Timidly asking a bareback question...

Webmaster Discussion
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#1

I so don’t want to start a discussion like the one recently, but there is a point I’d like clarified…

So lets start with the premise that all bareback porn is horrible and those of us who promote bareback are merchants of death that should be shot and then go to hell… So no need to go in that direction… This question is more about how hot hell should be for different types of bareback… 666

In some of the threads recently people were saying that the more controversial bareback is coming out of Europe. But at the same time I think it was Bjorn who described the European stuff as generally being “cleaner” and the American stuff piggier. I think the implication was that the American stuff is more likely to have poz guys, and the European stuff neg guys. Hence the heightened controversy.

I’m wondering if anyone can clarify some of the statements on the European stuff. At what point does it get really controversial? I know about “British Bareback Vacation” - that’s obviously at the top of the controversy scale with half the models testing poz a month or so after the shoot. But I think people are talking generally about the stuff done in Eastern Europe (not the UK) with guys who may be “gay for pay” or may not have had very good sex education.

Are there particular studios that are especially controversial or are certain ones considered less controversial? Just floating names - HDK International’s stuff they did in Eastern Europe? Gay Pay’s stuff (they go pretty young)? That group of guys you see all over the the place that do “exclusive content” that all looks the same (don’t know their name but Internally Gay is an example)? Eurocream? Ikarus?

Or is it not really a European thing at all but any bareback with young, HIV negative models that’s considered controversial? Of course Cobra is controversial for other reasons as well - but is it their style of bb porn what we’re talking about? If so, does it get less controversial as the models get into their 20s and are more ‘jocks’ than ‘twinks’?

I’m asking because I’m just starting to look at the European stuff and the smaller US producers and wonder how the critics judge it in relative degrees of horribleness…

So for those of you who are critics of bareback porn… If you could only stop bareback porn one sub-niche at a time which ones would you stop first?

#2

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

Just for the record, I don’t promote bareback. But, to answer your question, I would first stop promoting those kinds of bb where people get infected intentionally (bug chasers?). That sounds wrong on so many levels, and I personally find it disgusting. The second on the list not to promote would be the east european stuff - partly because I think the models are not informed enough about the dangers, partly because I don’t like the models themselves.

However, I never understood why is there such a huge difference between straight and gay porn without condoms? So much so in fact that (as tigermom already pointed out) in straight porn it’s not an issue at all? There is no “bareback straight porn” - practically everything is bareback there. Could someone explain that to me?

Are all models (male and female) in straight porn tested more rigorously, so that the chances of HIV infection are minimal? Or is there some other reason? (I only heard that Marc Wallace was infected and two people last year if I remember well; and both cases received a lot of media coverage)

If there were gay bareback studios that stuck to the same (more rigorous?) principles as is the case with (most?) straight studios - so that we could hear that over time models never get infected on the shoot although they fuck without condoms, then perhaps the whole bb issue would cease to exist? Perhaps then gay people would watch bb gay porn as straight people now watch straight (bb) porn - as a sort of fantasy and without drawing conclusions as to whether that’s the right thing to do in their private life.

I mean, I never heard from my straight male friends “Ooohh I fucked that girl without a condom (just like I have seen in the porn movies ever since I started watching porn) and imagine she got pregnant! And now I’m afraid I might have been infected with HIV as well. Why nobody told me that would happen? In the porn movies nobody says the girls can become pregnant and I wasn’t told you can become infected with HIV if you don’t use a condom.”

#3

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

The fact that you don’t promote bareback is actually useful here since you’re one of the one who obviously objects on some level to bareback porn…

For starters, there is no commercial bug chasing porn. So that one isn’t an issue (at the moment).

By the sounds of it you just don’t feel the Eastern Europeans are likely to be properly educated on risk. That’s one of the issues I figured would come up.

The Eastern European stuff is often published by Western European (and American) companies, right? How do you tell what’s OK and what’s not?

#4

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

No, you got me wrong there. When I mentioned the 2 types of bareback, I do that as a 2 niches. Neither are better or worse than the other. But there are destinct differences in the way you would market it / surfers who would buy it.

I dont think the European bareback titles would appeal to the same guys who enjoy HDK, Dickwadd etc. They are hugely different. So different that I see them as different niches or themes.

To me personally I like the HDK, Dickwadd and Treasure Island more than i would European stuff. Thats personal taste though, and thats the only real difference between the two. Nothing else.

In regards to the East European stuff, like Internally Gay. I honestly dont know what to classify it as. I dont really even consider it to be bareback. Dont know why exactly, but I guess its soo poorly produced, ugly models etc that I simply cant see the attraction. (No offence… to the owners).

Actually, the main thing might be that they guys dont enjoy it… Maybe thats why!?

