Internet-based questionnaire of 821 non-monogamous men who have sex with men conducted by the Center for AIDS Research at the NYU School of Medicine revealed that “participants who said that 75% or more of the pornography they viewed portrayed bareback sex were more than eight times as likely to engage in bareback sex as those who did not watch pornography or who watched only pornography in which the actors used condoms.” They also found that older, popper-loving, HIV-positive gay men tend to have unprotected anal intercourse more often.
And while the study does not say that bareback porn causes gay men to have bareback says, one has to wonder whether the chicken or egg comes first.
Comes first. Tee hee.
Dan Cobb
Actually this surprises me. I LOVE bare-back anal all-male porn.
And I haven’t had bareback sex since the early 1980’s. In fact, I haven’t even
received anal sex at all since then. I would think that bare-back porn would
appeal more to those individuals who are not engaging in that sort of activity.
Doesn’t watching the bare-back porn become the vicarious, acceptable way to
enjoy skin-on-skin sex?! There’s something flawed with that study. Maybe the
provenance of the men involved in the study? Their lifestyle? Their HIV status?
I wonder.
dvlaries
The porn I watch I tend to collect because I’m attracted to a given player -these days, Dean Flynn and Landon Conrad, for example- and none of the players that get continued visibility that lasts even five years does so without working for one or more of the major outfits (Titan, Falcon, C1R, Raging Stallin, Hot House…) that demands condom use anyway.
Perhaps only Treasure Island Media, with guys like Dawson and Jesse O’Toole comes nearest to trying to build real bareback stars, but their stuff is so raunchy it would be niche material even in pre-HIV times, I think.
stickitinhard
bareback is the best
Justin
This is false. I watch bareback porn and i don’t bareback. It is a fantasy I am not willing to participate in but will watch. Now if my sexual encounters were scheduled a month in advance to allow for testing then i might consider it. But a casual meeting in a bar. Hell no! They can bite me. I trust no one but myself.
The fact is that companies that test their actors on a consistant basis, are very very low in HIV rates of not completely non exsistant. There are some that do not require testing. These are the ones that should be cause for alarm.
Of course there is still a risk.. But there is also a risk using condoms. Don’t give me any BS telling me there is not. They simply reduce the risk. They don’t eliminate it.
TMikel
I watch classic bareback porn from the days when bareback was the common way to go. I have not head bare back sex since 1988 when we learned unprotected sex was cuasing the spread of HIV. I am now so accustomed to condoms in both porn and life, I hardly notice them. Bareback = Death!
Auggie
I thoroughly enjoy bareback porn, but I don’t bareback in real life. Porn is about fantasy–clearly the sample size in this study included certified idiots.
Seaguy
Isn’t this stating the obvious most people tend to like the kind of porn that turns them on so that would be the kind of sex they have too. So does that mean bareback porn turns innocent gay men who had safe sex prior to viewing it into barebackers? No! But some will try and say that.
Michael
“Bareback = Death!”
What an odd thing to say. But, anecdotally, this is a sentiment — the idea that condoms must be used, at all times, not matter what, even in committed relationships — that I tend to see from older gay men, specifically those who were alive and sexually in the early- to mid-80s.
I am monogamous. I have been with my boyfriend for some time, and he was my best friend before we started dating. I simply cannot relate to the idea that, even now, he and I need to use condoms. It suggests a complete lack of trust in your partner to remain faithful to you or maybe a paranoia.
I’ve encountered this sort of fervently anti-bareback stance a few times in my life and I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it. If two people are free of disease, monogamous and trust each — why do we still to use a condom?
I suspect this a generational divide between those who lived through the AIDS era and those who grew up in the post-AIDS era. (I’ve been learning about AIDS and condom use since my first sex ed class in the sixth grade.) But I have seen anything to actually back that up. I’d be interested to see condom use broken down by relationship status and age group.
Jonathan
@Michael:
You have the luxury of a long-term, monogamous relationship which presumably includes two HIV- partners.
