By LeNair Xavier
Thotyssey presents a column by LeNair Xavier, a writer/poet who has worked in many levels of the sex industry, and has a lot to say about the social politics of sex, porn and sexual etiquette.
The hashtag #RawIsLaw has been around for quite some time. In its initial inception, it was frowned upon by those promoting safer sex. Such as the studio-based porn companies that I did movies for and sought to work with. In fact, being caught living by that hashtag while doing condom-using porn could mean the end of a porn performer’s career.
Perhaps this is why during my time of doing studio-based porn, I never openly voiced a stance of “yay” or “nay” on bareback sex or bareback porn. Although this was before my becoming HIV+ or announcing it publicly as I did on World AIDS Day in 2018, I look back on my silence then as one of my rare moments of being complacent. At a time when the rebel I was known for being actually had another cause his voice was needed in.
For when I finally did make a public statement about unprotected sex, my position was then what it remains today. I said:
I feel it is unnatural to have a barrier between you
and your sex partner. However, due to HIV and other
STIs out there, one must consider a barrier (like condoms) as an option.
This was greatly frowned upon when I posted it on Facebook some years ago. I still remember the arguments of some Facebook friends (and mere strangers) against my position. Arguments that I felt were foolish and naïve then, and with hindsight being 20/20, look back on as foolish and naïve today.
At least my position in silence or once voiced has never shown me to be a hypocrite on the matter of unprotected sex. Thereby giving me peace of mind when I participated in NY Seed’s Latin Orgy this past summer. This is a complete opposite from some studio-based porn stories I can recall.
Such as:
- porn producers allegedly storming an award show stage because of a porn actor’s bareback porn past, or;
- a porn producer presenting at an awards show and storming off the stage when he realizes the award is for a category in bareback porn, or;
- putting a clause in a studio exclusive’s contract to where at a porn event they couldn’t be within a certain distance of a bareback porn company.
These safer-sex porn producers behaved this way because they were in some level of cahoots with each other, hence the media consolidation and monopolies (causing the lack in diversity and tokenism) we see today. With that being the case, any porn showing sex in its closest to natural form of body contact—bareback porn was their biggest rival. Primarily because bareback porn’s integrity was a threat at exposing condom-using porn’s usual hypocrisy with their magically-appearing condom. So with the male ego being what it is, such outbursts were to distract from them feeling that threat to their profits. It was never about health, and how PrEP was not a thing back then, which is likely to be their “defense” today. It was all about money then and now.
If it was really about health, then these studios would stick to using condoms for safety’s sake. Much like the friends and customers who come into the sex shop I work at who in spite of the reality of PrEP and DoxyPEP still practice safer sex and use condoms. Instead, all of those producers and their cohorts have now signed on to do bareback porn as well.
This leads to how I have always said that gay porn is many a gay males’ sex education teacher. Even if the industry does not want to admit it. For any time you make a practice of yours public, you inspire others to do the same. This is why I have long been concerned about some of the more intense styles of play shown in porn. As they might inspire newly out and newly sexually active people to take on more than what they are ready for. But that is another topic. In the case of this article, the displays in close to all porn companies has aided in starting to make the hashtag #RawIsLaw lose its Scarlet Letter-like abhorrence.
Honestly, the position I took from the very beginning is how it should have been viewed. It is a position that allows us to be adults. Making your own decisions, and dealing with the consequences, be they good or bad.
With all that said, contrary to its opposers, #RawIsLaw has never been a “wrong law”. The only way it becomes a wrong law is when you impose it upon an individual outside of your own sex play. For one’s practice of protected or unprotected sex is an issue between the sex-having parties. Within the gay community, we need to stop this heteronormative shaming of people having unprotected sex. For the negative possibilities resulting from unprotected sex between same-gendered people does not have the chain of affected people as it does for cisgendered straight people.
Let’s remember that, shall we.
LeNair Xavier can be found frequently at the Cock, and at various other exhibitionist-friendly venues. He can be followed on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. He guest blogs occasionally for Kiroo.com.
Thotyssey 