[quote=rawTOP;15861]
In some of the threads recently people were saying that the more controversial bareback is coming out of Europe. But at the same time I think it was Bjorn who described the European stuff as generally being “cleaner” and the American stuff piggier. I think the implication was that the American stuff is more likely to have poz guys, and the European stuff neg guys. Hence the heightened controversy.

I’m wondering if anyone can clarify some of the statements on the European stuff. At what point does it get really controversial? [/quote]

#5

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I wouldnt bet on that! I have a feeling, but this is only my educated guess. A great deal of East European content is produced and made by East Europeans and sold on to the “west” so to speak. And often also created exclusively for East European owned sites.

There are some very successfull East European affiliate programs, more than we might think to be honest. There is also a whole army of east european affiliates who push this content and sites. Its a huge and quite hidden part of the industry. None of them participate much on forums, they dont interact or speak to oustiders much. But I certainly see their free and avs sites.

#6

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

[QUOTE=rawTOP;15867]The fact that you don’t promote bareback is actually useful here since you’re one of the one who obviously objects on some level to bareback porn…

For starters, there is no commercial bug chasing porn. So that one isn’t an issue (at the moment).
[/quote]

That’s good to hear.

By the sounds of it you just don’t feel the Eastern Europeans are likely to be properly educated on risk. That’s one of the issues I figured would come up.

The Eastern European stuff is often published by Western European (and American) companies, right? How do you tell what’s OK and what’s not?

well, first off, I live in an East European country, probably the very one where that east eu bb porn is produced, so I know that the models’ lack of knowledge and greedy producers that don’t care for the models can be expected. Also, I was told by several people who are supposed to know the bb stuff that it is probably so.

what with the part of my question regarding the differences between straight and gay bb porn? How can you explain the fact there’s no straight bareback as a niche (almost everything is bb there)?

#7

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

RawTop,

I do not promote bareback as an affiliate outside of BlakeMason. However, what I have seen from the Euro Producers as far as BB is pretty much the same as I have seen on non bb sites - the use of real young models.

I could go on about “things that I heard”, but I will keep all of that in private conversations.

Here is my issues, besides what I heard, and I refuse to post things that I believe may be true based on the source, but have no proof.

It annoys me greatly to see a proliferation of BB from european countries with models that are stated as being 18, yet look much younger. I know I am opening up for the “younger guy” debate here. But, damnit, don’t take an 18 year old guy, make him look 16, and slap bareback all over the place.

It really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

#8

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I would like to know as well. My guess though is that it’s both more complicated AND less at the same time…

Hasn’t HIV always been seen (and still is) as a Gay disease. Maybe so much so, that most straight people see the biggest danger with unprotected sex being an unwanted pregnancy? Ok, maybe that’s a bit simplistic, but maybe it has something to do with it. It doesn’t happen to straight people… or so they believe.

Even myself, even if I know fully well that by now the majority of people with HIV are not Gay. I probably still associate HIV with Homosexuality. I still remember seeing the first reports and discussions on TV about how this new disease was killing gay men. It was always gay men, nothing else… and im sure it was portraid like that for a long time on TV and in the news.

#9

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I have two major issues

  1. the message sent to young viewers watching porn

I speak to a lot of twink models and twinks considering modeling. Particularly with the 18 and 19 year old guys, very few of them really understand the risk of bareback sex. They know it’s “bad” but many of them don’t understand what having HIV means… “Oh, you just take a pill and it’s fine, it’s not a big deal any more” And nearly all of these guys tell me that they’ve seen barebacking in videos (since almost all twink porn is bareback now) and they get the idea that this is what’s normally done.

Now the pro-barebackers will argue that we as producers have no responsibility for the decisions of others, that we shouldn’t dictate what others watch or do or how they live their lives… and I can see and understand that argument. However, even our corrupt, bought-and-paid-for (US) government decided years ago that certain types of advertising were not OK because they had undue influence on children and teens, and they banned it. I’m speaking about cigarette ads on TV, the use of characters such as Joe Camel, etc. And as soon as those ads stopped, cigarette use among youth declined. But then… cigarettes started making a re-appearance in movies after a long absence, and guess what? Cigarette use among youth skyrocketed. So the argument that what people view has no influence on their decisions has been soundly proven to be false.

Now… any such argument runs squarely against free speech, and I’m in favor of free speech. What I’m saying is that, in an ideal world, people would choose not to produce bareback content, particularly twink porn, because of the undue influence it has on young people.

  1. fully informed consent.

Here, again, my primary issue is with fully informed consent. Of all the models I have talked to who have done bareback, very, very few truly understood the risks they were taking, and even fewer were informed of the risks by the producers. At best, the producers said “You can do bareback if you want, it pays X dollars more”. At worst, producers outright lied and said that with the testing they did, it was perfectly safe and there was no risk at all, and many, many of the producers strongarmed their prospective models into doing bareback, in many cases being persistent at the shoot after the model had already said before coming out to the shoot that bareback wasn’t an option.

