Pat Rocco (1934-2018) was a pioneering gay rights activist and pornographer in the late 60s and throughout the 1970s. He came out at 13, had his own radio show by 16, and was making films by the late 1960s.
If you look at gay events in Los Angeles in the 70s you’ll almost certainly see the influence of Pat Rocco and his adult magazine SPREE where a mix of porn and gay rights material expressed Rocco’s unique worldview.
Spree organized annual awards shows and balls all through the 1970s, putting on many events for the gay community of Los Angeles, and giving Rocco access to models and influence.
Liberation House was a place where many younger men fresh in Los Angeles in the 70s got their start in a community where neither nudity nor homosexuality would get in the way of acceptance.
Pat Rocco then used this access to young men to fuel his career in gay films.
Which in turn increased his fame in his community and let him publish the magazine SPREE or “Society of Pat Rocco Enlightened Enthusiats” where he wrote extensively about gay liberation.
Which in turn allowed him to organize a movement to achieve a number of gay causes like boycotting Florida orange juice for hiring Anita Bryant as an endorser and lobbying for the founding of a gay student union at UCLA which finally opened in 1976.
He also helped found the first gay community center in the greater Los Angeles area
Which was built naked in the pages of SPREE magazine for publicity and donations.
Is the guy on the cover of Spree Pedro Pascal ?! 😂
He looks like Pascal when he was young.