Thursday, March 6, 2008

HIV scandal in gay porn industry

Three films have been withdrawn from sale following a Newsnight investigation into the health risks of so-called bareback gay porn - which shows men have unprotected sex.
It follows concerns within the gay community that performers are being infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Two of the DVDs featured footage from a week-long shoot during which eight British models had sex with each other in multiple combinations without condoms.
Four of those who took part were diagnosed as HIV positive soon after. One of the men told the BBC he was distressed that footage which he believed showed him becoming infected had been put on sale.
In a separate case a British producer, Rufus Ffoulkes, was jailed last week on a child pornography charge for putting a 16-year-old boy in a gay porn film in which he had unprotected sex. The US company which released the film had refused appeals to stop selling the DVD until it was approached by Newsnight. Now, Britain's leading bareback film company, Icreme, has told the BBC it has decided to only do films using condoms. Most heterosexual pornography has never featured condoms. But showing unprotected sex became taboo in gay porn after HIV and Aids emerged in the 1980s. Yet in the last four years there has been an explosion in the production of bareback films. They now make up about 60% of the gay market.
Some health officials believe this is a sign of a wider complacency in society about the risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases which is mirrored in rising statistics for new infections.
Ceri Evans, Senior Sexual Health Adviser at West London Centre for Sexual Health, told Newsnight: "I think that there is a possibility of something being called condom fatigue.
"We have been talking about condoms so long that people are bored or think they know it all. Education in schools is not what it could be, for anybody, for heterosexual but particularly if you are gay."
The rise of bareback porn exasperates many who lived through the 1980s and 1990s.
In the US the leading gay porn director Chi Chi Larue has taken a very public stance against bareback films.
"After all the gay community has been through why are we putting people at risk for porn," he says in a new advert aimed at persuading consumers to boycott bareback films.
In Britain the campaign against bareback is being lead by a director called Steven Brewer.
He is inviting both producers and performers to sign up to a new code of practice designed to minimise risk within the gay porn industry.
He told Newsnight: "I just don't want another 18-year-old model crying on my shoulder not sure how to tell his partner or his parents that he is now HIV positive."

source

6 comments:

Unknown said...

It is truly sad that something like this had to happen before someone said anything. Did we learn nothing from the 90's???? Are we going to become a disease crippled society once again only this time not due to ignorance but to nothing short of apathy???? HIV and other STDs KILL people... what don't we as a society understand about this???? Sorry sorry but then again I'm not. Ranting seems to be the only way some people understand. And to those of you who dont seem to care bout what is happening to us as a culture you ARE the cause of the problematic apathy.

Anonymous said...

steve im glad to see how seriously you are taking the how i roll campaign, for many years certain studios in the bareback regime have mislead new models and it is criminal in my mind to see young models getting infected on sets, sure there is a risk with everything a model does in porn but in reality studios and models should be doing everything they can to reduce the risks and safety should always be a priority. after the three models got infected on the set in europe that should have been an eye opener to the world about the problem in the industry, but how many more continue to get infected, and how many people see the bareback videos and think its ok and try it at home,
this is a controversial issue in both gay and straight films, but this is an issue that both communities need to come together on and deal with it head on,
promoting behavior like taking 50 loads in one ass by 50 different people is not hot in my mind its disgusting, i am not here to preach to anyone or knock there fantasies or fetishes, but in this day and age people need to wake up to reality and realize that alot of diseases are no joke, you cant just take a pill and feel better,
is 20 minutes of fun worth a lifetime of pain and suffering.
keep pushing the work steve and if you can get through to at least one person its worth it, you have alot of support from both the gay and straight community.
and you have my support and ill stand behind you

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this very important post!

One of the other issues that is affecting our community is the absence of expectation that people know their personal HIV status.

Transmission is a factor of not assuming appropriate responsibilities based on individual knowledge of risk. People need to know what their status and the status of their partner(s) is in order to engage in safer sexual practices.

Anonymous said...

Banning bareback Porn is like closing bathhouses. I do not understand producers that are 'against" bareback porn or worse, seek to ban it. The kids being infected in this porn-shoot do not point out that there is something wrong with bareback sex to me. It signals that there is a lack of education or a willingness to take the risk of infection (which points out a need for mental health/social services if the person getting infected is surprised). Most bareback porn is with HIV+ men that have sex with other HIV+ men.
Vilifying or criminalizing someones sex practices of choice is not going to do any good. It will silence this sort of debate and stigmatize peoples behaviors. This is not a good thing for preventing new infections, anybody that works with clients in HIV prevention can tell you that. If you believe bareback sex is wrong then don't have it and don't watch it (trow out those DVD's).
I know my risk as a HIV+ man. I already have it so I do not fear it and I like to have bareback sex with other HIV+ men. There is no real evidence that super infection occurs after having an immune response, in fact the data seems to suggest that it does not happen. This is what I know.
I actually have never encountered a HIV+ man that wanted to use condoms (and I do a lot of fucking) so I know that bareback sex is the common practice amongst my peers. I also know that HIV+ men tend to be a lot more pro-active in preventing new infections. sero-sorting is a great prevention tool, IF YOUR HIV+.

I'm a 40 year old Gay man living in San Francisco . I've been HIV+ for 9 years and I work in HIV prevention.

olen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
olen said...

So what? Just take your pills and you'll be fine. There is no STD that is not manageable or curable.

We're all going to die someday. AIDS is over. It's not that big of a deal anymore. When are we going to accept that fact? Stop the hysteria and stop AIDS phobia now!