They may have appeared in other genres of pornography, including bisexual and heterosexual porn. Many of these men have also appeared in other forms of pornography, such as pornographic magazines. The men listed here are known to have appeared in a gay porn film however, this does not necessarily mean they are gay-see gay-for-pay.
Multiple pseudonyms are utilized for a variety of reasons including legal constraints, the appearance of having more actors working at a studio, an actor's wishing to disguise how many films he is working on or that he is doing work for another studio, etc. Some performers have many pseudonyms and stage names (indicated here by a.k.a.). The list includes male actors in gay pornographic films who may be notable for their gay pornography and those who may be notable for other reasons or both.
Several major shifts affected the gay porn industry: the advent of home video when anyone could purchase a movie to view in private the AIDS pandemic, which compelled models to be extremely healthy-looking and caused safer sex depictions to become the standard on-screen and the emergence of the Internet allowing live streaming, social networking and amateur pornography to change how stars are discovered, marketed and even viewed as the films do not have to be copied, packaged and delivered, although those options remain. Over time the " heterosexual adult industry blossomed in Southern California" and often included gay content. The modern roots of films can be traced to the early 1970s when movies were shown in New York theaters. Gay pornographic films trace their origins to the Athletic Model Guild, founded in Los Angeles in 1945, which produced photographs and still images later turned into films and porn loops. The gay market is estimated to be five to ten percent of the overall adult market. Pornography has become more mainstream and as of 2009 was a $13 billion industry in the United States globally consumers spent more than US$3000 on porn every second of every day, in 2009. This is a list of notable men who have appeared in gay pornographic films. 6 gay pornographic actors during the 2010 Blatino Erotica Awards