There is room for both.

Neither self-righteous safe sex advocates (of which I would have categorized my own views several years ago) and self-righteous barebacking advocates do anyone any good.

Unfortunately, the current market demand means that a lot of young kids will get the wrong message which will cause them to emulate the behaviors they have seen, and many will get HIV as a result. Based on the data collected on violent behavior in films and its influence on violent behavior in indivuals as well as in society, we can draw the conclusion pretty reliably that there is indeed a cause-and-effect relationship. Ditto smoking in films and on television. As it has been eliminated, studies have shown that it has directly influenced the decision to smoke by youth.

It is also complete bullshit that consumers will not accept safe sex. Comments saying "the market demands it" ignore the fact that there were plenty of sales before barebacking came along, and if barebacking were miraculously banned tomorrow, safe titles would do just fine, as many still do. The issue is that companies are making the decision -- which, as Chad points out, they are perfectly free to do -- to put money in front of message. Hollywood has done that for years.

So it's unfortunate that kids are getting the wrong messages and are acting on them, but, as Chad said, it's hard to argue with market demand. I just hope that the companies that have held out for a long time, and those who produce or market bareback in spite of their own moral objections will aggressively turn their efforts toward education. There are kids coming of age every day who, thanks to Bush's loser policymakers, are not getting any meaningful messages about the importance of safer sex and what it means to be infected with HIV, hep-C, or other difficult-to-treat diseases.

The more we work to communicate the message of safety, the more we can at least do our best to counteract the unhealthy messages that, unfortunately, seems inevitable will become a larger and larger segment of the industry.