by Charles StephensI have seen hundreds of action movies across my lifespan, and wouldn't you know, I've never had the urge to jump off a building, blow up a car, or crane kick an evil agent?Or for that matter, I've never had the urge, that I can recall, to drive a car off the side of the Grand Canyon holding hands with my best friend to the tragic but bittersweet end. At least not yet. Nor do most people, it would appear, since there haven't been outbreaks of people performing stunts they've seen in action movies or chick-flicks. And yet one of the critiques I often hear about bareback porn, from my colleagues in the world of HIV prevention, is the fear that it will make people think it's ok, God forbid, to engage in that behavior.
Pornographic movies, even of the bareback genre, do not define sexual cultures and behaviors, they represent them. Pornography does not create sexuality, no more than the cinema creates reality, it merely projects it. The trend of barebacking, and the fetishization of semen, started long before the bareback porn genre, and would lead me to believe that it's not that porn creates the behavior, but the behaviors, and subcultures that drive the porn. I would not go as far as the pornographer Paul Morris to suggest that bareback porn is a kind of ethnography, however, there are clearly some anthropological implications documented in bareback porn. For example, it's impossible to think critically about representations of gay men's sexuality in our time, without a serious consideration of bareback porn.
Most importantly, what bareback porn tells us, and it's increasing popularity, is the desire for us to see diverse representations of our sexuality. That might look like the muscled and Tom of Finlandesque aesthetic of Titan Media, who is a decidedly pro-condom company, the brown and twinky boys of Flava Works, or the cum pigs of Treasure Island. In the real world our sexuality isn't monolithic. We are a kind of democracy of sexual behaviors ranging from vanilla to scat. Bareback porn, and it's evolution should not come as a surprise, other than to indicate the absolute resilience of gay men to be self-determining in our sexual practices. In other words, after over 20 years of being told that our semen is toxic, there are still those of us that manage to eroticize it, aestheticize it, and subsequently represent it. And most importantly, perhaps watching bareback porn, and the ability to channel one’s fantasy voyeuristically, might prevent some gay men from actually doing it.
Am I suggesting that pornographers specializing in bareback porn have no responsibility to their consumers? No. I actually resent the simplistic libertarianism, and cynical market worship of some porn producers. However, we have yet to develop a substantial model that can be replicated of private/public partnerships with pornographers. A model of mutual responsibility that respects both the need of HIV Preventionistas to provide HIV prevention messages, and the desire of the pornographers to do and create their art. Like Camille Paglia, I believe that anything that can be imagined, must be represented, and we have to create space for that. And yet, we have to be committed to co-creating communities where HIV prevention messages can co-exist with semen fetishists and raunch enthusiasts. Having been the victims of sexual repression we must remember the lesson of George Orwell's Animal Farm, and not engage in the same oppression and intolerance that has been done to us.
Charles Stephens is an Atlanta-based writer and organizer. You can check out his own blog here. and he can be reached at charlesfstephens@gmail.com.
but we try to avoid the real need coming up from us. it is to see everything. i mean who is fucking likes to see his dick and not a platic. for the other one the same thing. OF COURSE, we have to use condom but is an imposition. so if we are clear in mind we will do it. but if we drink or in love or very very hot it can be that we forget it.
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