Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
Imagine for a moment if Next Door had made Mason Wyler’s site into one that featured proud, sexy poz men having safe sex.
I hate to sound harsh but I wonder if such a site would be popular enough to succeed. Perhaps POZ men would love such a site but I wonder if others would. It just seems to me that when someone wants to jerk off the last thing they want to be reminded of is someones HIV status.
Having said all that I also wonder what would have happened if Mason Wyler quit Buddy Profits and went out on his own to start the site RawTop suggested.
And a follow-up to my post about how I found pretty much everyone at these trade shows to be cliq oriented: in fairness, I should say that I have never attended a Phoenix Forum so it sounds like maybe this event is friendlier to first-times.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
In regards to the models… put yourself in their shoes.
When most gay men look at you as a piece of meat, and not a human being with feelings/emotions, what do you expect from them when they’re at public shows?
Growing up as a “big bear” in the gay community, I’ve pretty much always been in the background and not paid attention to. That’s life in the “general” gay community. But I also don’t subject myself to being a punching bag for those that only care about appearances by attending gay events.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
I can say for a fact that two other big studios have the same policy, its a health issue and if you are pos they will not work with you. NDS is not the only one, it just came out because a major model of theirs was outed, all the other studios do the same thing.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
[QUOTE=rawTOP;113392]Yes, most people here have focused on the least important issue - let’s just say “to what degree the models were good ambassadors for the brand”. That was the least important issue of the ones I brought up initially.
I’m not asking Next Door Studios to bareback (though they now have a bareback site so that seal seems to have been broken). This isn’t about barebacking. Barebacking and HIV are completely separate issues - it’s just those in the bareback community tend to be more sensitive to issues surrounding HIV - even those of us who are neg.
So what you’re left with is you saying Next Door and I will never agree on issues surrounding HIV. WHY??? Michael said it was a health and safety issue. I was dead serious when I said the SAFEST, LEAST INFECTIOUS performer they can deal with are poz guys who are on meds. There is a mountain of studies at this point that support that conclusion. Next Door could monitor the performers’ viral loads like they monitor neg guys’ statuses. That, combined with safe sex (I’m not asking them to bareback), results in about the lowest risk one can imagine. I’m also not asking them to force anyone to work with a poz model. Though honestly, with viral load testing and condoms, I fail to see how HIV is an issue. Still, if someone tells them they refuse to have safe sex with an undetectable poz guy - then so be it.
There’s really not much to disagree about here if you take a fact-based look at the issues. I just think it’s repulsive that they act as if poz models are worthless and shouldn’t be touched. That bugs me deeply and I’m not even poz. It’s based on fear and not understanding basic facts of how HIV is transmitted. It’s like the person Jasun mentioned, who thinks you can get HIV from having safe sex with a negative person, made up the policy.
The other issue was the body-image issue and how that type of porn tells guys, like my boyfriend, who are in shape, that they’re fat. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard him say “I can’t hookup, I’m flabby” when he’s 135 pounds instead of 128. Please… But even that issue one could brush away with “it’s fantasy”, and I’d almost accept it except for the impact I see it having on guys like my boyfriend.
The other issues are not nearly as big as Next Door’s active discrimination against a big part of the gay community, by a straight studio. I’d be more tolerant of the policy if it were a gay guy who went through the death of lovers and friends and just can’t come to terms with the new reality - that HIV just isn’t what it used to be - not all of us got past that stage. But straight people who are in it just as a business don’t get to play that card.
Honestly, this thread has left me a bit speechless… I’m just flabbergasted that so many gay men are OK with discrimination against poz guys. Guys, these are our gay brothers we’re talking about. Michael - you really don’t have to sit in the back of the bus - on meds, you’re safer to have sex with than a neg guy. It’s time demand a seat in the front of the bus… [Sorry if that analogy escapes those of you who aren’t American. Check out the story of Rosa Parks if it doesn’t sound familiar.][/QUOTE]
I understand where you are coming from, but look at it from the straight, or even gay guys they work with. I don’t care what facts you throw at them, or how hard you try to convince them, they are not going to want to work with a pos guy. And if they only limited themselves to pos guys on meds like you suggested their talent pool will be so small, they wouldn’t be able to update the site enough.
