Why do we have the need to feel better than someone else? Why not just feel personal value and assume that if you have value others have value? Rudeness might be abolished if more people thought about this and acted accordingly.
I recently read a book called "Money Shot: Wild Nights and Lonely Days inside the Black Porn Industry". Overall, I thought this was a quick read and enjoyable. It gave some insight into the lives of actors and actresses in the porn industry, particularly Black actors and actresses. One thing that stood out to me were the various actors talking about condom use in the porn industry. One actor stated something that seemed so obvious but really, really sad. I think it speaks to how we, as a culture, devalue certain people and it supports our extreme discomfort with our cultural sexuality.
Unfortunately, it's the fans fault. They don't see us as human beings and instead see us as being the dregs of society, so they don't care what happens to us..But if the fans didn't react so negatively to condom scenes we could change like the gay industry.'--Sinnamon Love (p. 94)
What I don't like is that the majority of Americans don't like seeing guys wearing a condom. Some companies are condom mandatory, but if I say that I'm going to do nothing but condom-only shoots, then I'll start getting cut out of gigs..What would make the companies change would be if a guy buys a tape where he sees a girl that is so hot, that it doesn't matter if the guy wears a condom. But that's not happening now because the fans are communicating directly to the companies that they dislike condom movies. So we put our lives at risk.--Sledge Hammer (p. 220)
When asked why there was no mandatory condom use in the straight porn industry. (According to the book, gay porn uses condoms.) The actor replied that consumers think of them (the actors) as beneath them and valued the enjoyment of their fantasy over the safety of the actors. The actors have regular HIV and STD tests and must have the results with them to work on most, if not all, films, but no condoms. One major company, according to the book, does require condoms but the others feel that condom use would not sell.
----The logic put forth by the non-condom use companies reminds me of the logic of GM and Chrysler used for not making good small cars. Even though another company is showing that small cars (condom porn) can sell, they still say it will not.
The author challenged asked Mr. Hammer, why the actor and actresses do not band together and demand it. Mr. Hammer said that there are too many people and there would be many people who would go without condoms for more money. Initially, I let this slide but then I thought that is a terrible reason for not banding together. Just because some people want to ride in their cars without using the seat belt does not mean that seat belt use should not be mandatory. I think both the companies and the actors and actresses should take responsibility for this. It seems like a bad economic model to put your stars at risk, unnecessarily.
I do not believe fantasies would be ruined by condoms. They could use practically transparent condoms so one could believe that there was no condom. Also, they could use the spray-on condom. I am a little suspicious of aerosol contraception, but to each their own if it works. This goes along with my response to those who say that using condoms is some great barrier to pleasure. You are not doing right. Okay, that did not really go along with that but I wanted to say it anyway.
If you knew that you could give up 5% of your enjoyment and it would increase an other's safety by 50% (not a factually based statistic but a good percentage), then who would say nope 95% is not enough.
I have heard, from anonymous sources of course ;), that porn is not even that interesting. So, why not think of others. I think this speaks to the larger issue of how we do not embrace the idea of '...there but for the grace of God, go I.' I find it is amazing that a legal endeavor has such a stigma. Pornography is a multi-million possibly billion dollar industry but everyone is appalled by it and no one watches it.
I think we (the culture) are not big on letting people do what they want as long as it is legal. We have tons of examples of this and everyone is outraged for the egregious examples but we are silent for the everyday transgressions. We are outraged by sodomy laws in Texas but ignore de facto laws in our 'backyard'.
Think about this, twenty years from now, what would happen if someone broke in to a politician's house and found a video of the politician and spouse during intimate moments and made it public? I would say good for the couple, but how many people would be aghast at such behavior? Some might say that they should not have made the video, but I say that whatever they like, they like. It is their business not the business of the public and the video should not have been stolen in the first place. It is like you come in my house, I have the bathroom door closed, you walk in on me getting out of the shower, and you are upset that I was naked.
On a side note, I do not think MySpace and/or Facebook should be used in hiring decisions. I think that it is an invasion of privacy. We should not be required to check our ideas and preferences when we walk in to work. We should be required to be respectful, but not lose our individual voices. People have been doing stupid things in their youth since the dawn of time but the internet generation is paying a higher price.
1 comment:
I could not agree more. The actors need to band together to make change. You certainly could make a situation where pornography requires condoms, and, sure, you could be creative with it to look less obvious, or, like the gay community, you could just admit to doing your part to encourage safe sex.
If they do not band together, it will never work, because people will always go to the other, and those actors will lose out economically. They already have a stigma for being in the porn industry, so if that rejects them, it will become even more difficult.
The best example of this working is with the commercial sex workers in Thailand. Thailand had one of the fastest rising rates of HIV/AIDS in southeast Asia about 10-12 years ago. This continued for a long time, and it was determined that prostitution was the primary contributor. Initially, little was done other than emphasize that prostitution was illegal. Sex workers were marginalized even more, thus more desperate for money, and thus working in even less safe conditions. Also, the women could not, on an individual level, mandate condom use, because the customer would simply go elsewhere, since there were plenty of women who needed money badly enough that they would do whatever the customer wanted.
Well, Thailand has successfully curbed its HIV rates, and is considered one of the biggest success stories, certainly in Asia. It can be attributed to the universal condom rule. Despite prostitution being illegal, the government endorsed a program to make condom use 100% among sex workers. You are not going to get rid of prostitution overnight, so you better address the health issues that end up affecting your entire population. It worked, and it provided the sex workers with a greater sense of empowerment overall, which they can now exercise over clients who want to put them in other unsafe situations.
So I agree with what you said. I think condom use should be universal in porn, but I think it will only work if it really is universal. As long as the other is available, either the producer (film company - not the actors) or the consumer will push to keep that form dominant.
It is too bad that we don't mind putting others at very real risk for the sake of a fantasy. Hopefully they will be able to come together and make the change. The gay industry has shown it is possible, so I have to hope that it will be accepted in the heterosexual industry as well.
-Liz
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