Posted on July 22nd, 2009 by Colin
4 Comments »
This happened last week, and as per usual I am slow as hell blogging about it. Truth be told, I was actually all fired up to tackle this and then got in a heated debate with a friend via Twitter (a horrible idea, but also kind of fun? 140 characters makes everything reductionist in an interesting way) and lost my fire. But it doesn’t change the relevancy of the topic!
Will Clark World was the first to report on the announcement from International Mr. Leather’s president Chuck Renslow. Renslow’s letter is re-posted below:
Dear Vendors:
On behalf of International Mr. Leather, Inc., I would like to thank you for
your past support and in particular for your participation as a vendor in
our annual Leather Market. We are writing you today to inform you of
a policy change affecting next year (2010) and all future markets.Though we are now three decades into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, no cure has been
found. The CDC and local health officials inform us that new infections are on
the rise. And, while we have had some success developing medications that
might make infection more manageable, that accomplishment comes at a price.
Not having experienced the deaths – the loss of loved ones — which preceded
these medications, we have an entire generation who may not fully appreciate or comprehend the severity of the situation.Too many in our community believe HIV/AIDS is curable or manageable. Too
few understand that HIV/AIDS infections dominate life. We believe that it
is our duty to inform and educate. Several years ago when “Meth” was the scourge of our community, IML drew a line in the sand and raised awareness and used all our influence to try and stop this addictive madness. As is the case with HIV/AIDS, we believe it is our further obligation to do everything in our power to prevent future infections.To that end, after considerable discussion, the Executive Committee of International Mr. Leather has decided that it will no longer allow participation in the IML Leather Market by any entity which promotes barebacking or distributes/sells any merchandise tending to
promote or advocate barebacking. This restriction will also apply to distribution of gifts, post cards or any other information via our facilities.This policy takes effect immediately.
Sincerely,
Chuck Renslow, President
International Mr. Leather
I personally think this is a great, bold move on their part. Some might liken it to censorship, and one commenter on Will Clark’s blog even compared it to Christians banning books. I have a hard time with this 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.
We live in a culture that lacks any sort of healthy sexual education, especially for LGBT people. I remember my first sex ed class. We were told “there are some people who sleep with members of the same sex” and that was it. This was in the early nineties,when AIDS activism and awareness was at its peak at a liberal school. I can only imagine the way our health issues and identities are ignored in more conservative classrooms.
As sad as it is, the majority of my education about gay sex came from looking at pornography. At the time, all that was easily available was studio porn where all the men used condoms. Pre-condom porn also was around, but it all looked dated and I didn’t relate it with the sort of media I saw around me at the time. Shag haircuts, mustaches, and natural looking bodies just didn’t match up with the emerging body types, hair cuts, and fashions I saw on TV. It was more difficulty to use as fantasy fodder since it felt like a different world than the one I lived in.
In college when I became sexually active, it just seemed natural to use condoms since that’s all I had ever really seen practiced. The guy I was first with was also a virgin at the time, but we still used condoms. I even remember him asking if I had ever been tested (note: I had no reason at the time to get an HIV because I had never been sexually active). Condom use had been beaten into our brains through AIDS activists like Pedro, whose safer sex lectures and condom demonstrations on MTV and along with his presence on the Real World somehow somehow gave a face to the epidemic through mass media. On a more personal level, in eighth grade health class, we had an HIV positive man come and teach us how to put condoms on bananas and talk about his illness and prevention. Fear of disease as a consequence of homosexual desire was so ingrained in my adolescent brain that the idea of foregoing condoms, even in what was a safe situation when I was with a fellow virgin, didn’t feel like an option.
Fast forward to today. Barebacking porn is produced at 3 times the rate of porn that uses condoms. Instead of Pedro we now have Jack in Project Runway as the only HIV positive gay personality on TV, and he’s telling us how healthy he despite being HIV positive for 20 something years. Sexual education is in dire straights, as the CDC reports that lax educational initiatives seem to be possibly reversing the slow of HIV and other STDs that was in motion as I was growing up. While the information is all still available, the visibility and importance of practicing safer sex no longer has a place in popular media and most likely is not reaching kids in the classroom. It is definitely not reaching LGBT kids in the classroom, as our sex lives and health issues are generally not discussed in public classrooms.
So where are kids today getting their ideas about how to ‘do it’? I have a lot of difficulty believing that the increased visibility of bareback porn is having an effect on kids’ behavior. When interpreted as reality, these fantasy scenarios that fetishize unsafe sex have the potential to teach a lot of naive young men that AIDS and HIV is a thing of past instead of a reality we still need to deal with.
I don’t believe in censorship. I definitely don’t think this material should be banned. I just think certain ethical guidelines need to be put in place. It could really be something as simple as an FCC required health PSA before each scene. Many men can recognize that these are meant to depict fantasy and should be allowed to enjoy it. But those who might come from underserved communities regarding sex ed, LGBT health issues, and other situations where they might not know better — they need a reminder.
The truth is the health status of many of the models in bareback porn is questionable. I have difficulty watching bareback porn because it just reminds me of so many conversations I had while doing health outreach between 2002 and 2006. It’s impossible for me to put aside the reality. During that time I was an outreach worker for CHEST, an AIDS/HIV health and study center located in Chelsea. Bareback porn was just starting to become popular and debates around the office centered just how dangerous this was for the models. Even when it was two HIV positive models in the scene and seroconversion wasn’t an issue, many of them were running risks of creating new strains and drug resistant variations of the virus through re-infection. There needs to be an effort to make sure that the reality of these risks is known if people are going to consume this stuff as fantasy.
