a middle class environment.” This background obviously prompted Lovett to make this film and work with issues of AIDS and gay male sexuality. “I‘ve done a great deal of work on AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, and I was thinking that this 12-year period was remarkably free. Great things sprang from a terrible time [pre- Stonewall]. People stopped to examine all of this foolishness they have been taught—and they challenged it. They lived senssually, and it was an amazing experiment, except for AIDS.” Gay Sex in the ‘70s truly captures the various attitudes about sexual freedom and gay rights, interspersing gay pride marches and AIDS demonstrations with explicit sexual images and copious nudity. Viewers may be surprised at the amount of erotic content in the film, which includes excerpts from porno films along with simulated sex. “We decided not to show insertion,” Lovett clarifies about the film footage used in the film. “We weren’t interested in doing a pornographic film, and we didn’t want stuff in there gratuitously, but I think it’s pretty hot.” Ultimately, the filmmaker says that his intention with the film was to cover “the evolving sexual awareness.” Given the quality of his images and interviews, Gay Sex in the ‘70s” does this in an enlightening way. People who remember the era will look back fondly, and perhaps sadly on the time, while anyone under 40 will be fascinated by what once was.