I'm one of the eldergays, so my experiences were somewhat different...
In high school, I occasionally got a peek at a straight skin magazine. And in retrospect, they should've given me a clue. Because I didn't think much of vaginas, and breasts were so-so (I seemed to like large ones, though). But I liked butts. I enjoyed seeing women's butts more than the other parts. I just assumed that meant I was a straight "butt man" - hey, they DO exist.
On cable, if you pushed this button and that button, and turned the lever just so, you could get the Playboy Channel. In black and white. No sound. (You could get sound a different way, but then there'd be no picture, and come on - if you're gonna lose one of the two...) And I was young and horny enough that I enjoyed watching whatever was on (and masturbating to same). But I liked the movies more than the generic "look at these hot women lying around". I liked stories and scenarios more than just ogling naked bodies. And if there was a straight sex scene, those were my favorite. In retrospect, of course, it was because there was a guy there. But they almost never showed much of the guy, so it wasn't like I could really tell anything. It was just a shoulder, or a head moving down her body. I thought I enjoyed these scenes because they were more "real". And yeah, there was a lot of self-delusion there, but not fully. Because even now, I prefer watching two guys who really want to have sex more than just "hot guys".
I think I was a junior in college when I got ahold of three gay magazines. (At this point, I was pretty sure I was gay.) They weren't "porn", necessarily. There was only one "pickle shot" in the bunch, and it was an artistic photo. Not that many butts, either. But I could feel my eyes dragged to those butt shots time and again.

But even more than the pictures were the words. I read those things cover-to-cover, multiple times. And I was fascinated by what was there. Yeah, the sex stuff was great. I loved reading the personal ads. (Remember - this was even before most people had online bulletin boards.) So reading about guys-seeking-guys, and escorts for hire, excited me a lot. I loved the notion that I could simply call this number, lay down $75, and have sex with a guy if I really wanted to. I didn't know what some of the things were - "$65 in / $75 out"? I remember thinking that meant $65 if I wanted him to top, and $75 if I wanted him to bottom.

But I also liked reading about gay get-togethers, and community events. One place advertised that they showed Dynasty on a big-screen TV every Friday, and before and after, drag queens would re-enact the best catfights from the show. I recall thinking how damned weird that was. And even though that didn't interest me in the slightest, the IDEA of it did. The idea that there were all these weird, different activities going on really excited me.
After graduation, I was stuck back living with my parents, so watching gay porn wasn't much of an option there. But from time to time, I'd house-sit for friends who went on vacation. And one time when one of them did, I went to a video store that had an "adult" section, found some gay porn, and rented it. I got two videos - one was called "Now THIS Is The Army!" (seriously!) and it was terrible. The scenarios were horrible, the sets were cheap, and the actors weren't either hot OR good actors. Not only that, but what the director liked most was to do extreme close-ups on the penetration, and show it in EXTREME slow-motion, while looping the fake grunts and groans from the actors. And it was dull as ditchwater. I probably still got off to it, though.
It's weird that I don't recall the title of the second one. I watched that one first, and it was much better. The set-up was cliche - "Guys work on farm and have sex in various couplings" - but it was fun to watch. It started with two guys building or fixing a fence in a field. They were stripped down to just their jeans and boots, and they literally DID fix the fence for about ten minutes. That was actually kind of hot. Then they finished, and one said "I'd say it's time for a break". The other smiled, and they started making out, and then had sex in the back of the pickup. (There was a mattress there, conveniently enough.) There were of course plenty of other sex scenes in that video, but that was the one I watched so much it's ingrained into my brain over twenty years later. Not bad for a seven-day rental.
Lex