I’d love to see someone sue them, though given the reaction here, I’m not sure if a jury would decide in the model’s favor. [Which I find sad.]
It may be true that the straight/bi guys they work with won’t work with undetectable poz. An attempt at education would be nice. With Mason Wyler they missed an opportunity to at least experiment with working with poz models. There are some incredibly hot poz guys out there. And not all neg guys are going to say no to having safe sex with an undetectable poz guy - at least the gay ones do it all the time in real life. And for god’s sake - why not consider hiring more gay guys? Thing is, they don’t seem to have even considered the option of working with Mason once he became poz. To them, Poz = Out.
I’d love to see someone sue them, though given the reaction here, I’m not sure if a jury would decide in the model’s favor. [Which I find sad.]
[/QUOTE]
This sounds like a case for Harry’s Law … this is exactly the kind of fucked up scenario that makes this show great.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
[QUOTE=rawTOP;113392]
Honestly, this thread has left me a bit speechless… I’m just flabbergasted that so many gay men are OK with discrimination against poz guys. Guys, these are our gay brothers we’re talking about. Michael - you really don’t have to sit in the back of the bus - on meds, you’re safer to have sex with than a neg guy. It’s time demand a seat in the front of the bus… [Sorry if that analogy escapes those of you who aren’t American. Check out the story of Rosa Parks if it doesn’t sound familiar.][/QUOTE]
I don’t think Buddy Profits are discrimination against HIV guys. They done a lot of charity work for HIV causes or prevention of HIV. Sure, they made the decision to not use a HIV performer but that doesn not automatically equal discrimination.
As I said earlier, barebacking and HIV is subject better avoided as it always ends up the same way. It’s too many strong conflicting views and a subject we won’t agree on.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
Well, at Phoenix Forum they had an HIV/AIDS charity strip show where, as Damian reminded me last night, most of the guys were doing fake kisses and fake grinding. Come on guys… You’re gay (for pay) porn stars - do a real kiss and a real grind. I only remember one that came on stage with a hardon. And Buddy Profits probably spent more on the event than they raised for HIV/AIDS. And the money “they donated” was other people’s money - they didn’t contribute matching money… It was ostensibly a charity event, but they could have done more for the cause by skipping the event and donating the money they spent on the event to HIV/AIDS. Macy’s like to say the Thanksgiving Day Parade is their “gift to the City” when in fact it’s a money making venture. From what I saw Buddy Profits has a similar strategy for “donating to HIV/AIDS”.
Plus, when a racist gives money to a soup kitchen in a black neighborhood, that doesn’t make them not racist. They stop being a racist when they see people in the other group as their equals and hire the people so they don’t have to go to a s
In this case, what’s the point of giving money to HIV/AIDS if you can’t treat poz guys with dignity and respect?
Actually, refusing to hire with someone because of their HIV status, and firing people who become poz, is exactly the definition of HIV discrimination.
We’re talking about discrimination by a straight studio against a big chunk of our gay brothers in a gay industry funded by gay dollars. Sticking our heads in the sand will not make the situation any better. If it’s not our problem, who’s problem is it?
Plus, if you don’t stand up against discrimination, the next group that may be discriminated against is your group. Then watch as people make excuses and walk away from you… People need to stand up for what’s right, not what’s convenient.
Lloyd, Damian and I were discussing Buddy Profits last night. There’s actually more to the story, but it’s not on topic for this thread…
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
[QUOTE=rawTOP;113514]Well, at Phoenix Forum they had an HIV/AIDS charity strip show where, as Damian reminded me last night, most of the guys were doing fake kisses and fake grinding. Come on guys… You’re gay (for pay) porn stars - do a real kiss and a real grind. I only remember one that came on stage with a hardon. And Buddy Profits probably spent more on the event than they raised for HIV/AIDS. And the money “they donated” was other people’s money - they didn’t contribute matching money… It was ostensibly a charity event, but they could have done more for the cause by skipping the event and donating the money they spent on the event to HIV/AIDS. Macy’s like to say the Thanksgiving Day Parade is their “gift to the City” when in fact it’s a money making venture. From what I saw Buddy Profits has a similar strategy for “donating to HIV/AIDS”.
