morals v. business

The Bareback Porn Studio That Chose Fighting HIV Over the Bottom Line

houseboydvd

We’re going to have to take someone’s word for it that the gay porn industry is a “multibillion” dollar business, because haven’t XTube and its kin completely deflated the ROI of two-or-more guys screwing on screen? But accepting that overall valuation, it’s the condom-less gay porn niche that makes up a huge chunk of that business. But at least one porn company is putting morals on a higher shelf than dollar bills — which, last we checked, is bad for business — and has exited the bareback biz. Not that it plans on insisting competitors do the same.

Max Lincoln, the CEO of porn studio Eurocreme, runs a company that specialized in exactly what its name suggests. Profit margins are exponentially higher in the bareback world, insists Lincoln, but because there’s no scientific way to assure protection for bareback performers (namely, the lead time in HIV test results), he’s left behind his bread and butter, telling Pink News:

“There is a window period between an individual becoming infected with the HIV virus, and that individual showing up positive in an HIV test. During the window period, the infected individual can transmit the virus to others during unprotected sexual intercourse.

“For that reason it is not possible for a production company to guarantee the safety of an actor in a bareback film.”

“Last year, in order to protect its performers against HIV infection, Eurocreme took the difficult commercial decision to produce only ‘condom’ films,” continued Lincoln, who founded the company in 2002.

“In the absence of any legislation governing porn production in the UK, this moral stance places us at a serious disadvantage in the marketplace.”

(Indeed, the pictured film, House Boy, from 2009, features performers using condoms.)

And while Eurocreme produces its films in, uh, Europe, that doesn’t mean Lincoln isn’t abreast of the situation in California, where state health regulators are, once again, being pushed to make condoms mandatory.

“Bareback sex is not a criminal offence, and it would be a dangerous precedent for the Government to legislate against the depiction of a perfectly legal activity.

“Porn companies exist to entertain, and it should not be left to them to educate the general public at their own expense.

“It is also facile to imagine that legislation will prevent the consumer accessing bareback porn; It will instead send him down the route of piracy and filesharing. The correct approach in the UK is for the producers, retail outlets and the gay press to self-regulate, much as has been proposed in the USA. This would at least allow responsible adult companies to compete on a level playing field.”

“If the Government is to become involved in this issue in any way, it should be to devote funding to HIV awareness programmes, particularly directed towards young people.”

Indeed: Don’t ban bareback porn because it will encourage Internet piracy! And like all health decisions, the bottom line must be considered first.

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