Bareback (sexual act)

A resurgence of barebacking in first-world gay communities during the 1990s has been a frequent topic for gay columnists and editorialists in The Advocate, Genre magazine, and Out magazine.[12] Many of these articles express concern over bareback sex's popularity, and liken it to irresponsible and reckless behavior, despite the fact that a third of gay men take part in the practice.[12] An article in the online resource The Body lists no fewer than 22 reasons why barebacking has become increasingly acceptable in the gay community.[13] Some of the reasons listed are: the recent perception of HIV as a treatable illness one can live with, insufficient sex education, use of drugs such as methamphetamine in sexual settings, and fetishization of bareback sex on various porn and dating sites.

Academic works suggest that barebacking is a way to reach for transcendence, to overcome the boredom of everyday average life in a hyper-rationalized society.[14] Some men are dispensing with condoms in the context of seroconcordant sex (sex between two men of the same HIV status). Early articulations of barebacking generally refer to sex between two HIV-positive men, whereby barebacking could be considered an early harm reduction strategy, similar to serosorting, which was later endorsed by some public health authorities in the USA.[11]

Tablets of Truvada, a tenofovir/emtricitabine combination used for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis

Bareback sex has also become more acceptable since the introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). One of the most popular forms of PrEP is Truvada, a medication previously taken for HIV treatment that, when taken properly, has been shown to prevent HIV-negative users from contracting HIV from infected partners. While these drugs do not necessarily prevent the transmission of other STIs, they have stirred a discussion on what "safe" sex without the use of condoms really entails.

A 2005 study by Perry N. Halkitis concluded that the resurgence of barebacking led to an increase in sexually transmitted infections among the MSM community. The study found that of the 448 men who were familiar with barebacking, nearly half reported they had bareback sex in the last three months. In the San Francisco study, fewer men reported engaging in barebacking when the behavior was defined as intentional unprotected anal intercourse with a non-primary partner. Using this definition, 14% of the 390 men who were aware of barebacking reported engaging in the behavior in the past two years. Halkitis and Richard Wolitski also found that HIV-positive MSM were more likely to have bareback sex than were HIV-negative MSM.[15] A 2016 study by Joseph Brennan used textual analysis to read discourse on gay pornography performer Jake Lyons and his decision to perform for bareback studios. Brennan explored the stigma attached to the practice, in particular narratives of 'disposal and disgust' that became associated with the performer, and contributed to a decline in his career.[16]

Bareback gay pornography was standard in "pre-condom" films from the 1970s and early 1980s. As awareness of the risk of AIDS developed, pornography producers came under pressure to use condoms, both for the health of the performers and to serve as role models for their viewers. By the early 1990s new pornographic videos usually featured the use of condoms for anal sex. However, beginning in the 1990s, an increasing number of studios have been devoted to the production of new films featuring men engaging in unprotected sex.[17] For example, San Francisco-based studio Treasure Island Media, whose work focuses in this area, has produced bareback films since 1999. Other companies that do so include Spunk Video, Lucas Entertainment, SEVP, and Eurocreme. Mainstream gay pornographic studios such as Kristen Bjorn Productions have featured the occasional bareback scene such as in "El Rancho" between performers who are real-life partners. Other studios such as Falcon Entertainment and Spunk Video have also reissued older pre-condom films.[18] Also, mainstream studios that consistently use condoms for anal sex scenes may sometimes choose editing techniques that make the presence of condoms somewhat ambiguous and less visually evident, and thus may encourage viewers to fantasize that barebacking is taking place, even though the performers are following safer-sex protocols. (In contrast, some mainstream directors use close-up shots of condom packets being opened, etc., to help clearly establish for the viewer that the sex is not bareback.)

Some bareback pornography studios say that they do not inquire whether their models are HIV positive, but assume that they are infected. For example, Hot Desert Knights (HDK) was one of the studios that initially operated on the assumption that all of their bareback models were HIV positive.[19] However, in February 2008 HDK announced that it would begin testing its models for HIV and engage in a process of "sero-sorting", which match HIV-positive performers with other HIV-positive performers, and negative with negative. Critics suggest that sero-sorting may not prevent the development of a multi-strain HIV "superinfection". By contrast, BelAmi is one of the studios that claimed from the beginning to test their bareback models for HIV before allowing them to participate in condom-free scenes. A notice on the BelAmi website states: "all our performers are regularly tested for the presence of HIV or other communicable diseases."[20]