Plus, when a racist gives money to a soup kitchen in a black neighborhood, that doesn’t make them not racist. They stop being a racist when they see people in the other group as their equals and hire the people so they don’t have to go to a s
In this case, what’s the point of giving money to HIV/AIDS if you can’t treat poz guys with dignity and respect?
Actually, refusing to hire with someone because of their HIV status, and firing people who become poz, is exactly the definition of HIV discrimination.
We’re talking about discrimination by a straight studio against a big chunk of our gay brothers in a gay industry funded by gay dollars. Sticking our heads in the sand will not make the situation any better. If it’s not our problem, who’s problem is it?
Plus, if you don’t stand up against discrimination, the next group that may be discriminated against is your group. Then watch as people make excuses and walk away from you… People need to stand up for what’s right, not what’s convenient.
Lloyd, Damian and I were discussing Buddy Profits last night. There’s actually more to the story, but it’s not on topic for this thread…[/QUOTE]
Again, as i was saying earlier, you picking out NDS and saying because its run by a straight person they are somehow against the gay community is unfair as other, gay owned studios, do the same thing. And I personally don’t care about NDS, I promoted them heavily when I first started out last year but never made a sale so I don’t promote them anymore, I just think it is unfair for you to pick them out and make this out to be a them against us issue.
Furthermore, This is a completely different situation from an HIV pos person getting fired from an office job or from McDonalds. Those jobs don’t require the person to have sex with other individuals. HIV is a sexually transmitted disease, so no jury or judge is going to rule against a studio for not working with a pos guy to protect other performers.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
I was told that Buddy Profits raised $7100 for ‘Until There’s A Cure.’ I don’t know where it came from or how, and I really don’t care. Without their efforts a charity wouldn’t have an extra $7100.
Let me pull off my moderator hat and put it on my desk while I say this.
rawtop, I mean this in the nicest possible way: Shut up, you’re coming across as a giantic ass.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
I would feel the same way about the other ones if I knew who they were. Care to enlighten me and list the studios with similar policies?
The risk of HIV transmission by an undetectable poz partner (verified by testing) while having safe sex, when the top pulls out to cum, is about as close to zero as it gets. That much is an established, scientific fact supported by numerous studies over many years. Walking across the street is probably more dangerous - some rogue driver might run you down. Ergo, it is pretty much the same as working at McDonalds. For the past year I’ve watched construction workers do really dangerous things as they (re)build my house. The risk models take having safe sex with an undetectable poz partner is FAR lower than the risk construction workers take. The models are more at risk when they have sex with a negative partner since viral load spikes right after infection and testing might falsely report the infected person as negative. If that level of risk is not acceptable to a models, they should find another profession, just as people who have a fear of falling off a ladder probably shouldn’t be construction workers.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
How much did Mason Wyler lose when Next Door terminated his contract? Probably more than $7100… That’s like firing minorities and then giving a little money to the soup kitchens who serve the down trodden… I’d prefer they skip donations to charity and employ poz models. It’ll do more good.
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;113535]Let me pull off my moderator hat and put it on my desk while I say this.
rawtop, I mean this in the nicest possible way: Shut up, you’re coming across as a giantic ass.[/QUOTE]
I’ve been through too much in my life to be told to shut up on civil rights issues. Maybe my delivery has been imperfect, but my points are solid.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
NOTE: I am talking for myself, my Moderators hat is on my desk too, This is my own view on this harangue.
Working in construction is riskier than two pos guys having sex? Uh, so just how many Construction Workers are taking multiple drugs to keep them alive and having to take regular medical exams to insure the drugs are working? How many Construction Workers can become dealthly ill from a simple cold, because of the disease that they carry?
You want to have sex with Pos guys, hey, that’s your choice, but please, stop trying to insinuate that there is no downside to having sex with a Pos guy, or that some studio is racists, simply because they aren’t willing to expose Models to added risk. Having sex for pay is risky as it is.
