Starting in 2011, several mainstream US-based web pornography studios began producing scenes featuring bareback sex, citing safer sex practices such as sero-sorting, on-set rapid HIV testing, quarantining performers, and the availability of pre-exposure prophylaxes. While scholarly and non-scholarly interest in bareback pornography has largely centered on issues of public health, this article examines online discussions about bareback pornography that describe performers through discourses of labor. This article examines primarily web-based bareback pornography in the United States from 2011-2014. First, this article compares recent bareback scenes to bareback pornography produced during the 2000s by bareback studios such as Treasure Island Media (TIM). Next, this article examines online journalism about bareback pornography, namely gay men’s blogs and gay pornography specific blogs, and their comments sections. Linking these blogs to gossip-style journalism and a form of semi-private comment found in older forms of LGBT journalism, this article notes when and how online discussion participants describe performers as doing labor.
Finally, this article examines the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) citation against TIM. In January 2014, the AIDS Health Foundation (AHF) announced “a landmark” decision by the California court system that denied an appeal to the Cal/OSHA citation by TIM. The 2013 citation fined TIM for several workplace safety issues, including lack of condom-use. This court decision relied on defining TIM performers as employees, rather than independent contractors with specialized skills. This case reasserted that public production of adult films were subject to state standards, despite bareback pornography’s, and in particular TIM’s, open transgression of normative ideals of gay men. By examining bareback pornography through discourses of labor, we see a shift from looking at performers as representations of gay men as a community, to performers as legal sex workers (in contrast to prostitutes) who are subject to state laws.
About the presenterByron Lee
Dr. Lee’s research examines sexual identities, memory, and media discourse. He currently teaches at Temple University, and has also previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD in Mass Media and Communication from Temple University, and a Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies from Simon Fraser University.