The straight industry is able to forgoe condoms by testing all of its performers and banning the ones who test HIV positive. By contrast, the gay industry is able to forgoe testing by mandating condoms and allowing performers who are HIV positive.
There are exceptions on both sides, of course. Some straight studios do mandate condoms, and once in a while an HIV positive performer slips through the ass cracks. And then you have those gay studios which film bareback sex, shunned as they are by the big and glossy side of the industry.
Even within the bareback studios there are different strategies for handling HIV. Hot Desert Knights tests its performers and sero-sorts them, aiming to pair poz guys with poz guys and neg guys with guys. On the other end of the spectrum is Treasure Island Media, the notorious bareback studio that does not acknowledge the virus except to fetishize it, at times, with poz daddy "breeding" lingo.
The condom side of the gay industry is full of HIV positive performers too, performers who fuck with condoms on-screen but bareback in their personal lives. Some condom studios go even further to stave off HIV, as with Next Door Studios and Randy Blue, among others, who test models as well as slapping condoms on them.
This diversity in gay studios’ approaches to condom usage and HIV reflects the diversity of sex in the gay community at large, and the risks involved in fucking on camera mirror the risks involved in man-on-man sex in private. Just as there is no effective way to monitor gay men’s sex lives in private without messy and invasive legislation, there is no way to prevent HIV positive performers from fucking on camera without a witch hunt that would decimate the gay porn star ranks and unfairly expose those porn stars who are living with HIV.
This conversation is far from new, but I’m writing about it in response to Jeremy Bilding’s blog post this week that compared and contrasted two "mind-blowing facts": that "50%" of gay performers are HIV positive while "0%" of straight performers are. Jason Curious did not like this post very much. The porn agent said that Jeremy’s blog post was beating a dead horse, and added that Jeremy was pulling these statistics out of his tight virgin ass.
As it happens, Jeremy’s statistics are not so far from the numbers that The Sword gathered in 2008, in a study finding that nearly 30% of working gay porn stars were HIV positive or didn’t know their status. And Jeremy’s conclusion is the same as The Sword’s. He writes:
I’m not opposed to anyone working in Porn that wants to work in Porn. … Every time anyone, industry or not has sex, you are entering into a risky act that may leave you with something for the rest of your life. It is absolutely up to you AND your partner as to how you wish to reduce that risk. You AND your partner need to figure that out.
In other words, porn policy needs to come from inside the industry, not from zealous prosecutors and outsider watchdog organizations. The only mandate that makes sense for me would be to require studios to disclose the risks involved in fucking men, either with condoms or without. Once informed, performers can consent to these risks as adults, and studios can choose for themselves which kind of slice of gay sex they serve to consumers.
RELATED:
Porn Stars To Producers: Condoms Not Enough!
Bareback Studio Begins HIV Testing
Jeremy Bilding On Go-Go Etiquette
Cal/OSHA Inspects Naughty America for Safety Violations
Condoms, Tests And Where You Think You’re Putting That Cock (Jeremy Bilding)
The reality is that HIV is not the only life threatening disease you can catch from unsafe sex. Hep C is easy to transmit with a good rough fuck (and from bottom to top even since the bottom’s blood comes in contact with the mucous membrane of the urethra). And plenty of other curable STDs are still harmful (and gross) and not something any poz man needs as an additional health issue.
While HIV still looms large in all of our minds, there are a whole slew of STDs and I don’t know of any studio that tests for all of them.
Put a condom on it and your worries go down – and this is true whether you are positive or negative.
And it keeps us from sexual apartheid.
Jockey, this is grand daddy Jake and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Jeremy has not run back to me to do more bareback sex with me or any other man. He has not shot a gay bareback scene for either of my gay sites in at least a year and a half. He shot a straight scene without a condom but with both models AIM tested for my Straight Guys for Gay Eyes site. And that’s how straight porn is shot.
BerlinDad. Thanks! But everyone should know that I’m not interested in being a good guy or a bad guy. A lot of straight models are comfortable performing bareback gay sex because they understand AIM testing. Most gay actors do not wish to do bareback sex. That’s all good. I let the models do what they are comfortable doing.
As for the percentage of gay porn actors who are HIV+, I see no reason why it would be any different than the general gay population. And I’m pretty sure that this percentage is no where nearly as high as 30% and definitely not 50%. Of course no one can know for sure until everyone gets tested.
Uh nearly 30% is A LOT far off then 50%. There is no such thing as “bareback good guys”.
Jockey, for the record, Jake Cruise is one of the “bareback Good Guys” who does vigorously test all his performers and doesn’t do bareback with HIV+ guys. If you follow Jeremy’s Twitter account you know that Jeremy did recently scene with Parker London for Cocksure Men and both the guys were tested and still used condoms. Jake Cruise, love him or hate him, is willing to let porn stars like Jeremy choose how safe he wants to be.
Then after all that Jeremy ran straight back to Jake Cruise to film more un-tested un-safe grand daddy bareback sex.
Channel 1 would have been better off sticking to the policy of not casting models who have done bareback videos in the first place rather than selectively bending the rules for certain models.
The people who should be photographed with duct tape over their mouths are not supporters of gay marriage but models who have done bareback videos and are no longer allowed in condom required movies.
Very nicely written.