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it's been that way for a while. it's been many years since lockheed and hughes aircraft moved most of their business out of california. the taxes are higher and other states offer incentives to get the businesses that were here away while our state makes it harder to operate many kinds of businesses.
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Originally Posted by desslock
California does make it difficult to operate a business. High taxes, high workmans compensation rates, high utility rates and very unfriendly attitude towards businesses. We have already moved our production company out of the state and continue to look for another state which to move the distribution company.
We love the weather, the beauty of the state and it's people but when you start spending too much of your day worrying about what the state is going to do next to squeeze another dollar from you it's time to move on.
Bill
One of our biggest selling titles is called "Lovers' Lane" and it features 3 different real-life couples who first talk, documentary style, to our camera about how they met, etc. Then, they get in bed and fuck like, well presumably like they do when we're not around. None of the couples chose to use a condom and we made a point of stating this in the video: this was real life and in real life couples decide all the time to have unprotected sex within their relationship.Quote:
Originally Posted by SLS
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.
What about making a mint promoting hyper-masculine looks that can become a very unhealthy obsession for gay men seeking to fit in at whatever cost to body? What about all those incredible bodies we see in porn that are all too often achieved by people who use a combination of drugs and a seemingly unrealistic determination to slave away at the gym for hours everyday? Being healthy and fit is a good thing, but like anything it can become an unhealthy obsession and I see this all the time in gay men.
I also think that if persons really and truly believe that bareback porn is bad because of the educational message it sends, those studios need to remove all pre-condom porn they still peddle. Much of it was made at a time when the producers surely knew how dangerous it might be, and yet it was made and now, just because of some arbitrary date it is still OK to make money from that bareback porn? Just doesn't seem like a truly honest commitment if we're to believe we're against bareback, in part, because of the educational message it may be sending to consumers.
In the end, we're in the business of making fantasy and for most gay men that fantasy doesn't include sliding on a condom. I've used condoms in almost all our porn because of concerns about liability and that we might be black-listed, but when guys insist they'd prefer to not use them I'll not force them. At the same time, I've never asked nor will I ask a model to bareback if he is opposed to it. Nor will you find me standing up on my soap box calling the rest of us murderers just because we have a disagreement in creative expression. We're fantasy producers for the most part even if the disclaimer at the beginning of our movies may talk about educational use of our products.
Great Post Cruisemaster.
As you said, we create fantasy. That's it....nothing else. We aren't making statements, we aren't beng political and our films are not going to influence how guys decide to have sex. It's just entertainment......just fantasy. I sometimes think that many in the adult entertainment field think more highly of themselves or their products and the influence their films have than they should.
Guys don't buy our products in order to make life decisions. They buy our products for one reason, to get up and get off. We are simply providing the venue for them to be able to do it.
Bill
I have a very different opinion on pre-condom material. Apparently the industry as a whole was much more cohesive back then, and my understanding from talking to some of the people that were in it at that time is that there was an almost immediate switch among the entire industry as soon as there was awareness of the problem and the method of transmission of HIV (or HTLV-III, as it was then called.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruisemaster
My personal opinion is that marketing pre-condom content, as long as it's made clear to the viewer that it was shot at a time when there was no risk of terminal illness from sex, is not in conflict with a corporate viewpoint focused on protecting the models you work with or on portraying a message to the public that encourages and supports healthy behavior.
And as much as I personally would find it difficult to put anyone working for us at risk, I do understand that some models really don't care about the risks, even when they've been explained, and that it's unlikely that the industry as a whole could ever agree on anything, particularly if it means cutting down on somebody's income. My main problem comes when producers are less than completely honest with their models about the risks.
I do think it's a moral issue for some people, but I also talk to producers who are torn and conflicted on the issue. There's no absolute right or wrong answer, at least in my book. What's right for me may not be right for someone else. I just try to follow what feels morally and ethically right to me. Others may have different viewpoints based on their own experiences, so I don't think it's appropriate to call someone a hypocrite, particularly when one is comparing bareback content shot before there were any serious risks to barebacking.
Chip,
I recall vividly when the switch to using condoms in the industry started. Actually, most gay companies did not switch to condoms till well after it was known what HIV was and how it was transmitted. Some companies actually waited years later before switching and did so only under intense pressure. Their fear of course was losing sales.
