« Bad dreams begin | Main | $pread updates »
The safer sex conundrum
July 19, 2006
Bi porno sits at a very strange place on the porno spectrum. Straight and gay porn are separate and kinda-sorta equal things, and both have a big range, from the sleazy to the high glamour. Then there’s lesbian and queer porn – and by this I mean porn made by and for actual lesbians and queers folks by people from that community (SIR Productions, Pink & White Productions, Sex Positive Productions) – which has a very small part of the market share but consistently features hot (and safe!) sex, if not always top notch production values.
And then there’s bi porn, which technically is gay porn, because if guys do it (even if they also do women) that shit is gay gay gay. At least it’s classified as such – the “Best Bisexual Video” award is given at the GayVN awards.
But that’s one thing.
Another thing entirely is the health aspect of it all.
The thing is, the straight industry requires HIV testing (most companies require clean bills of health on chlamydia and gonorrhea also), standardly administered through AIM and its nationwide draw centers, but does not require condoms. In many cases, companies enforce no-condom rules if you want to shoot with them – this is often called “condom optional” which is basically a euphemism for “you either don’t use a condom or you don’t perform for this company.” The gay industry does not require testing, under the idea that it is an invasion of privacy, but the more reputable companies require condom use. GayVN will not consider a film for a GayVN award if there is barebacking in it. As I discovered during my casting process in trying to hire gay porn stars, HIV is pretty rampant in the gay porn industry.
So what does this mean for a bisexual movie? It makes life complicated – performers in the straight industry accept testing as a matter of course, but gay performers (including HIV negative ones or people who don’t want to know their status) balk at mandatory testing. It’s a cultural difference maybe, but certainly two different interpretations of a solution to the problem of sexual health in the sex industry.
Let’s for a minute agree that porn directors and producers want their talent to be healthy and happy – in that same minute I’m going to acknowledge that some directors and producers don’t really care because the bottom line reigns supreme. But, in a perfect world of caring, there would still be differences of opinion on the topic of safety and how it should be ensured.
In some countries where prostitution is legal, health check ups are legally mandated for workers (though never for clients) and condom use is perfunctory. On one level, this is excellent, because healthy and well being are being made a priority – however, one of the major theories behind decriminalizing prostitution is that what consenting adults do in private is no one’s business – which means both that it isn’t the state’s business to arrest people, but also that it isn’t the state’s business to mandate health practices and responsibility. So the next step away from the state is to have the sex industry regulate its own health practices – and that’s the role that AIM plays. Step further away from that and individual performers make their own decisions about their safer sex practices (testing is a kind of safer sex practice) – just like in consensual non-commercial sex.
So maybe this all boils down to a few questions: do we trust sex workers and sex industry business people to make good decisions about their health? What makes the decision making process so different for people who are being paid to fuck? Do we really believe in the tenets and effectiveness of safer sex?
Complicated, right?
Posted by Dacia at July 19, 2006 05:03 PM
Comments
While there is life there is hope… Anthony
Posted by: Anthony at November 30, 2006 04:14 AM
