Guy Strait

Elmer Guy Strait (March 25, 1920 – March 25, 1987), nicknamed "The Porno King", was an American gay civil rights activist, magazine publisher, and convicted sex offender.

Initially known for his early gay publications, he later moved on to commercial child pornography, which resulted in Strait being sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison in the 1970s.

Early life Strait, 1947. After his return from the war, he worked in the building materials business. Strait was born on March 25, 1920, in Dallas, Texas, the tenth of eleven brothers and sisters in a Baptist family. His father died when he was five, after which he spent some time living in an orphanage. At age thirteen, Strait acquired his first camera, a Kodak Brownie, and took photographs of flowers, plant buds, and nudity.

As a young adult, Strait attended the University of Texas for one semester and was expelled due to frequently being absent. After this, he enrolled at Baylor University, where he claimed he was "asked to leave" because he was running a brothel at the former Cotton Palace. While stationed in Europe, he continued his photography hobby.

In 1951, Strait moved to San Francisco and was a regional sales manager for Curtiss-Wright. He claimed that Wernher von Braun was his "immediate superior". After this, he became a freelance photographer for military bases and began frequenting the Black Cat in San Francisco. During the 1950s, Strait also enrolled in fine arts at the Art Institute of Chicago.

California

Early publications In 1961, Strait split from SF Mattachine and formed the organization The League for Civil Education in San Francisco. Strait believed that homosexuals could fight oppressive conditions and hostile law enforcement through the creation of a gay voting bloc. In October 1961, Strait created his first paper, which was also the first gay newspaper in San Francisco, LCE News, which would later be known as Citizens News that same year. The paper was published from his offices on Minna Street. The paper was originally intended to only be circulated in the Bay Area, though it expanded to include information on police repression, politics, gay history, social action, and the gay scene. The newspaper ran until March 1967 and was available through subscription, distributed freely through gay bars, and also sold at newsstands.

In 1963, Strait published a guide called The Lavender Baedeker, which circulated between 1963 and 1967. The guide was started after the popularity of Citizens News led to inquiries from the public in regard to places to drink or stay in cities throughout the United States. The publication noted that the publishers had no contact with the bar scene and that information might not be accurate. Due to these legal issues, the paper ceased publication in January 1967. The Haight Ashbury Free Press was centered around the Summer of Love and included information about events happening in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, as well as advice for tourists.

Involvement in pornography

Strait claimed that he first became involved in pornography when an associate offered him $2,000 each for two magazines. Strait ran some of the first commercialized child pornography in magazines in the United States which included Hombre, Chico, and Naked Boyhood. In or before 1966, a mail order was set up under the name DOM Studios (an abbreviation of Dirty Old Man) Strait and his associates had reportedly invited five to seven boys ranging between the ages of 12 to 15 to parties where they were given beer and marijuana to lure them into homosexual acts before being filmed. Subsequently, Vander Linden was charged with three counts of indecent liberties with underage boys, while the other three men were charged with one count of indecent liberties with a child. Despite his imprisonment, his operation continued.

Strait also mentioned that he had known John David Norman and that he had written an article for Hermes magazine, a Chicago journal publishing philosophy and stories of "boy love".

Later life While in prison, Strait became a jailhouse lawyer focusing on federal law. After being moved to a lower security prison, Strait worked on three books: Memoirs of a Dirty Old Man, Hell in Illinois, and Tyranny's New Home: Rockford.

Strait died in San Francisco, California, on March 25, 1987, his 67th birthday.