One New York night in the early 1970s, a dancer and budding filmmaker named Wakefield Poole went to see a gay porn flick called “Highway Hustler” at a run-down theater in Times Square with his friends.
As he settled into a tattered seat, he prepared to spend the next 45 minutes or so enjoyably aroused. But as the film rolled, he experienced nothing of the kind.
He thought that the movie was sleazy, that its sex scenes were unnecessarily degrading. He started laughing out loud, and one of his companions fell asleep. “I said to my friend, ‘This is the worst, ugliest movie I’ve ever seen!’” Mr.