It is also credited with popularizing the macho gay porn star aesthetic that would remain broadly popular in the decades subsequent to the film's release, with Escoffier writing that "The Other Side of Aspen" "crystallized Chuck Holmes' vision of the erotic movie [...] it signaled the culmination of the gay macho sexual ethos, the confirmation of the ideal gay male body–young, a swimmer's build, no tattoos, and little hair–and the codification of gay porn movies as a genre."