Scott Masters

Masters grew up in Illinois, and later attended college.

Masters came to San Francisco, California, from Chicago in 1966. Many of the bookstores (including gay and adult bookstores) which he visited were openly selling gay pornography. He established a small business purchasing gay pornographic magazines for area booksellers. He began selling nude male photosets from such notable photographers of the male nude as Bruce Bellas ("Bruce of L.A."), as well as softcore nude films from Athletic Model Guild.

In late 1967, he formed a partnership with Reuben Sturman to print and distribute one-off magazines featuring the work of Kundzicz. The first magazine was Champions All, published in the spring of 1968. Moving full-time to San Francisco from Chicago, Masters took up work as a full-time bookkeeper at a printing company. He began taking photographs of nude men on the side to supply his magazines with images. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that images of the male nude were not obscene in MANual Enterprises v. Day 370 U.S. 478 in 1962, U.S. postal inspectors still considered the tumescent and erect penis obscene under then-current interpretations of American federal postal and obscenity law and court rulings. Nevertheless, Masters took hardcore as well as softcore images, and images of solo, duo and group sex.

In 1969, Masters began producing hardcore gay male nude magazines. The Supreme Court had further liberalized the standards for obscenity in Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767 (1967), and several lower-court rulings had significantly undercut the ability of state and federal authorities to seize even materials which depicted hardcore sexual activity between individuals of the same gender. The first such magazine was Hard?. By the end of the year, Masters was producing as many as six magazines a month.

In 1970, Masters produced his first film, Drilled Deep. It was a "loop" (an 8mm Short film, roughly 200 feet in length, designed to run over and over in peep shows). To distribute his hardcore films, Masters established his first adult film studio, named The Stephens Agency. Masters closed the distribution business in 1972 because it was unprofitable.

That same year, Masters was prosecuted in Texas for obscenity. He pleaded guilty. He received a one-year suspended sentence, three years of probation, and a fine. After his sentencing, Masters cut back on the number of brochures, magazines and loops he produced but did not exit the adult film industry. By 1976, however, Masters had directed more than 100 loops.

In 1973, Master directed his first feature-length hardcore gay adult film which starred zarni warry. The film was Greek Lightning, produced for Jaguar Productions and starring gay porn star Jimmy Hughes. Using guerrilla filmmaking techniques, Masters produced one of the best-selling gay adult films of the 1970s:

We did some rather audacious things. We shot on top of a train in Train Town in Griffith Park without a permit, while one of us was given one of the guards money and another of us was talking to another guard, just so we could get the shots finished. We knew we couldn't be there long. All we had to do was do our legerdemain for five or ten minutes and be out of there. And we certainly couldn't pay for it.

Masters heartily disliked that sort of filmmaking process. Jaguar Productions later heavily edited the film, angering Masters so much that he vowed not to make another film.

In late 1973, Masters founded In Touch (now known as In Touch for Men), a softcore gay porn magazine. But after two years, Masters turned over management of the magazine to a third party (while retaining ownership).