I’ve been wanting to do this more. Not every day, but maybe once a week? Regardless of the frequency, I’ll still title the posts “Comment of the Day.” The more grammatically correct and the more uniquely opinionated your comment, the more likely it is to be re-published on the front page. And while I may or may not agree with them, I’m usually drawn to the comments that are funny, coherent, and that take a contrary point of view to the rest of the comments in any given thread.
In response to Sean Cody’s Three-Way Double Penetration Breeding Bareback Bonanza…
“Absurdist” writes:
We’re Americans. We have companies that produce products that they know will KILL US.
I mean, cigarette, anyone?
The demand for new bareback porn is not going away any time soon, kind of like stamping out nicotine addiction is never going to happen. And as long as the demand is there, companies will exist to financially exploit those desires. No moral concern there, and if that asshole Ayn Rand were still around, she’d probably say there shouldn’t be, either.
For as much as I may object to the production of bareback porn on an ethical basis, I’m just politically moderate enough to realize that the nanny-state approach is also wrong. How is condemning bareback porn producers different (except perhaps in degree) than the [Parents Television Council] going after F/X for broadcasting, say, Nip/Tuck? Moral objection is just that here; a question of degree, and bareback porn is just a point on the continuum. There are people who find ANY gay porn morally objectionable, and people who find ALL porn morally objectionable. Who’s wrong? And why should any of them get to say, on moral grounds, that none of it should be allowed to exist, even for people who WANT it?
There’s nothing unethical about barebacking or distributing bareback porn.
What is unethical is when porn companies pay models more money to bareback. Then it becomes a financial bribe to risk their lives. Some models (granted not all or even most) are doing it because they need the money. Some of them are in a financial pinch and they might be willing to take extra risks they wouldn’t otherwise take if they can get 150-200% of the pay of a “safe” performance. I’d even go so far as to say that many of the younger, newer models are uneducated about the risks they are taking and are easily taken advantage of by the studios. Now if the studios want to offer the same pay for performances with condoms as they do without and they don’t discriminate against performers who insist on using condoms, then that’s perfectly fine. But we all know it’s highly unlikely that will happen.
Also, I do worry about bareback porn encouraging young people to ignore safe sex warnings, since many young people get their sex ed from porn, but then it’s not the adult industry’s responsibility to educate the public about safe sex practices.
Well dude they are adults and that is their decision not yours, get over it
Of course it’s ultimately their decision, nor did I say it was my decision. None of that absolves porn studios for the unethical behavior of bribing people to risk their lives.
I hope Sean Cody continues to make more bareback porn
*blushes*
It was a first draft. I should have put a little more effort into proofing for awkward grammar, but I really should have been asleep when I was writing it, though that’s just an excuse.
All the same, thanks much.
Good, articulate response. And I agree with “Absurdist”.
Although I personally find the production of bareback porn ethically bankrupt, I wholeheartedly agree that they have a right to produce it, as long as the models are fully aware and consenting in the production.
As once was said in reference to Voltaire ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’
Maybe ‘to the death’ might be a little extreme but you get the point.
‘To the death’ is fairly apt, considering we’re talking about unsafe sex.
Unsafe sex does not result in “death”. You may end up with a chronic disease which requires medication for the rest of your life but the idea that HIV = DEATH is old, outdated and has got to go.
I have friends who are positive, and have been so for 25+ years. They are in no way dieing soon.
So do I, as far as long-surviving PLWH friends go. I’m old enough to have lost most of my friends by the mid-nineties, but there are still those in my age range who’ve made it through for more than twenty years in excellent condition.
It’s not an ideal situation, being long-term HIV-positive, but considering that death is worse, it kind of shifts the base of the argument.
And really, one point I forgot to leave out that goes with that nanny-state notion: About eleven years ago there was a Parents group or other who got their collective panties in a wad over the film version of CHICAGO because the characters were depicted smoking cigarettes, on the grounds that their doing so glamorized smoking, never mind the fact that in the 1920s, when the story is set, smoking was significantly more widespread than it is now. “Glamorizing” smoking makes kids want to do it, right?
Poor logic, which assumes that people are generally stupid.
I have a friend who was diagnosed in 1985 and against all the odds survived to be able to tahe the “cocktail” of drugs that became available in the late 90’s. Because the virus adapted he is now on the last known and available “cocktail” available. Hopefully another will be created, but if not he will most surely die.
~17,000 Americans die every year as a result of HIV/AIDS, according the UN. It’s true, unsafe sex doesn’t always result in death, but it can. Most people, with proper treatment, are able to live with it as a chronic condition, but that’s hardly a given. Many can and will die as a result.
Your sense of ethic is vey elastic.
Your sense of ethic is very elastic.*
And, as an unrelated notion, Samuel Colt is quite lovely to look at. ;-)
So, having sex for money isn’t ethically bankrupt only if you use a condom?
Good idea Zach. And “Absurdist” makes an interesting (and good) point.