GayDemon's review of Vintage Gay Loops

Here's a site for those looking for gay videos from the golden age of porn. It's called Vintage Gay Loops, and the tour offers previews of 37 videos shot when men had natural unshaved bodies, most porn was condom-free and almost everyone wore a mustache. There are few claims - in fact, only one: "A gallery of never before seen historic and classic gay erotica" - but every video has a trailer so you can get an idea of what the site has to offer. Want to know more? Then join me for a trip down memory lane to the days of disco balls and viagra-free porn as I boogie down and take a look at the member area of Vintage Gay Loops.

The member home page is pretty standard. There are navigation links running across the top of the page, followed by the latest update, shown with a pic, info, description and link, followed by some more recent updates and an ad. The site updates weekly, with a recent exception where a week was skipped. Updates aren't quite regular, but are very close. You can search by category via a dropdown menu on the upper right, and there are support links on the bottom of the page.

There are currently 37 videos, each offered in your choice of downloadable WMVs and streaming Flash. The WMVs come in 2 sizes, the high resolution versions shown at 720x480 with a bitrate of a little over 2 Mbps and the smaller ones shown at 360x240 at around 800k or so. The larger videos are a little lower in quality than the smaller ones, but since these are classic porn videos, I'd say they're about average.

The streaming Flash vids are about the same size and quality as the larger WMVs. All videos are full scenes and are DRM-free, but one thing worth mentioning is that it's very unlikely that these videos were remastered as their quality is the same as un-remastered vintage porn I've seen. Still, if you like the real thing, these videos deliver.

Each video comes with a set of screencaps. These are shown at 720x480 like the vids and are similar in quality. Quality is low, but considering that these are vintage video screencaps, they're actually not bad at all. The "gallery of never before seen historic and classic gay erotica" in the Vintage Photos section turns out to be a small collection of non-clickable scans from box covers, with all the titles and info cut off. I'd have been more interested to see the actual front and back covers with all the info - as a gallery, I found it disappointing.

The men of Vintage Gay Loops are just what you'd expect. They have nice normal bodies rather than gym-built perfect physiques, and almost no one shaves their chest or their pubic hair. Many have those mustaches guys wore in the late 70's and the 80's, and those hairsprayed hair cuts. Most of the guys are attractive, but by today's standards they look more like amateurs than pornstars - which, IMO, is a good thing. The sex in these videos feels a lot more natural. What I mean is that the guys seem to be fucking and sucking because they want to, not because they have a career in porn. There are a couple jackoff videos, but for the most part the content here is hardcore classic porn.

I did find some issues with this site. There's a pre-checked offer on the join page if you back off of the join page, a pop-up with a fake rep appears. It goes away easily if you keep hitting back or go elsewhere. Others I have mentioned - the videos aren't remastered as claimed and that the gallery of historic and classic gay erotica is just 13 cropped scans from box covers. Nevertheless, if you're here for the videos, these issues aren't really a problem.

The site extras are in the free area as well as the member area - a blog about the history of gay porn with a few small box covers and the "Pride Timeline", which includes a list with dates of important happenings in the history of gay pride. The timeline includes some events and periods you may not have heard of, and make interesting reading.

I was disappointed that the video descriptions rarely include the names of the performer. They also didn't mention the names of the movie each video was from, what year they were produced or what studio they were from. I think this kind of info adds a lot of interest value to classic and vintage gay porn sites, and I'm crossing my fingers this info might be added at a later date.

If you're looking for gay porn from the 1970s to around the early 1990s, Vintage Gay Loops delivers. Their 37 videos are from the classic days of porn, when men were unshaved many had mustaches and disco-style hair, and most of the action was pre-condom. The videos are downloadable and DRM-free, and with a single messup, the site updates weekly with a video and set of screencaps. Updates aren't quite regular, but they're very close. I liked the blog and the timeline, and would consider them recommended reading. The site has some good stuff going for it, although they didn't come through on all their tour claims. Still, I'd still consider Vintage Gay Loops as definitely worth checking out for fans of classic gay porn.

Things we liked:

• Classic / vintage gay content
• Videos are downloadable
• No DRM used
• Can do 4+ simultaneous downloads
• Video info on each episode page includes date added

Things we didn't like:

• Pre-checked offer on join page
• Pop-up appears when exiting join page
• Pics cannot be right-clicked and saved
• Historic porn gallery is just 13 cropped box covers
• Videos are not remastered as claimed on the tour

Click here to visit Vintage Gay Loops