That is, by itself, quite rare in my experience both as a gay man and someone in a comparable 14 year relationship.
More often, most successful long-term couples I know embrace a more flexible monogamy and are therefore understandably more cautious and likely to use condoms which, it seems, is certainly to their credit.
Storm
I wonder why the author felt the need to draw some connection between barebacking and “popper-loving?” Plenty of guys who use condoms regularly love their poppers.
sprocket
This study did not include me.
Johnson
“I watch bareback porn and i don’t bareback.” <– yes, because anecdotal evidence is always greater than statistical evidence. Just because you're the exception doesn't dispute the fact that the majority of people that bareback also watch bareback porn.
In all honesty, this study seems both silly and obvious but I guess you never know until you get some chum, organization or institution to pay for a study that gives you credit for staying on faculty payroll.
sprocket
Okay, I just read the entire study and I call BS. Their methodology was seriously flawed. There was no control group and they only used an internet questionnaire to gather data. This could be prone to both selection and confirmation bias. There was no way to gauge whether the participants actually watched more bareback videos than protected ones. It’s all a matter of what they said was so.
I’d have to wait for some attempt at replication to even consider whether this correlation is legit and it’s only one study. Like anything in science, it’s good to be skeptical and wait for more evidence to come in.
Interesting
@Michael: Barebacking to me is a culurally specific term. It means guys who hook up with other guys and have multiple partner. What you are describing is just about every relationship after they have been together for a long term, and I don’t think you are the subject of the debate. I do agree that many gays are radical about it, and will say things that absurd, but that’s about the fact they feel saying monogamous sex is safer is somehow a judgment on guys who aren’t
Ian
Can dig bareback porn for sure. Also have the luxury of a long-term monogamous relationship (both HIV-) in which we never use condoms. However…. were we to someday opt for “flexibility” in our relationship, would go back to using a glove. All that said, seems like the research study was wasted time and effort.
Allen D.
I watch a lot of group sex porn… but haven’t had anything but one-on-one in years (decidedly by choice).
SBC19
I always said that bareback porn desensitizes people to barebacking. All of these emphatic “I watch bareback porn, but I don’t bareback” sounds phony to me. Don’t tell me that when some people spend a considerable amount of time visually taking in and lusting over images of condomless sex that part of them isn’t fetishing it for themselves. From there people become desensitized to the idea. It’s subliminal advertising; it’s like a hungry man seeing a Pizza Hut commercial and ordering. Combine that with the community spinning the notion of people being able to casually live with the results of HIV, people acting like everyone has become too sophisticated to let it happen to them, and soulless pornographers — greedy for the extra dollars that BB porn generates, and you have a mess.
And to Michael; I didn’t know we lived in a “Post-AIDS” world. When was this disease cured?
Sadly I think there’s gonna have to be another rash outbreak of HIV and AIDS-related deaths before the community gets past this disturbing trend of jaded and gluttonous defiance when it comes to images of barebacking. It’s not cool.
Tony
I
Tony
I started having sex in 1990 and have only barebacked with two people..a longtime boyfriend while we were both in the military, and my current monogamous partner of over ten years. I like watching bareback porn, but never dreamed of doing when I was in the dating scene. I just assume if you’re doing bareback in porn or freely going bareback in your personal life, you’re HIV positive. And even when I was single, I wouldn’t fall for the “I’m undetectable” line. Now, I’m not HIV-phobic..I even dated two positive guys in the past, but even though I assume bareback actors are positive, if I knew they were positive for sure, it would turn me off. I can’t even watch BB if the actors look a little sickly, “skanky” or dirty, which unfortunately, is how so many bareback actors are looking these days .
Mike in Asheville
This is a ridiculous study. Men who engage in bareback sex are only going to be watching bareback porn — there is easily a lifetime’s worth of bareback porn available, free, on the internet with more added every day. If bareback is their thing, bareback is what they will watch.
For those is are safe-sex only, they can choose between watching bareback as a fantasy and condom as their routine.
