‘Boy Culture’ Blog Compiles List of 250 Greatest Gay Porn Stars

Novelist Matthew Rettenmund, in addition to authoring two fiction books as well as numerous pop-culture books—including the definitive reference work on iconic pop star Madonna, the Encyclopedia Madonnica—also authors a popular blog, Boy Culture, on which he indulges his passion for compiling lengthy lists.  His previous efforts included “History's 100 Hottest TV Actors,” “Dead Reckoning: Which Year Was the Worst for Celeb Deaths?” and “150 Gayest Songs EVER”—a list that included Abba’s "Dancing Queen,” the Alicia Bridges disco classic "I Love the Nightlife,” Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” and of course the Kinks’ gender-bending classic, “Lola.” Last week, however, Rettenmund—author of the 1995 novel Boy Culture, from which his blog derives its name—posted what surely must be considered his magnum opus, his list of “History's 250 Greatest Gay-Porn Stars.” “For gay men, with no societal instruction on what happens when two guys fall in love or even just lust, pornography was for decades the primary means by which we could find those answers,” Rettenmund wrote in the introduction to his list. “Perhaps those two observations help to explain why we take our porn so very seriously." While the list is so comprehensive that the names picked by Rettenmund—including such iconic performers as Lukas Ridgeston, Jeff Stryker and the late Jack Wrangler—are not likely to be controversial, Rettenmund’s numerical rankings may cause some disagreement. To start with, Stryker—certainly the most famous gay porn icon—does not top the list, placing instead at Number 2. Why? “Truth be told, I'm not wildly turned on by Jeff Stryker,” Rettenmund writes,  “even though he is inarguably the most famous gay pornstar who's ever lived.” Nonetheless, Rettenmund ranks Stryker second out of his 250 largely because “his fabled kickstand is hard to deny,” and “Stryker is the ultimate brand.”