Again, my principal objection is with younger models, because the majority of them seem to want to please the people they’re working with, and are likely to be unduly affected by influence and manipulation by producers.

Now with a model of any age, if the risks were fully disclosed, not minimized (including the risks of reinfection among known positive models) and if there wasn’t undue influence and the model was making a decision that he had thought about (after being fully informed about the risks, not just handed a piece of paper) and chosen to do without being convinced, then a lot of the concerns I have about the model’s decision to bareback would be addressed.

Also, I suppose that if a real, honest disclaimer about the risks of barebacking were included (and I don’t mean some janky window dressing that lasts 3 seconds at the beginning of the video) then, to some extent, the concerns about education would be somewhat addressed.

All of that said, I have somewhat less objection to barebacking by older models or barebacking aimed at older viewers. I honestly would prefer that people only produce safer sex videos, but I would also honestly prefer that people not smoke or do drugs, either. Neither of those are realistic views.

#10

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

One other point:

All of the larger straight producers use AIM (an adult industry associated nonprofit organization) to handle testing. AIM takes care of testing and also catalogs the results of all tests over time, sort of a central clearinghouse for straight adult industry models. I believe AIM also tracks what models work with what other models, which allows a centralized way of tracking possible exposure if a model tests positive.

This largely prevents a model from being positive and using fake test results from working in the industry. It also ensures that if a model is found to be positive, the other models who have worked with that person can immediately be identified and the spread contained.

A couple years ago there was a well-known gay model who publicly claimed to be negative, but was widely known to be positive. There were allegations of three separate ex-boyfriends that they had been infected by this person, yet he continued to be hired by various studios because he was always able to produce HIV test results that were, apparently, faked. This would be much harder to do in the straight industry because of AIM.

There are few companies in the gay industry that do any sort of testing of their own. Instead, they rely on a model to be tested and bring test results, which can easily be faked. (Very few testing centers require ID for testing.) Worse yet, quite a number of gay studios apparently rely on a model’s claim that they are poz or neg. Hot Desert Knights is a notable exception; they use AIM. I know Tony and Cam serosort, and a number of other studios primarily work with models who are “assumed to be positive.” We (Gaybucks/18 West, who shoot only safer content) test all of our models on their arrival to eliminate faked testing as well as to ensure that test results are current.

#11

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

So if I had to summarize what people have said so far the controversy is primarily an issue of the model not understanding the risk. Age comes into it because younger models are less likely to appreciate the risk and are eager to please. The Eastern European part is a factor because their sex education is substandard again resulting in them not understanding the risk.

Conversely, the more models understand about the risk, the less controversy (e.g. older, poz models in a Western country, or use of AIM).

#12

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I think with some bareback porn what makes it really controversial is how far the guys really go. I remember when “Dawson’s 20-Load Weekend” first came out there was such a buzz about a guy being willing to lock himself up in a hotel room and let 20 guys use his ass. Of course since then, he did “Dawson’s 50-Load Weekend.” Now that’s a lot different that a couple of guys just fucking bareback.

Michael

#13

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

To me “What I Can’t See” was the first really groundbreaking/controversial (depending on your perspective) BB video. For it’s time it was totally extreme - now it just seems sort of ordinary…

As you mention, “Dawson’s 20 Load Weekend” was also pretty significant since it was the first time a really hot guy (in mainstream eyes) was getting gangbanged in a bareback video. I was one of the 20 tops and it gave me a surprising amount of name recognition.

Then there was “Every Poolboy’s Dream” where Brent Corrigan was underage, and “British Bareback Vacation” where half the guys wound up poz a month later (including an 18 year old) - though that was hardly intentional. Groundbreaking isn’t the word for those - they’re just plain controversial.

But I guess that’s sorta the point - it’s hard to groundbreaking in BB porn these days… It’s sorta all be done. But I can see where, if you’re bothered by bareback porn, for things that seemed so controversial to become routine has to be disturbing…

#14

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

My views are very much along the same lines as those that Chip has posted. I have less problem with the extreme fetish end of things.

I think porn can play a role in raising awareness of important things and it can improve sex lives or be a substitute for having one. Basically I’m excited about making porn that shows happy confident gay men enjoying life without hurting themselves or other people.

There always is more money to be made by going further than anyone else did before. But I think you can make an equally good living by being creative and imaginative rather than going for the obvious route of always more extreme.

#15

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I guess the other big objection I have to barebacking in gay porn is that, somehow, the industry has gotten the idea (particularly in the twink sector) that one HAS to shoot bareback in order to be able to sell their product.