No chicken or egg situation here, coming or not.
jason
I am sick and tired of these studies that use porn in their methodology. Porn has nothing to do with sexual experience. It is about voyeurism and that’s that. In fact, people who watch excessive porn are probably having the fewest sexual experiences.
All these stupid studies should be flushed down the toilet.
the crustybastard
STUDY: If you like sex, you probably watch porn.
I need a grant.
Puma
There are criteria that need to be followed for a survey to quality as scientifically viable, and this one doesn’t come close. Rather, it’s just a random sampling structured for a certain biased outcome.
It’s simple: if I’m HIV negative, then I can’t give HIV to anyone else. Period. And, if my partner is negative, he can’t give it to me. We should be allowed to enjoy sex as we consent to do without the condom police knocking at the door. If one of us is HIV positive, however, or even unsure, then we should use protection. It’s less complicated than ordering a hamburger at Wendy’s.
And while one can also get HIV through oral sex, I don’t see any campaign against porn sites that show blowjobs without condoms. (Even if it’s less risky, it’s still a risk.) Therefore, this posting strikes me as yet another veiled anti-Corbin Fisher attack, because some people apparently feel it’s their God-given right to jerk-off to their videos for free.
fredo777
@SBC19: “I always said that bareback porn desensitizes people to barebacking. All of these emphatic “I watch bareback porn, but I don’t bareback” sounds phony to me. Don’t tell me that when some people spend a considerable amount of time visually taking in and lusting over images of condomless sex that part of them isn’t fetishing it for themselves”
Bullshit. Just because you have a fetish for something in porn doesn’t mean you act it out in your own sex life. I watch bareback porn but never have barebacked. There are various fetishes that I watch in porn that I’d likely never actively participate in.
Fitz
I have zero interest in plastic-wrapped sex. Neither having it nor watching it is erotic for me.
Jon
I never gotten the point of bareback porn where the actors pull out and cum all over the back of the bottom. It kinda absolutely defeats the purpose for me. If you’re gonna pull out, what’s the point? Condoms are thin enough these days not to reduce the pleasure, so if you’re gonna pull out at orgasm anyways, then I see no reason not to wear a condom.
Tommy Shepherd
I can’t enjoy BB porn because in the back of my mind is the idea that I might be watching someone sero-converting without realising.
Allen D.
@Puma: It’s always seemed to me that if ‘unsafe oral sex’ was a semi-likely transmission risk, EVERY gay man would already be positive.
Fitz
@Tommy Shepherd: Thats how I feel about watching porn featuring fat people who smoke.
After all, the risks to someone’s life from HIV aren’t even a drop in the bucket compared. It would be safer for you to BB bottom from a homeless person than to let yourself get 60 lbs overweight and buy a pack of cigarets.
Vinny
@Fitz:
“I have zero interest in plastic-wrapped sex. Neither having it nor watching it is erotic for me.”
So I take it you’re in a monogamous relationship. If not, how long have you been HIV positve and how many other STD’s have you had (or currently have)?
Fitz
@Vinny: There is only one person I do buttsex with, you are right. And it’s been longer than you would believe. Are you asking me out or something. 🙂
Allen D.
The way I usually date is:
Put off full-on sex for awhile (which more people should do, in my opinion). Once you decide that you really like each other & that it’s going somewhere – lock it down to only seeing each other. Then once you’re both past your window periods (and both test negative, obviously), just plain go crazy.
But, that’s me. Long story short (too late): I’m negative, I’ve never had an STD (besides crabs once… damnit), and my system seems to be working quite nicely. Of course, you can also follow the above steps with a trusted fuckbuddy or friend as well.
Allen D.
Which, after further thought, is basically the same as a monogamous relationship. Damn beer.
Mafalo
I find everyone’s defiant embracing of bareback porn to be disturbing. You say you wouldn’t bareback, but you endorse watching these seduced-by-cash models engage in dangerous behavior on camera for your entertainment. That’s like saying you’d never kill yourself, but have no trouble watching someone go up on a ledge.
