Barebacking

[dwaynered]

Things are changing but nothing changes. Still there are changes. Ironically change is the only constant in the universe.

You guys can go round and round for hours upon hours of debate. And it will continue until each of us are able to set aside ego, judgements, preconceived ideas and personal beliefs.

To get to the root of the matter of anything, we must begin by looking at ourselves. Facing our own demons and fears is probably the toughest battle to fight and win.

:vanish:

[XXXWriterDude]

Things are changing but nothing changes. Still there are changes. Ironically change is the only constant in the universe.

You guys can go round and round for hours upon hours of debate. And it will continue until each of us are able to set aside ego, judgements, preconceived ideas and personal beliefs.

To get to the root of the matter of anything, we must begin by looking at ourselves. Facing our own demons and fears is probably the toughest battle to fight and win.

:vanish:

I agree with you completely on all of this. My personal belief for most things is "Live and let live," not to mention "To each their own." I certainly understand that many of us are affected by HIV and AIDS, and that looking out for others is a noble cause, but I also believe that we do more good by working together and figuring out ways of doing that without condemning each other for our personal choices and desires. Sexuality has become such a hot-button issue in our community, and I think there is simply far too much worrying about what's going on in the back yards of others instead of focusing on how each one of us might be contributing to the misunderstandings and failures of our community. If the gay community can't find common ground to stand upon, then it's a pretty sad day in the world.

[desslock]

On the subject of barebacking in the gay porn industry, what always mystifies me is how concerns over unprotected sex in our videos often overlook other behavior that some might consider unhealthly, too.

Cogent observation, Cruisemster!

From this debate, I am reminded of this:

If your son were tragically killed by a drunk driver on the highway, would you become a MAD mother going to the legislatures uring them to rewrite the DWIs into ever increasing draconian felonies, forcing legal alocohol levels as get as low as possible, and forcing the state Alcohol police to go into all the bars around town and testing the patrons to see if they are legally intoxicated?

Give people the right to pursue their own happiniess themselves, whether you can understand it or not.

Steve

[dexxxter]

[QUOTE=XXXWriterDude]THANK YOU! God, somebody FINALLY gets it!

I feel like a broken record sometimes when I talk about my frustration with seeing these men with bodies that cannot possibly be achieved through regular workout routines parading themselves around in these movies as if they are the end-all-be-all of "hotness."

Yes, everybody likes to look at nice muscular bodies, but honestly, is that ALL we want to look at?

With all due respect to porn producers on this forum, if I see one more video box showing four models who ALL LOOK THE SAME and have the same physiques, I'm going to vomit.

Isn't it bad enough that we see images of so-called "perfection" on the cover of every magazine, on every billboard and, in L.A., on ever street corner? Isn't this obsession with muscles extremely unhealthy for our self-images as gay men? Frankly, muscle men bore me to tears. All I see when I look at them is vanity on display.

A nice natural looking athletic body, to me, is stunning. Muscles are fine and nice to look at, yes, but when you start to resemble a gorilla and your neck balloons out and you start to look like you are carved from stone and you waddle when you walk and you can't put your arms down by your side anymore, it all goes askew for me.

This is from an email I sent to Keith the other day, but I'm going to share it here as well. I believe this wholeheartedly, and it's the reason why i want to be involved in creating pornography that is more about men just getting off together.



I've decided not to get into the debate about condom vs bareback. I have my own opinions and have decided to run my company as I see fit. However if you are looking for porn that is not like all the others with the perfect bodies, no hair then my friend please check out my site. In fact that is my mantra that I started DPP with the intention of not making porn like everyone else. YES, I like seeing those guys, sure I fantasize about having sex with them but there has to be some variety. Albiet the guys making the money are using a formula and definately the market is there for what they are producing.

[SLS]

Some of you make it sound like the average gay man would have laughed at the idea of using a condom before hiv hit hard. Were syphilis, hepetitus, herpes, and anal warts just considered battle scars then or what? Three are/were incurable, the other can cause major incurable damage. To me this makes no sense, and makes it sound like gay men were all walking stds anyway back then.

[XXXWriterDude]

Some of you make it sound like the average gay man would have laughed at the idea of using a condom before hiv hit hard. Were syphilis, hepetitus, herpes, and anal warts just considered battle scars then or what? Three are/were incurable, the other can cause major incurable damage. To me this makes no sense, and makes it sound like gay men were all walking stds anyway back then.

Hell, a lot of gay men I know today still say "As long as I don't get HIV, I'm OK with the rest of it as long as it's curable." There are tons of guys going to sex clubs to this day, very much like back in the '70s in places like the Mineshaft in NYC. So to a certain extent, yeah, to a lot of gay men, STDs are just par for the course.

OBVIOUSLY, however, that's just a certain faction of the community. There are thousands of gay men who practice safer sex. But, as far as I'm concerned, that's common knowledge to anyone with a pulse, and really should go without saying.

[SLS]

Well I am kind of a stupid hick from the midwest but yeah I already knew all that. It's just wierd to me that I keep hearing from a lot of older gay men that everything was care free and without consequence back in the day. Somehow I really doubt that. The producers back then knew that, what made it ok to expose their employees to all the other shit?

[gaybucks_chip]

k, I'm dating myself, but when I was in high school, the big scare was herpes, because it wasn't curable. There were even herpes dating services (phone in those days, 'cause no web) for people who had herpes...

Other than that, I knew a lot of people who went without protection. Of course, I don't think I even *knew* a gay person in high school... so I'm speaking of hetero couples.

In fact, at my hippie high school, the teachers gave "awards" to students at graduation, which were humorous things, and one very visible couple received the "Couple most likely to concieve" award. I think I got the "How to succeed in business without asking anyone" award or something... long story...