Condoms and cotton swabs, oh my!
Think about the last time you watched a porn film. Were you at home, by yourself? Were you with your partner? Did you have fun and get off? Probably so, right? After all, what’s hotter than… watching one person give another an incurable STD?
Nothing, right?
Wait. Not what you wanted to see? Well, chances are pretty good that you are. After all, the likelihood that you’re watching performers who are wearing condoms or taking other safer sex precautions is fairly slim, especially if you’re watching heterosexual porn. Condom-less porn (or bareback) is on the rise in gay outlets as well, and as popularity creates a demand for more and more, studios and performers are leaving the protection in the nightstand.
For decades now, there’s been a wide gap between the use of condoms, testing, and other safer sex practices in gay and straight porn. Currently, the straight porn industry relies on monthly STI testing via the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM). Testing is an effective way for tracking infections and monitoring them, but it’s not a perfect system. HIV can take almost ten days to appear on a test. At best that leaves a performer ten days to work without knowing their status and, at worst, possibly forty days if they’re infected shortly before their monthly test. While HIV is certainly one of the most concerning STIs, it’s not the only one: according to The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County receives between 60 to 80 reports of new cases of Chlamydia and gonorrhea a month from adult performers from AIM.
When a straight porn performer contracts HIV, the industry reacts, production shuts down as it did in 2004 and the performer is generally barred from working with companies of any note. When a gay porn performer contracts HIV, nobody knows. Everyone keeps making porn, and everyone keeps watching it.
In the gay porn industry, major studios generally require condom use, but few also rely on testing. In a non-scientific survey conducted by Michael Stabile of TheSword.com, a popular website that regularly features and interviews mainstream gay porn stars and producers, 96 self-selected performers answered questions on their HIV status and work practices. 18.4 percent of the performers who responded anonymously admitted that they were HIV+, while another 10 percent acknowledged that they weren’t sure of their status.
“[There] has been a significant increase in the bareback business, creating pressure to have unprotected sex. Some productions are ready to pay more for unsafe sex, even shooting films in poorer countries where actors are more likely to accept the risk of HIV infection,” wrote Thierry Schaffauser, a sex-worker and activist, in a recent editorial for The Guardian.
Multiple agencies have tried to urge regulation of testing and condom requirements, and the idea isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. Porn sets, like factory floors, are work places, and should fall under the purview of OSHA just the same. However, the porn industry isn’t inherently centralized, and productions happen all across the country—often under less than legal or honest circumstances. While it’s easy to target the large studios, small producers also risk the health of performers and are harder to regulate. Even if legislation were to be considered and passed, enforcing it would be nearly impossible.
Just because we can’t regulate it doesn’t mean that we have to support it.
Nothing, right?
Wait. Not what you wanted to see? Well, chances are pretty good that you are. After all, the likelihood that you’re watching performers who are wearing condoms or taking other safer sex precautions is fairly slim, especially if you’re watching heterosexual porn. Condom-less porn (or bareback) is on the rise in gay outlets as well, and as popularity creates a demand for more and more, studios and performers are leaving the protection in the nightstand.
For decades now, there’s been a wide gap between the use of condoms, testing, and other safer sex practices in gay and straight porn. Currently, the straight porn industry relies on monthly STI testing via the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM). Testing is an effective way for tracking infections and monitoring them, but it’s not a perfect system. HIV can take almost ten days to appear on a test. At best that leaves a performer ten days to work without knowing their status and, at worst, possibly forty days if they’re infected shortly before their monthly test. While HIV is certainly one of the most concerning STIs, it’s not the only one: according to The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles County receives between 60 to 80 reports of new cases of Chlamydia and gonorrhea a month from adult performers from AIM.
When a straight porn performer contracts HIV, the industry reacts, production shuts down as it did in 2004 and the performer is generally barred from working with companies of any note. When a gay porn performer contracts HIV, nobody knows. Everyone keeps making porn, and everyone keeps watching it.
In the gay porn industry, major studios generally require condom use, but few also rely on testing. In a non-scientific survey conducted by Michael Stabile of TheSword.com, a popular website that regularly features and interviews mainstream gay porn stars and producers, 96 self-selected performers answered questions on their HIV status and work practices. 18.4 percent of the performers who responded anonymously admitted that they were HIV+, while another 10 percent acknowledged that they weren’t sure of their status.
“[There] has been a significant increase in the bareback business, creating pressure to have unprotected sex. Some productions are ready to pay more for unsafe sex, even shooting films in poorer countries where actors are more likely to accept the risk of HIV infection,” wrote Thierry Schaffauser, a sex-worker and activist, in a recent editorial for The Guardian.
Multiple agencies have tried to urge regulation of testing and condom requirements, and the idea isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. Porn sets, like factory floors, are work places, and should fall under the purview of OSHA just the same. However, the porn industry isn’t inherently centralized, and productions happen all across the country—often under less than legal or honest circumstances. While it’s easy to target the large studios, small producers also risk the health of performers and are harder to regulate. Even if legislation were to be considered and passed, enforcing it would be nearly impossible.
Just because we can’t regulate it doesn’t mean that we have to support it.
enjoyed reading this