INTERVIEW – The Unlikely History of a Gay Porn Landmark: Filmmaker Rachel Mason on the Netflix doc she made about her parents who ran a gay porn empire

Gay porn is not what straight, religious-conservative married couple Barry and Karen Mason thought they’d become known for. But for over 35 years, they owned a bookstore that sold videos like "Confessions of a Two Dick Slut" and "Meat Me at the Fair" in West Hollywood. And now thanks to their daughter, filmmaker and artist Rachel Mason, her parents’ story is a Netflix documentary.

For the couple, however, selling and producing gay porn was just business as usual. Hard times forced Karen, a former journalist, and Barry, a former special visual effects engineer who worked on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, to think fast, so they took over Circus of Books, which became a queer cultural institution. Karen and Barry, who still own the building even though Circus of Books closed in 2019, would go on to become wealthy LGBTQ activists and PFLAG parents.

But in the 1980s, the business was kept a secret from their three children, including Rachel and her gay brother Josh, who appear in Circus of Books along with former porn star Jeff Stryker and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars winner Alaska Thunderfuck. TV titan Ryan Murphy executive produced the film.

Here, Mason discusses the power of straight parents as activists, what it says about porn that celebs who shopped at the store won’t openly admit it, and the awkward dinner table talk her parents have with her partner, transsexual porn star and activist Buck Angel.

RM: That’s her whole constant mantra: No one’s gonna care, this is not interesting to anybody. I think that was her way of having a smokescreen. Of course it’s actually fucking amazing that I’m like, "Deep penetration on these videos you made sent me to college." How could that not be interesting? You know, I think it’s her way of misdirecting, but also at the same time it could also be true for her: It was not interesting. This was a boring job for many years. (Laughs.)

RM: (Laughs.) I do have to say there’s a part of her, sadly, that is really kind of prudish and disgusted by her whole thing. I find that offensive...