Gay pornography is the representation of sexual activity between males with the primary goal to sexually arouse its audience. Softcore gay pornography also exists; which at one time constituted the genre, and may be produced as beefcake pornography directed toward heterosexual female, homosexual male, and bisexual audiences of any gender.

Homoerotic art and artifacts have a long history, reaching back to Greek antiquity. Every medium has been used to represent sexual acts between men. In contemporary mass media, this is mostly shared through home videos (including DVDs), cable broadcast and emerging video on demand and wireless markets, as well as online picture sites and gay pulp fiction.

Homoeroticism has been present in photography and film since their invention. During much of that time, any sexual depiction had to remain underground because of obscenity laws. In particular, gay material might constitute evidence of an illegal act under sodomy laws in many jurisdictions. This is no longer the case in the United States, since such laws were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.

Hardcore pornographic motion pictures (stag films, as they were called prior to their legalization in 1970) were produced relatively early in the history of film. The first known pornographic film appears to have been made in Europe in 1908. The earliest known film to depict hardcore gay (and bisexual) sexual activity was the French film Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly, produced and released in 1920. Most historians consider the first American stag film to be A Free Ride, produced and released in 1915. In the United States, hardcore gay sexual activity did not make it onto film until 1929's The Surprise of a Knight. Other American examples include A Stiff Game from the early 1930s, which features interracial homosexual acts as part of its plot, and Three Comrades (1950s), which features exclusively homosexual activity.

Legal restrictions meant that early hardcore gay pornography was underground and that commercially available gay pornography primarily consisted of pictures of individual men either fully naked or wearing a G-string. Pornography in the 1940s and 1950s focused on athletic men or bodybuilders in statuesque poses. They were generally young, muscular, and with little or no visible body hair. These pictures were sold in physique magazines, also known as beefcake magazines, allowing the reader to pass as a fitness enthusiast.

The Athletic Model Guild (AMG), founded by photographer Bob Mizer in 1945 in Los Angeles, was arguably the first studio to commercially produce material specifically for gay men and published the first magazine known as Physique Pictorial in 1951. Tom of Finland drawings are featured in many issues. Mizer produced about a million images, and thousands of films and videos before he died on May 12, 1992. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the advent of 16 mm film cameras enabled these photographers to produce underground movies of gay sex, male masturbation, or both. Sales of these products were either by mail-order or through more discreet channels. Some of the early gay pornographers would travel around the country selling their photographs and films out of their hotel rooms, with advertising only through word of mouth and magazine ads.

The 1960s were also a period where many underground art-film makers integrated suggestive or overtly gay content in their work. Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963), Andy Warhol's Blow Job (1963) and My Hustler (1965), or Paul Morrissey's Flesh (1968) are examples of experimental films that are known to have influenced further gay pornographic films with their formal qualities and narratives. Also of note is Joe Dallesandro, who acted in hardcore gay pornographic films in his early 20s, posed nude for Francesco Scavullo, Bruce of L.A. and Bob Mizer, and later acted for Warhol in films such as Flesh. Dallesandro was well known to the public. In 1969 Time called him one of the most beautiful people of the 1960s, and he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in April 1971. Dallesandro also appeared on the cover of The Smiths' eponymous debut album, The Smiths.

During the 1960s, a series of United States Supreme Court rulings created a more liberalized legal environment that allowed the commercialization of pornography. MANual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day was the first decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that magazines consisting largely of photographs of nude or near-nude male models are not obscene within the meaning of § 1461. It was the first case in which the Court engaged in plenary review of a Post Office Department order holding obscene matter "nonmailable." The case is notable for its ruling that photographs of nude men are not obscene, an implication which opened up the U.S. Postal Service to nude male pornographic magazines, especially those catering to gay men.