If you are that convinced that the actions of Next Door Studios is so racist, contact the ACLU and have them investigate it, and take them to court for it, if they find cause. But please, stop pushing your opinions as fact, and everyone else’s opinons as meaningless.
I don’t know the figures, but I know there are hundreds of thousands living in North America alone, that are living with HIV and I doubt if any of them will agree that it is a cakewalk. It has to be damn hard living knowing that any simple infection/virus could spell your end, despite the meds. That at anytime you can wind up with full blown AIDS.
I’ve had friends die from it, and I think if they could come back to comment on this, they would wind up getting banned for their remarks.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
No, your points are not solid. The spirit of the anti-discrimination law was created so that coffee-shop employees didn’t lose their jobs because they were HIV-positive. It wasn’t created so that HIV-positive guys could force their scene partners to have sex with them in a porn video or face discrimination charges.
Your argument that in deciding not to employ an HIV-positive performer that Next Door Studios discriminated against him is far reaching and borders on silliness. However, I will agree that when the law was created the law makers probably did not conceive of this porn situation as being a possibility. The Mason Wyler scenario is a unique set of circumstances. And I’ll also agree that it looks and sounds like discrimination on the surface. But this is not the same thing as a studio refusing to hire a black or Jewish guy to star in a porn video because of their race and it’s not the same thing as an HIV-positive UPS driver lost his job because a customer didn’t want him handling their package.
I get it, rawtop, if a guy is poz and he’s on meds and he’s using a condom, there’s probably not much a chance in hell that he’d infect another performer. However, repeating a scenario one million, or two, or three million times doesn’t mean you’ll always get the same result, and no one wants to be the one in a million case.
This is a health and safety issue. And just because you, and whatever studies you’ve read, claim that HIV-positive guys on meds are less infectious or not infectious at all, doesn’t mean it’s the truth, and it doesn’t mean that people are required to have sex with positive people with or without condoms. And please, please, please, remember that people lie all the time. And if a cocksucker stops working a guy’s dick and says, “You’re negative aren’t you?” What percentage of those guys being blown are going to lie because they want to shoot their wad in this guy’s mouth? So a studio simply couldn’t take the risk and believe a performer when they say they’re taking their meds. People lie all the time about everything.
And your insistence that Next Door Studios discriminated against Mason Wyler would be like me requiring all of my employees to smoke while on the job because I felt the risks of getting lung cancer were minimal. Likewise, an employer cannot require his employees to handle blood products without providing them with the proper gear, or go into a failed nuclear reactor without the proper gear, or climb into a pig pen barefooted to feed the pigs.
It’s unfortunate that Mason Wyler lost income and maybe a career. I feel bad for him. It’s an unfortunate situation for everyone. Mason Wyler lost a job, Next Door Studios lost a site that they obviously believed enough in to create in the first place, and the fans lost.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
We have a friend, an architect, who was sitting in a construction trailer a few years ago when a load of steel broke free from the crane and landed on the trailer. He’s now paralyzed from the chest down, can’t control his bowels, and can’t have sex.
Just in NYC over the past 2 or 3 weeks I know of 3 construction workers who have died. I haven’t heard of any porn stars dying recently as a result of their work.
Sorry, but the construction workers win in this discussion.
The question is why are you OK with construction workers taking big risks, but not OK with porn stars taking a risk that’s so small it can’t be quantified?
Sorry, but ALL the scientific data on the topic (and there’s a lot) contradicts what you’re saying. Safe sex with an undetectable poz guy (when there’s regular viral load and STD testing in place) is indeed safe. Just because you choose not to research the issue doesn’t make your point of view valid.
[QUOTE=Gaystoryman;113549]or that some studio is racists, simply because they aren’t willing to expose Models to added risk.
If you are that convinced that the actions of Next Door Studios is so racist,…[/QUOTE]
There are parallels with racism, but racism is about race and that’s not the issue here. (The studios who don’t use dark skinned models is a completely different discussion).
They aren’t “my opinions” - they’re what scientists have concluded based on A LOT of research. You’re saying you know better than the scientific community? Really?
