Hey, Tony,

We have no intention, now or ever, of producing bareback titles. I don't know if you were speaking to me or to someone else, but figured I'd make that clear.

I have softened my stance a little on production by other studios, because I do agree that, as a free speech issue, a studio should be allowed to produce bareback titles, but I still believe that a large percentage of the studios do *not* adequately inform their models, take appropriate precautions, and test appropriately. I am also not up-to-date on the latest issues regarding reinfection; the last studies I read indicated it was a serious concern, but you referenced elsewhere that there is different thinking on this issue now.

"Best practices" or a "safer sex" seal would be just that... a group that believes in something marketing its product using that "seal" or whatever it would become. The challenge would be in getting any of us renegades in this industry to agree on much of anything as far as best practices go. Most of the bareback producers trumpet BAREBACK or BARE or RAW or whatever all over their titles, so in a way, that's marketing a product in much the same way.

Honestly, I suspect that it might be a tough sell getting some studios who produce safe content to call attention to the fact that their product isn't bareback, but I hope I'm wrong. In any case, a label indicating that the product was produced using safer sex techniques is no different than a label calling attention to a product which is bareback... both are using the presence or absence of condoms as a potential selling point.


Will,

No one is talking about taking any freedoms away. However, clearly communicating the issue is simply an education function and/or a means of reminding the customer about the importance of safer sex.

I differ a little with Chi Chi on the issue of condom use in videos; my focus is primarily on safety for the models, while I think Chi Chi is more concerned about the message that unsafe sex telegraphs to the person watching. Accordingly, I have less objection to "pre condom" videos because, for the most part, the risks to models of having unprotected sex in the 1970s were considerably less than the risks today, and many of the "pre condom" titles were produced before we as a country understood what caused AIDS and how it was transmitted. So I think that one can make a case that selling product produced at a time when models were not put at risk by barebacking might be ethically better than producing a product that does put models at risk.

Yes, with proper disclosure that is truly understood by the model, it is a model's choice whether or not they choose to bareback... but it is also a studio's choice to say "This isn't a message we feel comfortable conveying" or "This isn't a risk we feel comfortable asking our models to take" or both. And there shouldn't be any objection to a studio having the right to be visible and vocal that they believe model safety is important, in the same way there shouldn't be an objection to a studio having the right to produce content they want to produce because their customers want it.