Part of that is because any look at porno history, gay or straight, must include Wakefield Poole’s classic, arty skin flick, Boys in the Sand, which ironically borrows its name from Mart Crowley’s pivotal 1968 gay play Boys in the Band. “I’m not sure he’s any more important than any given storyline, but the idea that we would try to tell the story and not have a homosexual component would be an affront, I think.”
It might surprise some that a show about the porn biz and Times Square’s pimps and prostitutes would include that experience, but Simon saw it as essential: “The idea that you can tell the story of sexual commodification or pornography or sex work and not include the world of the Village and the gay community in New York, that would just be fundamentally unsound,” says Simon.