I think that what Tony and Cam were trying to say about some of these websites being hypocrits is that some of them are so vocal about the issue of barebacking and they use as their excuse that the bareback studios, by producing bareback films, are influencing the young gay crowd to bareback. If they believe that, then it stands to reason that a young gay guy, who wasn't around when the AIDS epiedmic started, would be just as influenced to have un-safe sex by watching a "pre-condom" film. I doubt seriously that guys, while watching fuck films, take the time to see the date of production. So, to be so adamant against barebacking and then highly promote pre-condom films seems to many to be very hypocritital. This is especially true of companies who oppose barebacking but are now releasing again their old "pre-condom" films on DVD and hyping the hell out of the releases.
Also, the word "Raw" pretty much denotes condomless sex. Yet, one of the biggest opponents of barebacking creates a site called LIVE AND RAW....and does so after the word "Raw" has become associated with skin to skin, bareback sex. Sounds a bit hypocritial to me. Apparently an attempt to capture website traffic from guys looking for raw sex, very similar to what it appears Bijou World is doing by being opposed to barebacking films, yet doing reviews of bareback films and generating traffic from guys looking for such films.
Bill
Yes Bill:Quote:
Originally Posted by hdkbill
You have brought up a good issue. I have always thought it bizarre, to say the least, that some of these older companies can still "dust off" some of those older VHS tapes and sell them at a mark down...I mean really, VHS tape doesn't last THAT LONG does it? Don' t you think that some of these companies are making new tapes? After all, with DVD releases of old movies now flooding the market, anything is possible...
And as far as that Live and Raw thing goes...Do you, or anyone else know, that Cam and I, yes the good and Old barebacking couple of Tony&Cam were the very SECOND live performance on LIVE AND RAW...with Miss Thing at the keyboard answeriing questions as we fucked live and "raw" on camera...with a condom of course (can't remember if we had the end cut off or not!) - as so many do in this business.... after all we know, we've been on LOTS AND LOTS OF SETS throughout our many years of performing and we have SEEN for ourselves exactly what kind of very questionalbe behavior goes on when the camera is on "stand by"...
talk about total hypocracy...this is why we take so very few seriously in this business, it's mostly all about hype!
Interesting additions to this conversation.
It is very true that several gay companies did not begin using condoms until the late '80s, well after the industry knew about the risks of bareback sex. Those movies I have a hard time justifying the release of. But films made prior to 1981 don't bother me, and in truth, they are just not the same as bareback films made post-HIV. I think a lot of bareback companies want to accuse studios of hypocrisy when none is being committed. A bareback movie made in 1975 is simply not comparable to a bareback movie made in 1985. It was a different time and place in history, and sex was not something that could lead to death in those days. To ban those films from being released is to remove our history, our sense of culture. Those old Catalina and Cadinot and Bijou flicks from the olden days are what we as an industry are built upon.
For condomless movies that were filmed after the dangers of HIV were common knowledge, I would agree with you. But not when it comes to anything pre-1982. It's simply not the same thing.
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Originally Posted by Cruisemaster
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.
People always say I think far too much about it. "It's just porn," they say. "People just want to get off. Nobody thinks about it that much." (Ironically, those same people are often the ones who will say, "We have to depict safe sex to send the right message to the community.") My belief is that if you want to start changing the way that gay men think about themselves, their bodies, their health and each other, you have to start in the bedroom, where the most subliminal messages are often digested without our even knowing it. It's where most of us figure out who we are, through our sexual development. Porn, to me, is one of the frontline tools that the community has to teach gay men how to think about sex and how to have it with others. Until I'm able to get someone to hire me as a director--or until I'm able to start my own company--I have to settle for challenging others to try and think outside the box and take up the cause. :)
Trust me, there was nothing like an immediate switch. One date mentioned here was 1991 as the date the industry decided condoms were to be required. I don't have a clue how correct that is, but I do know I lived in San Francisco in the 80's, in the midst of the worst days of AIDS in the USA and right in the heart of the very hard hit Castro neighborhood. That would have been 1981 when I moved to San Francisco and we all knew something was wrong. I don't believe confirmation that it was sexually transmitted came until about 1983 or 1984. By the time you reach the year mentioned as the magic moment the porn industry chose to use condoms, 1991, you have this sad fact: in that one year 20,454 people died of AIDS in the United States and close to a full decade had passed since we at least had very strong reason to believe it was sexually transmitted.Quote:
Originally Posted by boyfunk
A very dear friend of mine, a big porn name in the 70's and 80's, was told he could not use condoms on a set during this time period while working on a video in San Francisco. He has since died of AIDS, though his porn remains for sell as "pre-condom" classics. My point is hardly to complain that his porn work still brings people pleasure. I'm sure he'd love that fact. But he spent his last years deploring all this moralizing about how wrong bareback sex is, especially since he was involved in this industry when AIDS was actually spreading like wildfire among sexually active gay men in areas of California that produced most of the porn of that era. The time to have been especially prudent would have been in the 80's, but the porn industry, for the most part, chose to look the other way when it truly mattered the most.
