The largest public funder of research and innovation in the United Kingdom has allocated millions of dollars funding projects studying different forms of gay sex. One study, which received over $1 million in funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), aims to explore the connection between gay porn and gay identities from 1945-2000.
The AHRC is an arm of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) that helps direct funding to research projects related to philosophy and other creative industries nationwide.
“Our research addresses some of society’s biggest challenges, such as tackling modern slavery, exploring the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, and understanding what it is to be human,” reads the “Who We Are page” on the UKRI website.
While the UKRI does fund a diverse range of research topics, including early cancer diagnosis and other health and cultural-related issues, in the last few years, the organization has also allocated millions of dollars to research subjects related to homosexuality, gay sex, and pornography.
One study, led by John Mercer, Professor of Gender and Sexuality at Birmingham City University, whose research focuses on “the connections between gay pornography and the making of a gay identity,” unpacks the impact gay porn had on helping homosexual men develop a sense of belonging in post-World War II Europe.
The project, titled The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000, received nearly $1.1 million USD from the AHRC and aims to plot out “European networks of production, circulation, and consumption of gay erotica and porn magazines published between the end of WWII and the turn of the 21st century” to “develop a cultural study of ‘Europe’ as imagined by gay men.”
The study, co-authored by Professor of Gender Studies at Linköping University João Florêncio and the University of Exeter Professor Jana Funke, will center on archival research from across Europe to produce “visual discourse analyses of gay porn magazines published between 1945 and 2000” that were published in those countries.
This is not the first time the AHRC has awarded researchers grants for conducting studies about gay sex and pornography. From 2019-2021, Florêncio was given $250,000 USD by the AHRC to research Masculinity and the Ethics of Porosity in ‘Post-AIDS’ Gay Porn from 2019-2021.
Pig is a term used by gay men to describe sexual practices that include “pushing the limits of the body and of its integrity through relentless condomless penetrations, stretching of the rectal sphincter, and exchanges of all kinds of bodily fluids (sperm, urine, saliva, etc.).”
His research aimed to unpack the ethics of gay men living out their pig masculinities in a “post-AIDS world” where modern medicine has made it possible to have unprotected sex without transmitting the virus.
“The introduction of Highly-Active Antiretroviral Therapies (HAART) and viral load testing in 1996 made HIV infection a long-term chronic condition and led to a radical transformation in the lives, identities, and sexual practices of gay men,” reads an abstract from the study’s overview, adding that HAART prevents HIV from progressing to AIDS and makes those diagnosed with HIV uninfectious.
Similarly, Mercer supervised another study funded by the AHRC analyzing sexual play in queer pornographic video games, which investigated how gay adult video games structure sexual agency for its players.
Mercer also recently received just over $40,000 USD from the AHRC for a study exploring “debates around the contemporary sexualization of masculinity” and how policymakers, the media, sexual health educators, and the general public should concern themselves with reconceptualizing ways masculinity and the male body is sexualized within popular culture.
The UKRI is sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and primarily receives its funding through taxes. In the 2022-23 fiscal year, the organization was allocated a budget of over $10 billion USD by the UK government.