It’s sort of like the old story about the man whose business is going great, but his son comes home from college and tells him how terrible the economy is and how bad business is, so the father curtails his advertising to save money for the impending “downturn”… and then, unsurpisingly, his business slows down.

As Gary said, you can produce great, interesting content where the models are having a great time, the people watching it enjoy it, and everyone comes away with a healthy view about gay sexuality… and content like that will most definitely sell. Our safer sex DVDs currently outsell a lot of bareback twink studios even though we’ve never produced anything but safer sex product. Of course, we have to do some extra work to convince stores to take it on, since the stores also assume that non-bareback won’t sell… but once a store tries it, our reorder rate is nearly 100%.

As I said in my earlier post, if I could wave a wand and magically make everyone decide that shooting bareback just wasn’t a wise thing to do and make it all go away without curtailing anyone’s rights or freedoms, yeah, I’d do that. But since I can’t do that, the next best thing is to try to educate studios that they don’t have to go that route, to educate and empower models to say “No” when asked to do it (or at least, to really understand the risks and consciously make an informed decision), and to educate and encourage consumers to realize that the presence or absence of a condom really doesn’t make much difference if the quality of the performance, production, and models is up-to-par.

And for the people that shoot bareback because they totally love it and believe in it, and are honest with their models and do appropriate disclaimers, God bless 'em. They have every right to do what they’re doing, even if I would make a different choice if I were in their shoes, and it’s not my place to judge.

#16

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I hear time and again though from site owners with search features that bareback is consistently a high sought-after phrase. So I guess people are just seeing the money flying out the window. When I tell friends that I got a new demo DVD today, they’re always asking, “Is it bareback?”

Also, a few months back there seemed to be a new twink bareback site opening up every other week, and so I imagine that has an effect on the marketplace. People seeing all those sites and thinking — rightly or wrongly — that there’s a lot of money to be made and that’s where the market is headed.

And of course if you’re cruising the online profiles there are a lot of barebackers, but also a lot of adamant “no barebacking” (no PNP as well) so I guess overall, to a producer, the marketplace looks pretty mixed up.

Michael

#17

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

You can put that on your profile but you can bet that many of the guys you meet will still suggest it when they get you horny. That’s been my experience anyway. It happened just a couple of weeks ago.

You say nope, you need to rubber up, and then probably you don’t see them again because they didn’t get what they wanted. The pressure to do it can be intense.

All your friends seem to be doing it, you go down to the local gay sex shop or look at websites and every other DVD or site is bareback. So in the end maybe you’re not strong enough to resist, desperate for a boyfriend, or you feel like you’re missing out on something and not doing the ‘normal’ thing. Peer pressure and all that.

I guess there is a tipping point where there will be more bareback porn than safe on the market and bareback will then be the ‘norm’. No idea how far away from that we are.

But what you’re saying about producers shows how it is mushrooming. It seems to be what everyone is doing and what everyone wants. But is demand driving production or is production driving demand?

I sure that if they had chosen to do so, producers could have turned putting on a condom into a huge fetish. It’s hot to see a guy who cares about you and himself :slight_smile:

#18

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

Fascinating discussion. My two boys are way too young, but I can promise you that whether they’re gay or straight, mom is going to give them plenty of lectures on condoms when the time comes!

#19

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

[QUOTE=gaybucks_chip;15877]One other point:

All of the larger straight producers use AIM (an adult industry associated nonprofit organization) to handle testing. AIM takes care of testing and also catalogs the results of all tests over time, sort of a central clearinghouse for straight adult industry models. I believe AIM also tracks what models work with what other models, which allows a centralized way of tracking possible exposure if a model tests positive. [/QUOTE]

I think something like AIM can help a lot but I’m curious to know if it is allowed by privacy laws to do that.

I always tought that requiring an health test to work, to decide if somebody is able to work or not just because of an STD test result and to publicly discuss about the health status of a model may be a big violation of the model privacy and a worker discrimination. I think that doing that in my Country can be quite illegal but never produced here so I don’t know exacly.

Is it allowed by USA law to do that? Is it legal to require somebody a STD test and to decide if he can work or not according to the results?

#20

Re: Timidly asking a bareback question…

I think its allowed here in the UK. Some jobs and even some insurance companies will require you to take HIV tests.

My life insurance for example demanded me to have a HIV test otherwise they would not insure me.

[quote=GTP;15919]I think something like AIM can help a lot but I’m curious to know if it is allowed by privacy laws to do that.

I always tought that requiring an health test to work, to decide if somebody is able to work or not just because of an STD test result and to publicly discuss about the health status of a model may be a big violation of the model privacy and a worker discrimination. I think that doing that in my Country can be quite illegal but never produced here so I don’t know exacly.

Is it allowed by USA law to do that? Is it legal to require somebody a STD test and to decide if he can work or not according to the results?[/quote]