Did a gay media giant (Here Media) kill an article because it didn’t want to upset a certain class of advertiser (porn studios) with a piece penned by a Queerty contributor (Matt Siegel)?
If you hear the version from Siegel, who pens The Unabashed Queer for this website, the answer is a definite … mebbe.
“Business Before Pleasure” — which delved into how complicit porn studios might be in helping spread HIV with a loose condoms policy — was live on Advocate.com for eight days, before it was inexplicably pulled. Mediate floats a theory that The Advocate, which is owned by Paul Colichman’s Here Media, which also publishes porn rags Freshmen and Unzipped, yanked Siegel’s item because it didn’t want to risk offending paying porn advertisers.
Is that a possible explanation? Certainly. Lord knows we’ve seen plenty of media outlets kill pieces because of advertiser conflicts. Just this month, the Hartford Courant fired its consumer advocate for running a story about the Connecticut Attorney General looking into mattress store Sleepy’s, one of the newspaper’s clients.
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Similarly, the same day Advocate.com pulled Siegel’s porn piece, news reports surfaced about 16 porn studios facing complaints about unsafe sex practices related to condom use. It’s usually bad business to publish negative stories about the advertisers who pay your bills.
The magazine isn’t saying why it pulled the piece, but one other reason could be potential libel concerns, though Siegel says editor Ross von Metzke removed them before it went live.
But if you’re interested in reading it — and if you care about HIV, health, or the porn industry, you’ll want to — it’s published in full, uncensored, here. To us, it’s a poignant look at the real risks associated with helping America get off.
Qjersey
What porn companies? last time I checked the Advocate wasn’t featuring ads from Treasure Island Media or any other of the “sex at your own risk” bareback porn companies.
Probably was the web-porn sites, where sometimes they use condoms, sometimes they don’t, model’s “choice”
The big porn companies have not moved into BB porn as far as I know, but facials are making a big, er, cum back.
MoHoTo
You would 1st need advertisers in order to ‘piss advertisers off.’ Just sayin’
hardmannyc
The only way this story makes sense is if Siegel reveals what the Advocate’s people told him was the reason for pulling the story. I’m sure other stories in the Advocate piss off one advertiser or another. It’s inevitable, so in the face of any evidence, I’m calling bullshit.
Bob Lablah
Ok, here is my beef about this “wear a condom” B/B and porn. It was my understanding that all studios test their models for HIV regardless of whether it is barebacking or “safe sex”.
If both models came up negative then please explain what all the screaming and yelling about bareback sex if both agree to it. I personally look for bareback sex first because it is MY preference and I personally don’t give one damn about admitting it nor searching for it.
Is the real issue here to blackmail the studios into making dvd’s that don’t sell (barebacking outsells safe sex)as well as the dvd’s that do satisfy what the paying customers have CLEARLY indicated that is what they want?
Only a fool would not stop this type of reporting in a climate like this where even the bars on Christopher street ALL have happy hour from 12pm till closing EVERYDAY. Things are too rough right now to not give the public what it clearly wants to see versus some sanctimonious B/S.
naprem
@Bob Lablah: “If both models came up negative then please explain what all the screaming and yelling about bareback sex if both agree to it.”
I’ll tell you exactly what the problem is – the example it sets for others. Kids watching porn online will see sex without condoms, and that’s what they’ll go out and do. And that, in case you need it pointing out for you, would be bad.
Bob Lablah
@naprem:”Kids” watching online porn? And bareback porn would set a bad example?
Sorry sir/madame, but I stick to my argument.
Klarth
maybe by kids he meant young LGBT persons furtively getting off to pirated porn or getting people to buy it for them, etc. Don’t act like it doesn’t happen. The important point was the fact that the bareback sex is shown, without any disclaimers (none that I have seen anyway) that these models were tested regularly.
And closeted adolescent gays aren’t exactly seeking out older mature gays to set them on the right path as far as the dangers out there and how to avoid them. I certainly never got a manual on what not to do, and my first time was bareback too. I was fortunate to not have caught anything from it.
That said, I knew better, but I didn’t have the balls to demand that partners use protection. Even when I discussed it with them beforehand, it didn’t happen. And in a small town with an invisible gay minority, it’s hard to bring yourself to walk out on a hookup after getting that close just because of protection. You’re young, dumb, and full of cum, and they’re telling you what you want to believe so you can turn off your better judgment and do what your body wants. We’ve all been there or somewhere like it.
I hold myself responsible for my bad decisions, but maybe our culture in general would be better about protection if it was more pervasively featured in porn. If that is people’s first experience of sex, regardless of the context of that sex, the act itself ought to include safety or address it somehow. People are rebelling against being preached at in their porn, but how can we say people prefer bareback porn inherently and discount the socialization factors that make people think real sex should be like porn?
It’s not like safer sex porn has existed forever. it’s only been since the whole AIDS situation a couple of decades ago, compared to much of human history, including many centuries where adequate protection didn’t exist. If there was only safer sex in porn, after a while, people would be used to it.
Everything else about the sex is the same to the audience, regardless of what you might say about whether it feels different IRL.