I appreciate the correction to my statements. I wasn't in the industry at the time, and I was relying on what I'd been told by a couple of people who were in the industry at that time that I had discussed it with. But I think that a lot of us tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses :)
We have explored the possibility of doing an interesting plot line that would intermix some pre-condom material with some of our current material. If we were going to do that, we'd do a lengthy, in-your-face disclaimer at the beginning of the film about content shot before the age of HIV.
This discussion (and several others here and elsewhere) has been really good, and has brought up a bunch of points that I'd never really considered before. I have a lot of respect for the regulars here that choose to do bareback material, and while I personally would have a hard time justifying doing that with our company, I do understand that some of the models are choosing that in their lifestyle without any encouragement from the producers.
I think Ken's point (about obsession with appearance) is also extremely well taken... I am constantly amazed just how much gay society is influenced by not only appearance but the need to be flashy (how else could you convince a kid making $7/hour to spend $500 on an ugly wallet just because it has a particular designer's name.) It would be great if those in the industry who care could produce product to perhaps try to de-emphasize the obsession with the perfect body or physique or whatever... but the reality is, we're also fighting against a corporate America that uses those sort of insecurities to sell whatever it is they are offering (gym memberships, clothes, plastic surgery, stay-young-forever creams and pills, etc)
Ken,Quote:
Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude
I agree with you completely that pre-condom movies made prior to 1982 are alltogether different than todays bareback films. I have never suggested that they be banned or removed from store shelves. Hell, some of those "oldie but goodies" are my favorites.
I just have a problem with those studios who publicly denigrate my company or me personally because of the type of films I make, and then make a big deal out of re-releasing "pre-condom" films. To me, it just seems disingenious. But then, that's only one mans opinion.
Hugs to ya!
Bill
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Originally Posted by Titanmen
What I'm finding interesting about this particular quote from Titan is that it's nearly intimated that Titan is moving toward eventual bareback productions. Is this true, Keith? I doubt that the word "bareback" would be used, though, and it would be done with the strictest of testing. But the post does state that there was a general agreement among all participants---the Titan attorney, the FSC and the politicos---that there is, in fact, a correct way to do a bareback video.
Say it ain't so Keith. Because even the vaguest move toward such a production by the single most outspokenly anti-raw studio in the world would put all the anti-barebacking rage 'n' rhetoric in a distinctly disingenuous light, making it seem more like a cynical strategy toward a Machiavellian removal of eventual market competition.
I don't want to believe that.
Let me be perfectly clear:
Titan Media will never produce, film or distribute non-condom or "bareback" films as long as myself, Bruce Cam and Brian Mills own the company. And even if we did someday sell the company we would most likely include a clause prohibiting the production of non-condom films under the Titan Media brands.
The 3 of us that own the company are very committed to this issue and we will not change our stance. We will continue to use condoms for all penetrative anal sex in our films.
Given the choice ot testing or condoms, we will always chose condoms because of the inherant flaws in HIV testing. As well, we as a company have made the decision that we do not want to portray or promote unprotected anal sex. This is our decision and we are sticking with it! ;-)
The point I was trying to get across is that we are hearing that the assembly members will go to bat for us with CALOSHA and try to back them down. But, they in return want some progress on the testing or condoms issue that they can take to CALOSHA and say; "Look these people are trying to do the right thing. They have implemented either condoms or mandatroy testing to insure the health and safety of the workers".
If they can go to the other members of the assembly and CALOHSA with some real and substantial progress on the testing or condoms issue then we can hopefully avert even more drastic laws and measures being imposed on the industry.