A Sexual Ethics Question

[Will]

This morning a video maker sent an e-mail alert to a new release featuring barebacking soldiers. It's not his first bareback tape; but it's also not the only kind he produces. In fact, I actually wrote and asked him not to make any more barebacking tapes, because it gives the illusion that "straight" boys can't possibly carry or catch HIV. Thus, the sight of young, apparently healthy -- and certainly amateur -- guys fucking each other without condoms could easily suggest to viewers too young to know better that AIDS is either a disease of the past or one that you can just live with, like diabetes.

 

My question is this, and I'm asking it, truly, with an open mind. Do you think it is ethical to purchase such tapes? Or do you think that because a tape records something that consenting adults have already done, it is of no ethical concern to the viewer?

 

As I said, I am completely open-minded about this. However, I've been thinking about it for some time, particularly in light of the barebacking-escorts discussions that appear from time to time on the Message Center. For all I know, some of these "straight soldiers" also escort on the side.

[bluboy]

These issues are always thorny--and they come in many guises--buy products of corporations that are anti-gay; buy drugs when the means of distribution often is girls from Columbia who fill their stomachs with pills; buy organs from the chinese market; etc etc. What responsibility does the final consumer have to what happens in the production/distribution of the product or service. In the end it is about how you strongly YOU feel about what has happned/is happening. Children being used to sew in the third world does not bothe rme much so I buy all kinds of designer clothes; kids being used to transaport drugs really bothers me so I only use marijuana which comes either from the US or Jamaica where there is not this violent trade; truthfully barebaking gay guys for me is kind of hot and it is all consenting adults so I am ok with buying it. So it is about how repugnant you feel it is--if it is repugnant-- you have a moral responsibility not to support the chain of production and distribution. Blu

[woodlawn]

> What responsibility does the

>final consumer have to what happens in the

>production/distribution of the product or service. In the end

>it is about how you strongly YOU feel about what has

>happned/is happening.

 

I'd put it differently: if you have any moral values, you demonstrate them in the way you behave, not by paying lip service to them. If you think it's wrong to cheat on a commitment to someone, you don't sleep with someone who is cheating. If you really disapprove of the atrocities perpetrated by the Taliban and the Afghan warlords, you don't buy heroin, since Afghanistan produces most of the world's illegal opium. If you think it's wrong to glamorize barebacking, you don't patronize the business of people who make money doing that.

 

Frankly, I have a bigger problem with people to pretend they have values but who really just rationalize doing whatever they want than I do with people who have no values and make no bones about it.

[+ Charlie]

I think the fact that the movie is simply a record of an act that has already taken place is irrelevant. Would it be ethical to buy one of the infamous "snuff" movies of the past, just because the victim was already dead? Porn is not created for artistic expression; it is created solely to make money. If you buy a form of porn that you believe harms the participants or encourages the viewers to engage in behavior that is dangerous to themselves and others, then you are encouraging the producer to produce more of it.

[Guest Cumbee]

I would have to agree with the second and third replies on this matter. If you really feel strongly that barebacking is dangerous, wrong, or an inappropriate message to advance, then you cannot in good conscious purchase or use products which promote or demonstrate barebacking. To do so demonstrates a conflict between what you say that you believe and what you do. In that case, what you do demonstrates what your beliefs are more truly than anything that you say.

[Will]

Woodlawn, Charlie, and Cumbee confirm my own sense of things. In the end, what one does or doesn't do may not change anything at all; what does matters is to act on one's principles. Come to think of it, Charlie, bareback videos may be closer to snuff than they are to plain old porn.

[bluenix]

>I'd put it differently: if you have any moral values, you

>demonstrate them in the way you behave, not by paying lip

>service to them. If you think it's wrong to cheat on a

>commitment to someone, you don't sleep with someone who is

>cheating. If you really disapprove of the atrocities

>perpetrated by the Taliban and the Afghan warlords, you don't

>buy heroin, since Afghanistan produces most of the world's

>illegal opium. If you think it's wrong to glamorize

>barebacking, you don't patronize the business of people who

>make money doing that.

 

Is it really so easy? What is one's course of action when one's values contradict each other?

 

A woman can believe in the sanctity of life AND in her right to choose what happens to her body. If she has an unwanted pregnancy these two values will come into conflict with each other. How do you judge her when she compromises one of them?

 

When people are deciding what's right and what's wrong, I think what they are really doing is assigning priorities to their values. And what's wrong with that?

[Guest rohale]

>This morning a video maker sent an e-mail alert to a new

>release featuring barebacking soldiers. It's not his first

>bareback tape; but it's also not the only kind he produces.

>In fact, I actually wrote and asked him not to make any more

>barebacking tapes, because it gives the illusion that

>"straight" boys can't possibly carry or catch HIV. Thus, the

>sight of young, apparently healthy -- and certainly amateur --

>guys fucking each other without condoms could easily suggest

>to viewers too young to know better that AIDS is either a

>disease of the past or one that you can just live with, like

>diabetes.

