Reviewed 2012-01-01 l Last update on 2023-08-24
It is all about this: Old movies, remastered and presented in a dark and moody members area. There are classics here from the days before condoms, from the slave and master bars of the USA, you're going to find moustaches, leather, fisting, long haired jocks and twinks from yesteryear and all from top class studio Bijou Productions. But it's about more than videos; there are community aspects to the site, information, news, history and celebrations of a past that won't be forgotten.
So, think Tom of Finland come to life and you've got the gist already. Hard, muscled, hunky guys with big cocks, raw sex, some fetish and lots of leather. That's kind of a rough guide to the majority of content here. But the main point about the content is that it is preserved; old scenes and videos, films even, saved and now in digital format to view.
There were 50 scenes when I called in and all added around the same time last year; leading me to wonder if this is it? Is this a static collection of scenes, with all kinds of other neat things built in around it? Lets explore further.
Checking the Movies pages I found the 50 parts of movies, and they were all about Leather or Levis, S&M and slaves and masters. I was able to stream them or download them or Touch screen to play mobile which was all very neat and easy. There were details about the scenes too, so you don't just get viewing here you get reading as well, including a synopsis of each part. These parts run for between 20 and 30 minutes or so, so they are scene length. Students of classic gay cinema will be interested to note some of the details. For example, in A Winters Tale, a Bijou classic, we are told that the mazes, slings and gloryholes of Chicago's famous Bijou theatre are the setting that there is some double fisting from Dr Bobs famous fists and that the scene was directed by David Nessor. That's the kind of write up and detail you get here.
You've also got to expect some not exactly HD viewing. These scenes come from way back when, before the digital age and they have been transferred from celluloid or video as best they can. But you may still find some very dark to view, or grainy, with slightly muffled sound, exactly as you would if you were viewing them on an old VHS cassette maybe; though hats off to the technical team for cleaning them up as best they can. I'm not complaining, you cant complain really, just pointing out that you must not expect HD quality visuals here.
And as for other pieces of content, well, everything is Tribal here. You've got some classic talking stories, five volumes of spoken stories to sit back and get off to in a darkened room. There are eight articles about things like poppers, fisting and other Tribal lifestyle elements. And the Tribal Showcase area contains galleries and slideshows of images from the likes of Tom O Finland and Mapplethorpe. Everything is about the history of the company, Bijou, and the genre of leather and fisting, S&M and all that old gay porn and lifestyle from the 1970s and early 1980s, and it's all perfect.
So, as well as the collection of scenes and the galleries of work from that time, you've also go information about the scenes and the history, more or less, of the gay life back in the 1970s. It's great that Tribal Male stays with its focus and keeps you right up to date with its Tribal Guide. A guide to BDSM groups in the US, with links and arranged by state. There are also reviews to read, handy links to stores for your S&M gear and a forum. The main pages show you titles of recent posts at the forum and you simply click on the menu item to slip into its main page. It's not a greatly used forum at the moment but then it has only recently been created, but it's a great interactive tool that all fans of the site will want to use.
The members area is also neatly set out. It's all black and white, mainly, so you have a nice atmosphere and everything is very easy to find and use. The viewing options for videos are good and solid, and will suit all, and the viewing for the galleries is also easy. There are not many galleries as such, but you won't have any trouble with navigation here.
The only thing you might have to look out for is: when you go to the forum you seem to leave the members area and you may be asked for your login details to get back in. Not a huge problem, just keep them handy.
Apart from the blasts from the past, the really great thing about Tribal Male is that it is preserving our heritage and history. These movies can now live on forever thanks to the site and you can click in and view them and keep on doing so. But then they don't just let you get to the classic porn, there are those audio stories, info about the BDSM scene and about the gay lifestyles from the past. It's a wonderful collection and a great site for both culture and porn.
