Quote Originally Posted by basschick View Post
no one ever talks about this but me, but here goes again...

HIV is not the only STD out there and it is not the only potentially fatal one. hep C is less treatable and at the moment, more often fatal as well as very communicable and less quickly testable.
Actually, there is a quick test for hep-C. It's one of the three infections we test our models for (HIV, syphillis, hep-C.) You just have to be willing to spend the money to test your models. Fortunately, we haven't had any models who have tested positive yet, but I'm sure it will happen eventually.

and people with low T cell counts may not easily be able to fight off syphilis, chlamydia or other stuff. so even if 2 people are positive and have the same strain, if one has another STD, it can still cause the other partner serious problems.
Syphillis, even for a healthy person, is very difficult to treat if not caught early. The bacteria is a spirochete, similar to Lyme disease, which burrows and hides, and many people who suffer from Lyme or syphillis have to take high-dose antibiotics for months. There is also a quick test for syphillis.


i'm not trying to be the moral compass of the industry. my world has more questions than answers most of the time. but seriously, why is HIV the only STD that gets this much play?[/QUOTE]

I think because HIV is most visible and prevalent, though hep-C is growing ever year in new diagnoses.

Ultimately, the models themselves need to take responsibility for their own behavior, and the ones that bareback on camera almost certainly do so in their own lives, where things are considerably less controlled and risks are probably higher.

I do believe that the majority of models probably take risks with barebacking occasionally in their private sex lives. But the good news is, with our models at least, it seems more of them are aware of the risks now than even a year or two ago, and I hear and see more of them paying attention to safe sex practices, asking questions, and choosing more wisely.

I'm not interested in being a moral compass either, but I do think that we, as producers, are in a unique position to be able to influence behavior both of our models and the customers who view our product. How we choose to use that influence is a decision that each producer has to make for him or herself.