News :: GLBT
Gay Porn Mess in U.K.by Kilian MelloyWednesday Mar 5, 2008 A rise in new cases of HIV infections may be running parallel to a greater prevalence in gay porn of unprotected sex.
The BBC2 program Newsnight reported that although advent of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s brought about a sea change in gay porn videos, so that condom use was the norm, the trend of barebacking, or unprotected sex, has undergone a resurgence over the last four years.
The report said that about 60 perent of the gay porn market now features barebacking.
The report also said that several DVD productions that originated in the U.K. involved HIV infection among the models who appeared in them.
In the case of two of the DVDs, footage was used that was shot over the course of a week and involved eight performers having bareback sex.
Of those eight, four tested positive for HIV shortly after the filming took place, the Newsnight article said.
One of the actors who tested positive expressed dismay at the fact that the performance in which he thought the virus had been transmitted to him was being sold as part of the DVD titles.
The article cited the West London Centre for Sexual Health’s Senior Advisor, Ceri Evans, who said of the barebacking trend and the concurrent rise in new cases of HIV among young men, "I think that there is a possibility of something being called condom fatigue."
Continued Evans, "We have been talking about condoms so long that people are bored or think they know it all. Education in schools is not what it could be, for anybody, for heterosexual but particularly if you are gay."
A new effort has been mounted in the U.K. by director Steven Brewer, who is promoting what he hopes will become a new industry-wide practice of safer sex in gay adult films.
Newsnight quoted Brewer as saying, "I just don’t want another 18-year-old model crying on my shoulder not sure how to tell his partner or his parents that he is now HIV positive."
One British producer of gay erotica, Icreme, announced that its films will now only be made with performers who are using condoms.
In the U.S., Chi Chi Larue, a well known director of gay porn, has come out against barebacking in films, saying in an advertisement, "After all the gay community has been through why are we putting people at risk for [the sake of producing] porn?"
Newsnight also reported that in a separate matter, Rugus Ffoulkes, a U.K. porn film producer, has been charged and sentenced for involving a 16-year-old boy in a film in which barebacking took place.
Another report on this case was published by EDP 24, in a Feb. 29 story in which it was reported that Ffoulkes has a long criminal record, dating back to age 21 when he was charged with sex crimes involving a 13-year-old boy Ffoulkes claimed he thought was 18.
In the current case, Ffoulkes made a similar claim, saying he thought that the 16-year-old who appeared in the film was 18.
According to the prosecution’s case, Ffoulkes had made contact with young men through Gaydar, a gay Web site, offering to hire them to appear in sex films. The 16-year-old was brought along by one of the actors who had agreed to appear in a film.
According to the EDP 24 story, the prosecution claimed that the young man "was concerned it was unprotected sexual activity and he wished he had refused."
The defense countered with the argument that, "Distasteful though this sort of activity is, the reality is that the gay pornography industry is sizeable and apart from the age of this young man, is legal."
The article reported that on Feb. 28, Ffoulkes received a sentence of thirty-five months for the crime of "inciting a child into pornography."
He was also ordered by the judge never to seek out models by using the Internet, and barred from working with children or being alone with children. The judge also placed Ffoulkes on the registry for sexual offenders.
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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