In the 90’s, bareback gay porn was taboo. Today it’s becoming unabashedly fashionable again and that’s terrible IMO. Kudos to studios like Men At Play, who take a blatant stance AGAINST producing anything condom-less.
Puma
Mafalo wrote: >>but you endorse watching these seduced-by-cash models engage in dangerous behavior on camera for your entertainment<<
But it's not dangerous behavior if they're HIV negative. It's debatable whether treating everyone as if they're HIV positive is really the best way to approach the problem. It's like saying people should never be shown putting salt on their food, because we're going to assume they, and the whole world, has high blood pressure (and many more do than are HIV positive). As well, on TV and in movies, we watch human beings engaged in dangerous behavior — for entertainment — all the time, and have for decades. It's not just about sex.
Allen D wrote: ..It’s always seemed to me that if ‘unsafe oral sex’ was a semi-likely transmission risk, EVERY gay man would already be positive.<<
LOL I hear ya. I guess my point is that, even if my partner just bit open his tongue eating peanut brittle and I'm insisting he give me a blowjob here and now, if I'm negative, there's no way he can get HIV. If I were positive, then I should probably hold off — and maybe I should hold off anyway, the bleeding usually stops pretty fast 😉
Fitz
The solution to HIV risk is not bad sex. Nor bad porn. The only thing that works is careful partner selection. You can keep pounding the drum of condoms all day, but they make sex unsatisfying and painful, and they break. I avoided HIV, even though the worst of the 80’s, through the magic of not giving my ass up to every available penga.
pickles
Let’s just consider the Queerty demographic. If you’re looking at THIS blog, chances are pretty good that you’re on the smarter side of things. You read blogs about politics, sex, entertainment… or simply, you read. Making a general statement, you’re mostly quite articulate, comment with few typos and have an active, considerate thought process. So, add in that perhaps you can make the distinction between watching [generally] unsafe sex and choosing to do it yourselves. You GET that two HIV negative peeps can’t spread an incurable disease if they don’t have it.
Young, frankly dumber people don’t have the luxury of your intelligence. Bareback porn is way more accessible now than, say, ten years ago and not surprisingly, young people are converting at a higher rate. I wonder if they’re seeing their cute contemporaries going raw and thinking, ‘Cool. Cum drooling outta my ass is hot’ without the benefit of understanding the potentially deadly/damaging/hideously expensive/cruel consequences.
This study may not be perfect but it’s perfectly illustrating of a potential issue. People see stuff then they want to do it. With cooking shows, this isn’t too dangerous. With video showing people who are beautiful shoving cum in places where it can be disease spreading it’s a little riskier.
jason
Bareback sex is fine so long as both partners are healthy. You won’t catch anything if you’re both healthy.
The people who should take a precaution when having bareback sex are those who go picking up total strangers on a frequent basis. When you do this, you’re basically gambling on the health status of the stranger you are picking up. This applies to any paradigm where such pick-ups exist – gay, straight or anything in-between.
Dave
I hate the stigma there is on barebacking. Yes, I know you could get HIV and other STIs, but, if you can’t trust whoever you’re with to be clean, that’s an entirely different issue. If you’re frequently hooking up with random guys, you should be using a condom. If you actually know the man you’re having sex with and you’re both disease-free, there’s no reason to insist on using a condom.
Bennett
While it may not be true for everyone, for many, bareback is hotter bc it is more ‘real’. There is no plastic barrier which indicates set up and preparation. Porn is quintessentially fantasy incarnate, and bareback is its apex. You can argue all you like about safety and responsibility etc. but no one is watching porn with that in mind. They want to see some cute stud getting f-d and the more natural and unmeditated it seems, the hotter it will be.
Of course, it could be argued that people need to be made aware that bareback IS dangerous, and that the ‘actors’ have taken rigorous precautions before shooting. Perhaps porn clips should be preceded by safety notices or disclaimers, like they have in actual movies.