Until our education system is better, until people have better access to health, until a vaccine is developed, until, until, until… In my debates surrounding these issues it seems bareback supporters are afraid to attribute any current problems with safer sex practice in young gay communities with bareback porn. To what extent should porn consider it’s role in our community? Should porn even have an ethical responsibility? I know my feelings on the matter, but does that make me some sort of fascist who should really place the blame elsewhere?
Eric Leven wrote a really great response. Even though he’s up on his high horse and some of his arguments rely on a certain amount of belligerence, I can’t help but agree with his analogies. I think that just like the ban on trans fat and the new requirements for fast food institutions to post caloric intakes, bareback porn companies should be held responsible for giving their viewers the information they need to make the decisions they feel are best, whether that means they’re going to say “Fuck it!” and eat that Big Mac, or say “Fuck it!” and copy the models they see having unprotected sex. Fortunately you can work off a Big Mac at the gym. Bad sexual decisions aren’t as forgiving.
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July 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
We’ve kind of already been through this, but like I said:
Anyone who thinks that banning bareback media from IML, or any other event, is going to have an ounce of effect is a raging pinhead.
IML is a private event, so they can ban everyone as far as I’m concerned – it’s not an issue of free speech at all, as some have suggested. (As a side note though – I do love how bareback media is banned, and yet Mr. Renslow has made no mention of the bestiality porn that was quite prevalently displayed this year).
It should be fairly obvious that the real issue here is about money. Renslow is banning bareback media because of sponsorship money – the same reason that Folsom Street Fair has banned certain companies. The bigger these festivals get, the bigger the sponsors that come calling. And big sponsors don’t like controversy. So, someone like Renslow has a decision: drop the risque vendors, or lose sponsors (and thus, money).
And if Renslow actually thinks that banning bareback media is helpful, why would he wait some ten years to do it?
It doesn’t add up.
Porn has no ethical responsibilities, no more so than mainstream cinema. So long as those involved aren’t abused and nothing illegal is taking place, we should be allowed to film and watch whatever we please. People aren’t mindless automatons – they make their own decisions, and we cannot continue scapegoating to excuse bad decisions.
And Mr. Leven should be alerted to the fact that arrogance has probably never persuaded anyone to put on a condom.
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Colin reply on July 22, 2009:
Yeah, even though we’ve been through this, I’m glad you re-posted here, because I think you have a lot of good points.
I guess fundamentally where we disagree is that I do think that ALL media, not just porn, has certain ethical obligations. That’s why we have organizations like GLAAD making statements about Bruno, because there needs to be someone holding the media responsible for the representations it puts out there. The NAACP does a similar thing with black stereotypes. Mainstream media creates their representations through context and narrative. Porn doesn’t really offer the same since all you normally see online is a quick description like “Dirty pig bottom takes 12 inches raw” before you are watching a sex act. All you need to do is click a button that says you’re 18 to see it, so no real context of what you’re watching is provided, which is where I think BB porn becomes unethical… I’d be totally happy if you were forced to click through some agreement that provided information on safer sex before you could view it.
To me, what Renslow is doing here isn’t about prevention. He’s making a statement that he finds the material harmful to the sex community. Because you’re right, his decision to ban BB porn from IML isn’t going to get more people to use condoms.
Also, I think the funding argument is a little weak. BB porn is currently very profitable. I’d think he has more to lose by banning it than charging for the booths and soliciting sponsors from them. From what I can tell on the web site, most of the sponsorship seems to be in kind and fairly low level. No sponsors are touted in the press release either… something that would be strange if there were any actual major donors.
The same thing could be said about the unwillingness of BB porn companies to push safe sex and health information to the front of their content or take any sort of real activist lead to discourage people from copying their models. People don’t want to hear how risky an act is right before they are about to get off to it. Removing some of the fantasy from their work and taking a little responsibility for these representations of sex would cause a lot of BB producers to lose money too.
It seems to me like everyone’s going to lose money in order to figure this out.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Great post. Even if bb porn doesn’t have any effect on conversion rates — and I could see how it wouldn’t — I still think it’s important to discuss the pros/cons for the implications in terms of how larger societal attitudes and beliefs (and obligations) are developed and framed.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
but you are all missing something- if the only difference between bareback porn and porn-porn is that one uses condoms and the other does not, doesn’t that mean that gay men are choosing to buy, at three times the rate-bareback porn? what does it mean when a population that can afford to buy porn (who buys porn? dudevu.com? monstercocktube.com? hello-)desires the absence of safer sex before they see the video they buy? you know what you want to buy before you see the tape after all…
its as if, and i cant say that i never see it- that if even porn, even the most supercilious moments in our lives are so completely figured and arranged by HIV prevention what room is left for the arrival of a subject that can advocate for itself, grow or become someone who might value survival over sexual pleasure?
and why is it that every time some one tells us that they value sexual pleasure over survival we get all loud and pissed as if there was a right choice in a time of pandemic? or that folks who are under 30 and follow public health guidelines about condom use to the letter (they change all the time and are often damaging)are so much “better” than folks under 30 who dont let public health decide their lives…
im not trying to advocate for one or the other, rather I want to ask why is it when rich gay white men talk its always one or the other…- or + … god forbid you admit to never testing. and in all this back and forth we miss the point- what ever you watch, using a condom every time you have sex until the day you die is the only way to avoid HIV when rates in a population are at a one in two prevalence (like gay men in NYC)… so its not the trick or the porn but the boyfriend too who is most likely to do you in…if you actually read pubic health reports (I do)… but even worse than living in an era where we can not have sex is living in an era where we can not have a community that is more interested in being a community and meeting needs than pointing fingers- are you sure williamsburg and chelsea are that far a part- maybe we should start calling it the L train syndrome instead of clones or something even more ironic art school critic chic-
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