 

You ask a very good question. Every thinking person today has his or her own interpretation of what the word ethics means. In some ways and many may think differently, but ethical decisions at times require educated guesses. Sometimes this way of thinking works and at other times the results could be distrastrous. It depends on the situation at hand. As to the question you ask, when one purchaes a tape or dvd, one buys not to be educated but rather to be entertained. When one wants to be entertained with an x-rated tape then society's definition of what constitutes as ethical automatically gets thrown out the window, figuratively speaking.

 

The law of supply and demand can also apply to a situation like this. I think you did a good thing by contacting the video and expressing how you felt. Will it have an effect on him, only time will tell. For supposition sake, if this particular video maker goes out of business, then there will always be someone to take his or her place because as longs as there are purchasers who keep the demand flowing, then there will always be the suppliers who will keep selling the videos and thus making a segment of the video market happy and in the process making a nice little profit for themselves. It's always been that way and I think it'll probably stay that way for decades to come unless the rules change or big brother gets more involved. You mention young people viewing the video. The younger generations are always rebellious and have anti-establishment feelings. It's always been that way. If young gay guys chose to watch barebacking video and then decide to simulate a scene that they saw and liked and try to act it out with a partner, then too bad and if something bad happens then they will be at the mercy of the god of their choice. What it boils down to is having some sense and a little knowledge, that's it really.

 

Rohale

[Bilbo]

I certainly agree with most of the people here, if I'm reading them correctly, that you should not buy a barebacking movie. However, you say that the same producer also makes movies which are not barebacking. If you can be sure that there is no barebacking in a particular movie, should you buy it from a producer who also makes barebacking movies? That, to me, is an interesting question which hasn't really been discussed in this thread. For myself, I would think that it is all right. It might help start a trend whereby the producer would be shown that he actually can make money, perhaps more of it, by making dick-protected movies. But then, it could get messy if you buy one that you think is d-p and it turns out to have a b-b scene in it. Do you return it and demand your money back because you were mislead by their advertising?

[HooBoy]

I think if you get off on watching bareback videos, go buy them.

 

I am old enough to have a huge collection of bareback videos from the era we did not use condoms except to have sex with girl. (They are on VHS, not wire.)

 

Eventually, either there will be an AIDS cure or enough people will die off so there won't be any more BB videos made, so you might as well build up your collection while you can.

[guptasa1]

Here's my opinion. This may be a bit controversial, but hey - that's what this site is for, right? =oP

 

Barebacking videos do turn me on - I make no bones about it. It's sexy to watch, and it CAN be done relatively safely in some circumstances (exclusive boyfriends/partners for example, or no unsafe sex or better yet sex at all since the last STD/HIV test and for a period long enough before the test, etc.).

 

I do realize, unfortunately, that these relatively safe situations are not easy to achieve, and that it's likely that a lot of these porn videos are NOT as careful about that as they need to be. And I wish that wasn't the case.

 

I also strongly believe in practicing safe sex, minimizing risk, and controlling the spread of terrible diseases like HIV/AIDS. I think it's important...actually, crucial in fact...that everybody be taught about safe sex, the risks involved in barebacking, etc., by someone and wish there were better programs out there to assure that.

 

However, I can't say I feel buying bareback videos is wrong. I haven't actually bought any per se (though I have watched some parts of them on streaming pay sites such as aebn.com), and, while I certainly mean it when I say I'm concerned for the people in the videos and hope to hell they're taking safety precautions, two things jump out at me.

 

1. I don't know the circumstances in the videos. For all I know, the people involved may have taken precautions such as abstinence (for a period) and testing precautions, may be exclusive between each other (or even among the group if there is a group), etc. In those cases, I certainly wouldn't have a problem with barebacking. I fully grant this is (sadly) unlikely, but it is a possibility.

 

2. Even if 1 does not apply, the people in these videos are adults. As such, I feel they need to make responsible decisions about their own health. There are plenty of porn producers that make safe sex videos out there too they could choose to do instead. Now I'm NOT saying this in a mean-spirited way (ie. serves them right if they get something). I'm sure a lot of times, a bad decision comes into play here, and I'm sure the money for bareback videos is attractive. But just like escorting, I guess my position is, if the person isn't really comfortable in what they're doing, they should rethink it and do something else they are comfortable with. For me, the issue is, is it my responsibility, or is the the responsibility of those who act in the video? IF the acts were non-consensual (for example, a rape film or a film where unsafe sex was FORCED), I certainly would feel a responsibility and not purchase. If they're consensual acts with adults who know exactly what they're doing, though, that's a grayer area for me. I can't change the behavior and I don't know if they are indeed taking precautions. So I don't see how buying it or not buying it changes things that much (and yes, it does make the producer money, but one customer isn't likely a huge difference).

 

Just my two cents. And I do have mixed feelings on the subject and see the point of those who don't buy these types of videos. I just have a slightly different take.