Nice post on Trevor Hoppe's blog by Tony Valenzuela. Don't forget to come hear Tony speak at Risky Business on August 17th!
The tone of the online debate has been, well, impolite following the announcement by International Mr. Leather to ban the promotion and distribution of bareback porn at the weekend event's leather marketplace.
"Fascists. No wonder they like uniforms," wrote a man identified as Liam Cole reacting to the ban on Treasure Island Media's blog "
You're just a bunch of sick people who need help," countered an anonymous poster on the same blog.
On August 17th at 6 pm at the Center on Halsted in Chicago, I will be sitting on a panel called "Risky Business? Reclaiming Pleasure," to discuss what effect bareback porn has on men's desires, fantasies and behaviors. The forum is not about IML's ban but will throw a wider net on the discussion of porn, sex without condoms and desire.
As a guest on Trevor's blog, I'd like to focus here on the IML ban that, once again, brought into focus the raw feelings that surface when gay men talk about raw sex. I should state my opinion up front: I disagree with IML's decision, don't believe it will affect behavior, and fear it will further marginalize a group of high risk men who need to be brought under the tent of community wellness, not banished.
"I never thought I'd see the day that IML is used as a vehicle for censorship," said one anonymous source at the Chicago Free Press website. "I don't like being treated like a child at an adult event." Disputing this charge was Colin at Gay Men's Social Crisis blog (GMSC) who said, "I have a hard time with this [censorship] argument. I find bareback porn in direct conflict with health education, even if it does present what can and should be recognized as a fantasy scenario."
Maybe the better question isn't whether or not IML's new policy is censorship - it is by definition - but whether censoring bareback porn from the IML marketplace, however offensively this may strike some of us, is worth the presumed outcome of "social responsibility" and health?
Read the rest at Trevor Hoppe's blog.
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