Ever since gay man learned how to flog his log, there has been gay porn in some form. Renaissance 'mos of the 14th-17th centuries got their jollies painting softcore porn and calling it religious art. Before you scoff, check out this smutty series of Renaissance and Baroque paintings. We can already picture a group of horny queens in tunics and tights gathering 'round the artwork for a circle jerk.
An article on Advocate.com called "The Golden Age of Denial: Bible Porn" goes into a lot of theory behind prodigious male nakedness in religious artwork. Like Hollywood films under the Hays Code, homosexual images couldn't be overt, so they were hidden in religious imagery. Lascivious portraits of naked, muscled men is merely a display of Christianity, not something to get the loins tingling. (Yeah, right!)
Here's a tour of classic art that's just as arousing as anything you'd find in porn today. Meet the original artfags.
· The Golden Age of Denial: Bible Porn (advocate.com)