The production of gay porn films expanded during the 1970s. A few studios released films for the growing number of gay adult theatres, where men could also have sexual encounters. Often, the films reflected the sexual liberation that gay men were experiencing at the time, depicting the numerous public spaces where men engaged in sex: bathhouses, sex clubs, beaches, etc. Most of the productions used a cast of muscular and hairy men, which would become a hallmark of the gay erotic aesthetic of the decade.[citation needed]

The 1970s also saw the rise of gay publishing. During this time many magazines were founded, including In Touch, Blueboy, and Playgirl, which, while ostensibly produced for women, were purchased and enjoyed by gay men.

[edit] 1980s: Videotapes, AIDS, and gay for pay
The 1980s were a period of transition for gay porn film. On one side, the development of video technology would radically change the gay and straight adult industry. The proliferation of VCRs made porn videos easily accessible. As the prices of video players fell during the decade, the market for home videos aimed at adult viewers became more and more lucrative. By the mid-1980s, the standard was to shoot porn movies directly on video, which meant the wide disappearance of porn theaters. Furthermore, video recording being more affordable, a multitude of producers entered the market, making low-budget porn videos.

This shift from watching pornography as a public activity to doing so in private was also influenced by the discovery of the HIV virus and the subsequent AIDS crisis. Public spaces for sex, such as theatres, became less attended when in the early 1980s it became a much riskier behavior. Masturbatory activities in the privacy of the home became a safe sex practice in the midst of this health crisis.

Gay movies of the 1970s had contained some exploration of novel ways to represent the sexual act. In the 1980s, movies seemed all to be made under an unwritten set of rules and conventions. Most scenes would start with a few lines of dialogue, have performers engage in foreplay (fellatio), followed by anal penetration, and ending with a visual climax close-up of ejaculating penises, called a "money shot" or cum shot. Video technology allowed the recording of longer scenes than did the costly film stock. Scenes were often composed of extended footage of the same act filmed from different shots using multiple cameras. The quality of the picture and sound were often very poor.

Big directors like Matt Sterling, John Travis, and William Higgins set the standard for the models of the decade. The performers they cast were especially young, usually appearing to be around the ages of 22 or 23. Their bodies were slender and hairless, of the "swimmer’s build" type, which contrasted with the older, bigger, and hairier man of 70s gay porn. Performer roles also evolved into the tight divisions of "tops" and "bottoms". The "top" in anal sex is the penetrating partner, who would typically have a more muscular body and the larger penis. The "bottom," or receiver of anal sex, would often be smaller and sometimes more effeminate. The stars of the decade were almost always tops, while the bottoms were interchangeable (with the exception of Joey Stefano, a popular star, who was more of a "bottom".)

This strict division between "tops" and "bottoms" may have reflected a preference by some of the popular directors of the decade to hire heterosexual men for their movies. Heterosexual men who perform gay sex for monetary reasons (commonly labeled "gay-for-pay") are considered a rare commodity in the gay sex trade, but the biggest producers of the decade could afford them. Many critics attributed the conventionalization of gay porn of the 80s to this trend. Straight men performing gay sex in these movies often did not show as much passion as could be apparent in sexual acts between genuine homosexuals. They may have shown dynamic activity during anal sex, but often stood motionless as their co-star engaged in fellatio upon them, and rarely engaged in kissing or caressing.[citation needed]

[edit] 1990s: Explosion of the niche market
The gay porn industry diversified steadily in the 1990s. In 1989, director Kristen Bjorn started a porn company which would set a new standard for gay porn producers. He was a professional photographer, and the images in his videos had a high technical quality. Also a former gay porn performer himself, he directed his models with care, which helped improved the actors’ believability. Other directors had to improve their technical quality to keep up with ever more demanding viewers.

Another significant change during this decade was the explosion of the niche market. Many videos began to be produced for viewers with specific tastes (i.e. for amateur porn, transsexual performers, bondage fetishes, performers belonging to specific ethnic groups, etc.), and this led to a huge diversification of the people involved in porn production and consumption.