NakedSword Promotes Safe Sex |
Safe Sex in the Porn Industry Selecting which safe sex practices to integrate into your sexual activities can be a difficult and deeply personal decision. Similarly, it's worth considering how bareback sex in videos may affect you and your community. Today, most of us fall into one of three groups, as far as our practice of safe sex:
It's probably also beneficial to acknowledge that few of us are perfect in our approach to safe sex. We fuck up sometimes - we fall into patterns of unsafe behavior - we "reform" going back to more safe activities. Doesn't it all just make you just want to know what it was like when people just fucked with wild abandon? For many of us, we experience that freedom thru porn. Conflict in the Porn Industry There have been "phases" in the safe sex evolution of the gay porn industry. At the beginning of the AIDS crisis, there was complete denial. But as individuals changed their preferences, the industry adopted fairly strict condoms for fucking guidelines. And a lot of the gray area activities, pissing, fisting,... where mostly eliminated from the films that the mainstream studios produced. The actors no longer swallowed cum, it just got shot everywhere except the mouth and the bum. Actors were squeaky clean and shaven. While there were exceptions, mainstream studios distributed through mainstream channel followed these practices through the 1990's. The approach straight porn maker took was actually very different. While the gay porn film industry adopted the use of condoms, very few heterosexual video companies mandated condoms with a few more allowing performers a choice. Instead they implemented a new system involving using a closed pool of actor who were regularly tested for STD and must clean before making a movie. And while this system allowed straight porn producers to adopt a righteous sense of institutional-denial, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported and ever increasing HIV infection rate in the straight porn industry. This approach to HIV prevention is still where the straight porn industry is at today. Today, much in the gay porn industry is quickly changing and, seemingly, it seemed as if these changes coincided with the emergence and growth of the Bear Community. The evolution of the Internet is not only responsible for enabling gay subcultures to find each other and bond, the new technologies made porn easier to produce and cheaper to distribute. As the bear community grew, new bear video producers emerged, promoted their films at bear events and advertised mostly online in bear / leather related websites. A new generation of men rebelled from the HIV-scrubbed images seen in mainstream videos. Like the bears, many gay sub-cultures voted with their money to see videos that showed sex that they desired. Also, as many gay men accepted and embraced their HIV status and treatments became more sustainable, there arose a collective "Fuck It!" from many quarters within the gay community. They rejected the moralizing and inherent homophobia in the safe sex messages from the government. Individuals decided to completely abandon safe sex practices. Some even transformed the danger of safe sex into a new erotic energy. The response from the porn makers seems to have fallen into a few categories:
Why You May Care Many people who view videos can use them to stimulate their fantasies without letting the behaviors they see become models for their own sexual behavior. But other guys see the abundance of un-safe activities and ask, "Am I the only one missing out?". This question is especially difficult for young gays, who have never know anyone with AIDS. For these reason, some people make the decision not to purchase / rent / view videos with unsafe activities. Then there are the porn actors themselves. Purchasing bareback porn creates a market for the production of more porn with unsafe sex. The actors used in the production of videos are under more pressure, at least financial pressure, to fuck without condoms. Perhaps a temptation you can resist if you are a mega-stud working for Titan Videos, but less possible if you are a young rent-boy just getting by. Another factor to consider is that the Gay Porn is now big business, attracting the attention of many non-gay investors. As gays become accepted in the mainstream, association with the gay adult entertainment business has less stigma. While a gay owned studio or VOD distributor may restrict condomless fucking, straight porn producers making gay porn may well choose money over the well being of the gay community. Afterall, straight producers have long avoided showing condoms in straight videos. For example, the mega-VOD distributor, the Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network (AEBN) of Charlotte, NC purchase gay owned NakedSword of San Francisco, CA in 2007. NakedSword was the largest gay focused VOD distributor. While it initial looked like AEBN would maintain NakedSwords safesex only content, recently they have been adding in some bareback content and erasing much of what made NakedSword a unique brand. A Conscious Decision Like all issues of personal responsibility, the determination of which safe sex practices you adopt can lead to deep questions. As fun-loving, adventurous men, we often avoid deep questions that limit our behavior. But as this is a significant, potentially life altering decision, it is perhaps appropriate to re-visit this decision many times in your life, making a conscious decision as to what activities and safe sex rules you want to follow. Similarly, make the determination about what kind of porn you watch, or don't watch, a conscious decision. Some people have decided for themselves that condomless videos promote unsafe sex and contribute to the continuing HIV problem. Others say that watching bareback videos is an important part of their own safe sex program - if they can't have it in real life, they can have it in fantasy. A third group decides for their specific reasons, they have accepted the risks of unsafe sex in their lives. So think it through. And check out our recommendations of VOD websites. 
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