Age Of Consent

By: BiBoyLV

By: Amos Lassen

"Age of Consent"
The Hoist and Gay Liberation
Amos Lassen
Directors Todd Vero and Charles Lum's "The Age of Consent" is the story of the Hoist, London's first and only Gay Fetish Bar, and it happens that it coincides with the political struggle to decriminalize homosexual activity within the United Kingdom. We hear men talking about how they believe the sex act to be a revolution in itself and that the bar here, the S&M club almost single-handedly brought about gay liberation in England by providing a friendly place for guys to fist each other.
Between seeing characters actually having all kinds of sex, the owners of the club, its clients, and its workers talk monotonously However, when the erudite gay activist Peter Tatchell is interviewed, the viewer gets a truly vivid and detailed sense of the repression that Britain's homosexuals have had to bear throughout the decades.
Tatchell is followed by Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, one of the earliest physicians to treat those coming down with AIDS in New York City and the co-author of the first safe sex guide for gay men. Sonnabend uses part of his interview time to state that noted AIDS activist Dr. Lawrence Mass called him a "mass murderer," and he then puts down activist Larry Kramer and the Gay Men's Health Crisis, sidestepping the issue of why his reputation was held in slight disrepute by many. Sonnabend was considered a person who denied the existence of HIV/AIDS. "Poz" magazine stated, "Until the late '90s, Sonnabend was outspoken against the notion that HIV had been proved to cause the disease."
The film chronicles how this alternative scene has evolved since 1996, an it looks at the possible causes of fetishes.
"Age of Consent" is explicit and leaves little to the imagination. The documentary opens with the line "The story of The Hoist is the story of gay sex," and from there we go on journey into a safe space where the libido reigns and judgment is nonexistent and fully exposed on the big screen. It would have been impossible to make a movie like this 40 years ago and as you watch it, you will understand why. Attitudes toward gay sex have greatly changed.
Everything about the film is hardcore gay, starting with the explicit sex and winding through the gay male sexual history of modern London. The film shows unapologetic sexuality with a political bent.
"The story of The Hoist is sex, it's gay sex, male on male fetish sex. The Hoist opened in 1996. Since it's opening in the 90s, it has been met with fears of arrest, the AIDS epidemic and generation changes but it is still active today. This is one of many documentaries that we have had about sex and the LGBT community yet this is unique in that it does not yield to societal demands and it totally
unapologetic with its incredibly graphic scenes. There is a scene with LGBT activist Peter Tatchell explaining how the police would set up gay men in the 1980s, and while he extensively explains the situation, two patrons of The Hoist happily demonstrate why the club is called The Hoist.
The film, at times, seems to be more of an educational video rather than taking us on a journey. It could have been the ideal documentary if it had concentrated on the journey of just one person. There is a point where we might actually get to experience The Hoist through the eyes of "anonymous" but it provides only a few minutes of screen time. This is a film that should be seen as a way to understand how some behave.