Mathews made a name for himself last year with the unapologetic Interior. Leather Bar that was (curiously) co-directed with James Franco. When Al Pacino's Cruising was released in 1980 around 40 minutes of graphic gay sex footage was deleted from the final cut, and then lost. Interior. Leather Bar re-imagined that lost footage, with an actor playing Pacino as a cop who went undercover to find a serial killer that was targeting New York's gay community. This was Mathews and Franco's exploration of the conflict between creative freedom and censorship.

Mathews depicts gay sex unapologetically. His debut film I Want Your Love made headlines for its realistic gay sex scenes. His latest documentary collection, In Their Room, peers into the bedrooms of everyday guys in San Francisco, Berlin and London and lets them talk about sex. We see them lounging in bed, naked, in their underwear, online, on the phone. There's an relaxed, unscripted naturalness to the setting. It helps that these are the kind of blokes you'll meet in a bar or find on Grindr. The interviewees don't hold back: "The last thing I want is somebody that says, 'Can I please…?'" says one interviewee. "I'm like, 'What? Just stick your dick in my ass man'."

What sets the In Their Room series apart from other gay documentary films?

There's no big coming out stuff, gay marriage or HIV, which are all very valid and deserve stories. But it's refreshing to see stories where the interest is to see who these people are than it is about the tropes that can be pulled in terms of storytelling. I was ready to challenge myself and do something personal. I was frustrated with gay movies that didn't represent anybody that I knew. My experience was that there was this missing sensation of not seeing lives that I recognised.

What do you want people to take away from them?

I wasn't consciously doing this when I started, but with a little bit of hindsight it's clear to me I was basically making something for my 16-year-old self. When I was 16 I was in a very isolating situation and I was starved of any gay representation that was anything other than an AIDS victim or a drag queen. I came of age without cable and just a second before the internet was a thing, and so for my younger self I think it would have been helpful and hopeful to see other depictions of men being brave, and vulnerable and sharing such candid parts about who they are. When you recognise someone's being real, you can relate even if it's not your story. There's something important that happens in that exchange.

One thing all the interviewees have in common is that they're most definitely not camera shy. Would you say they're exhibitionists?

I think we're all exhibitionists, to certain degrees.

We're the voyeurs in this experience. Do you classify yourself as a voyeur?

I feel we're all exhibitionists and we're all voyeurs. Both of those terms are weighted with whatever connotations they bring out. I feel like everyone's both and I feel like I'm both. I'm interested in seeing people in raw and candid ways. If that makes me a voyeur, then sure I'm a voyeur.

There are a couple quotes, like from Max in the London film: "The apps are making it easier and more convenient to be a slut." But then he goes on to say how that short-lived intimacy is important to him, talking about "two bodies touching and exploring something". To me it echoes the anonymous, brief encounters men would have in parks or public toilets decades ago before gay venues were legal.

I actually think we're living right now in the millennial version of the much-fetishized 1970s because of two things. The apps hat have replaced bars with the digital cruising culture, but also how Truvada [www.truvada.com] and PrEP has opened up conversations about sex that I never thought in my life I was ever going to be talking about; the thought of not using condoms and just taking a pill. There's definitely a moment emerging. I feel really mixed about it. It's this hint or promise of sexual liberation that so many of my generation and younger feel robbed of, but at the same time I feel pretty concerned about a specific demographic being targeted for one drug. I know it's supposed to be super safe, but what if we all get pancreatic cancer in fifteen years?

What is the fascination some gay men have when it comes to sex with strangers?

I think it's because we're all still little boys at heart, and love adventure, plus I think we just have higher sex drives. It almost sounds like I'm justifying being slutty, but I think there's a way in that when gay men have sex pretty casually or easily with other men it's almost like a privileged exchange and relationship that really only exists between gay men. Beyond the sex for me, personally it makes me feel much more connected as a community. If you go to somebody's house there's going to be times when it's hook-up sex, but I've had so many times when I just get fascinated in this different world they live in that's just down the road from where I live.

Earlier, you used the word slutty, which is a word that gets thrown around in a lot of different ways, like guys 'slut shaming' others that may be having more sex than them. Are we torn between how we're supposed to behave in society and how we want to behave?

I'm a little protective of supporting anybody who wants to be slutty, whether you're a gay man or not. And when I say that, I say it playfully. I wasn't trying to be shaming. My only concern, and this is a bigger problem that's beyond just sex, but that we're also distracted. We've trained our brains in a very short period of time that we can have instant gratification, and as soon as we get that we can look for other instant gratification. It's always available, all of the time, no matter where you're at.

I guess that's true when you look at Facebook and Twitter. This is Generation Snapchat where social media is a sexual medium. Is it harmful to us?

My concern is not that people aren't going to be together for long periods of time because everybody's obsessed with just hooking-up and its hurting long-term relationships. I'm more concerned that it encourages shallow interactions and exchanges. I do think as a society in general in Western culture we don't invest in things very much, whether it's how we consume media, or how we consume each other or relationships. I mean it's hard for my friends to sit down and watch a feature length movie from beginning to end without stopping five times, or having an iPad or phone there and doing three different things. That kind of multi-tasking mentality also seeps into how people have sex and deal with intimacy. I worry that we're all getting desentized from having deeper interactions.

In Their Room is out now on DVD.

@CliffJoannou

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Text Cliff Joannou

Stills from In Their Room