Sex Talk:
Friday,
March 18, 2005
Volume 33,
Issue 11
Sat, Nov 07, 2009
IN THE SGN
SECTION ONE
Front Page
MORE/ALL
SECTION ONE
STORIES
SECTION TW0
Arts & Entertainment
by Simon Shepard |
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| Speaking of videos | ||
| When it comes to dirty videos, nothings hotter than bareback...or so sales figures tell us. Porn featuring guys fucking without rubbers is taking up more and more shelf space at many adult stores, and men are buying it.
But the topic is a hot - and controversial - one, too. As one middle-aged Gay man confesses, Theres a vicarious thrill in watching someone else take cum up the butt, even though I wouldnt do it myself. But I feel guilty watching. Its no secret that in many places, increasing numbers of queer men are deciding that barebacking is worth the risk of HIV infection. Or, if theyre already HIV-positive, theyre ignoring medical evidence on the dangers of HIV reinfection and infection with other STDs. From a public-health standpoint, or by community standards, that may be reckless and wrong. But from a libertarian viewpoint, if consenting-and-foolhardy adults want to bareback, thats their right, right? Well, maybe In any case, things are a bit different when it comes to sex videos. After all, porn stars are sex workers whove been hired, in a way, by the guys who buy their videos. And, as porn reviewer John Karr asks, Is it okay to pay guys to take risks that we ourselves wouldnt? Just for our amusement? Most observers think that the majority of guys making sex videos - especially bareback porn - are already positive. So if two HIV-infected men decide to bareback for the camera, wheres the proven harm? Porns not just entertainment, its education, too, Karr continues. I dont want young Gay men to be taught that theres nothing wrong with unprotected sex. Others feel the same. A number of reputable video companies refuse to make bareback videos. Some wont even hire actors who have barebacked in other companies titles, or they require their stars to foreswear fucking raw. Others are less doctrinaire. Porn distributors sometimes get around the controversy by offering only precondom barebacking scenes in videos made before the early 1980s. (Though, unlike todays crop of barebacking vids, older porn generally didnt feature and fetishize guys taking loads; in fact, external money shots were the rule.) And one guy who runs a niche video company says, I only sell a couple of barebacking titles, and the men in them are couples who are negative and have unprotected sex with each other, anyway. Theres no doubt that most of us - except for a few latex fetishists - prefer the sight of an unwrapped dick to a condomized cock. Even the way condoms are usually put on in videos, magically appearing between a close-up cock shot and a middle-ground view of penetration, suggests that the rubber is a necessary evil. And, sure, for most of us, it is. For some, the absence of condoms in porn puts the epidemic out of sight and out of mind. But for others, just watching barebacking will bring up issues. I watch porn videos to escape, says one guy with quite a collection. But when I see two guys having unprotected sex, it makes me focus on the epidemic, and thats a big turn-off. Sure, Id love to have loads of jizz dripping out of me, and sometimes I fantasize just that. Videos arent just fantasies, though. Theyre records of real men having real sex. In the best of all possible worlds, wed all be able to toss our condoms in the trash. But, sadly, rubbers are a fact of life. And they can be lifesavers. Its edgy enough to profit from purveying unprotected fucking, but its even more dubious when bareback videos explicitly eroticize the risk. As one anti-HIV crusader puts it, Believe me, Im not a prude. In fact, Im kind of a slut. I just want guys to be safe, if for no other reason than that theyll be around for me to have sex with.t Simon Sheppard is the author of In Deep: Erotic Stories and Kinkorama: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Perversion, and can be reached at SexTalk@qsyndicate.com. Visit Simon at www.simonsheppard.com. |
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