Yes, living with HIV/AIDS can sometimes be a horrible experience. Having safe sex with a undetectable poz guy with no STDs will not result in that experience.
Ah, yes that’s sorta what I expected… You’re probably just a little older than I am. I get that what you went through was horrible. I had a lover die of AIDS and I stayed with him and cared for him until the end - it was pretty gruesome at times - I get it. But that was 1994/1995 - HIV is a different illness now. I understand how it can be difficult to get past what you experienced, but things have indeed changed. If Next Door were a gay studio and they had the experiences you had I wouldn’t be ragging on them… I get that some people never get past what they experienced in the '80s and early '90s…
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;113550]No, your points are not solid. The spirit of the anti-discrimination law was created so that coffee-shop employees didn’t lose their jobs because they were HIV-positive. It wasn’t created so that HIV-positive guys could force their scene partners to have sex with them in a porn video or face discrimination charges.
Your argument that in deciding not to employ an HIV-positive performer that Next Door Studios discriminated against him is far reaching and borders on silliness. However, I will agree that when the law was created the law makers probably did not conceive of this porn situation as being a possibility. The Mason Wyler scenario is a unique set of circumstances. And I’ll also agree that it looks and sounds like discrimination on the surface. But this is not the same thing as a studio refusing to hire a black or Jewish guy to star in a porn video because of their race and it’s not the same thing as an HIV-positive UPS driver lost his job because a customer didn’t want him handling their package.[/QUOTE]
Anti-discrimination laws have at their core that employers must make accommodations for disabled employees. Let’s take Mason’s case - there are a number of ways Next Door could have made accommodations - find other poz models, do viral load testing, etc. But they did none of that. Instead they basically fired him.
In those one or two million cases you’ll see people getting infected from guys that were reported (even via testing) to be neg. So why don’t you have a problem with that? The scientists have tracked many serodiscordant couples - they have data on probably hundreds of thousands of sexual encounters and there were no infections if the poz partner was consistently undetectable and didn’t have STDs. So standard AIM testing makes even serodiscordant sex completely safe - especially when combined with condoms. Again, it’s less risk than sex with guys who have tested negative… If that level of risk is acceptable, and your saying a lower level of risk is not acceptable - then you’re looking at discrimination with no basis in fact.
Show me a study that says I’m wrong. I’m so sick of people saying scientific facts are wrong just because they don’t want to believe them.
If you don’t want to live around black people don’t move to Harlem. If you don’t want an even the tiniest risk getting HIV, don’t become a porn star. If the studios serosorted, that would be a good step. But the message is that there are no sexy poz guys.
Rigorous viral load and STD testing + condoms. That’s the proper gear. Case solved. No discrimination necessary.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
As long as it’s porn, no one gives a shit so it can be prosecutable. In a lot of states it just takes being gay much less poz. And yeah it’s not a job at McDonald’s but what does it matter if you’re making a Big Mac and cut yourself? Blood is way easier for transmission than anything else, and it’s in all reality not even that transmittable. The virus only gets smart once it’s inside people which means it has serious weaknesses and just maybe all this money spent to stop bareback porn might better go to figure out how to kill it for once and all. This has gotta be the longest an invented virus (yep, most probably a side effect of polio vaccine testing) kept on going. It’s obviously not going to happen through official channels as Pfizer etc have the government on a short leash. So why isn’t the one industry who has the most to lose from it doing something?
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
Jesus can I say it again some people really need to get over the 1990-era mentality about HIV. The only ones winning are the drug companies making $2k a month off the meds. Rawtop’s facts are accurate and even in some cases I think understated. As if the majority of porn companies even really check the HIV status of a performer, I mean, seriously, I only know of one that I’m sure does. And I’m not even sure it would be legal for them to do so.
Re: Can we talk about Buddy Profits / Next Door Studio?
:off_topic
Back to the original point,
Ive seen this at the forum before. But in all honesty i think we seem as unapproachable as they do to us!
I hung out with Tommy D with Mark, Danny and Chuck at a party once, he was totally lovely! - But he didnt want to ‘interrupt our biz’
&my board sponsor hat is off: Your all becoming asses!
