The Raw Controversy

By Race Bannon

The folks who run the International Mr. Leather (IML) contest and weekend decided to halt all connections with any bareback porn companies starting with the May 2010 weekend. To be specific, in their own words, “...the Executive Committee of International Mr. Leather has decided that it will no longer allow participation in the IML Leather Market by any entity which promotes barebacking or distributes/sells any merchandise tending to promote or advocate barebacking. This restriction will also apply to distribution of gifts, post cards or any other information via our facilities.”

This was a stand on principle for them I am told. Many people have asked my opinion about this issue. Was it a good decision? Bad? Neither? As with any controversial decision (and this was controversial for many), well-meaning people usually have quite differing perspectives. So with no disrespect meant to anyone, here's mine.

For the record, my commitment to encouraging safer sex practices is quite solid. I worked with the first  HIV prevention organization founded in Los Angeles in the 1980's. Since then I've encouraged safety awareness through my writing, speaking engagements and community activism. I'm probably more savvy about sexual public health issues than your average kinky gay man. I say this so that no one reading this thinks my position comes from a place of promoting reckless sexual abandon with no consideration for the public health issues at hand.

So, do I think the IML organization made a good decision? No.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the intention was good. I have no doubt the IML organizers believe strongly in promoting safer sex and that they think this will foster that behavior. I happen to think it won't, and might actually have the opposite effect of disengaging men from the discussion they should be having about this topic.

For any active gay leatherman to not know that barebacking among a certain segment of our community is commonplace is to make me wonder if their eyes are open. It's happening. Based on my interactions with countless gay leathermen, I believe, with rare exception, this practice is taking place between HIV+ men. Yes, I know there are negative men who have chosen to accept the risk of barebacking with other negative men. And yes, there are the occasional  negative “bug chasers” who actively try to seroconvert. But I contend the vast majority of barebacking takes place between positive men.

Serosorting (positive barebacking with other positive and negative with other negative) is an HIV transmission reduction strategy that does have proponents in the public health arena. In late 2006, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, historically at the forefront of HIV transmission reduction strategies, launched a disclosure initiative ad campaign that most saw as an official nod toward serosorting. Men appear to serosort carefully. Data indicates that HIV+ men tend to engage in risk-reduction strategies when they know they're playing with HIV- men. Regardless, this is going to remain controversial for many and it's obviously not a strategy the IML Executive Committee deems worthy of consideration.

To think barebacking is going to stop is naive at best. With serosorting now officially placed among the many HIV reduction strategies being employed, to adopt a “just say no” attitude seems cloaked in wishful thinking. Evidently the IML organization feels its influence will somehow change behaviors. I do not know why they think that.

There are few gay men who haven't heard the safer sex messages. HIV prevention is mainstream. And the men who attend IML generally tend to be a sexually savvy bunch. I'm sure I'd be hard pressed to find someone at IML who didn't know that condoms are promoted as the most effective means to avoid HIV transmission. So, who is the IML organization trying to reach with their new policy? Do they think men who have embraced serosorting are going to return to condom use with sero-same partners? Doubtful.

Those who decry barebacking may point to the overall reduction of sexually transmitted diseases as part of the discussion, and that might be a valid point. However, IML's statement makes no mention of anything other than HIV transmission. It is HIV that is clearly the focus of their stance on barebacking.

With all this said, there is a place for meaningful HIV prevention at IML (and other similar venues), but it can only take place in an atmosphere of accepting reality and nonjudgmental engagement with those who might take in such messages. Perhaps the negative man who is considering taking a risk might reconsider. Perhaps the rogue positive man who fucks raw without disclosing his status or bothering to ask his partner's status might rethink such behavior. But how is that discussion even going to take place in an atmosphere that essentially denies barebacking as a viable option for anyone regardless of circumstances? It won't. Instead, those men who might benefit from the prevention messages will be turned off by the implied finger wagging at any notion of responsible barebacking. Much the way the drug war has exaggerated the dangers of marijuana, those who resist any notion of responsible barebacking will be seen as entirely out of touch with what's actually happening in the real world. Gay men see the truth before them all the time. They don't like to be lied to.

What if IML had taken all of this energy and done something different? What if they had instead asked safer sex education organizations to staff booths among the porn companies? What if they had scheduled a community town hall style meeting to discuss barebacking during an afternoon at IML? What if they had devoted some of their IML program space to a renewed safer sex messaging campaign? What if every person who registers for IML received an extensive set of literature specifically addressing the issue of barebacking? What if they had put up some money for a few private rooms in the hotel staffed by safer sex educators and encouraged those who might have some serious questions about barebacking and risk levels to make an appointment during IML? What if they had hosted facilitated discussions on the topic throughout the weekend? There were so many good options, but instead they chose what I consider the “easy way out.” Just say no. No discussion. No community engagement.

I also wonder if IML's policy extends to older vintage porn. It was all raw fucking. Is any vendor selling older porn also to be excluded? What about vintage imagery from leather eras past? Since they were captured or drawn in the time of universal barebacking, do they “promote” barebacking?  Will the IML organization have “barebacking police” roaming the leather market for any of these items? If a couple attending IML is monogamous and has decided to bareback, does the IML organization consider that inappropriate behavior? This issue is not black and white. There are nuanced aspects that must be discussed openly and honestly.

Leathermen are supposed to be the rebels. Our entire sexuality is founded on a rebel identity. Rebel does not mean irresponsible, but rebel does mean thinking outside of the box. Such nontraditional thinking might consider harm reduction strategies better to pursue than absolute moral dictates thrust upon the community. In fact, many HIV prevention organizations have now accepted the harm reduction model for HIV prevention as opposed to the “use a condom all the time no matter what” approach. Why? Because it appears to work.

While many consider IML a community event, it is ultimately a business as far as I know. As a business, they absolutely have a right to place restriction policies in their vendor area. However, when an event also appears to position itself as a community event, including soliciting many volunteers to assist with the event, I think it's incumbent upon them to at least try and solicit community voices about such things. At least that's how I see it.

I know some reading this disagree with me. Good. Your disagreement will hopefully foster further discussion about this. I am just one man with one perspective. I don't want to demonize anyone. I don't think anyone on any side of this issue has anything but the best of intentions. But this issue is not going away. It's here to stay and to brush it under the rug and not discuss it in depth is to, in essence, avoid having to really deal with it. At least that's how I see it.

My two cents. I look forward to hearing other opinions. And again, I mean no disrespect to anyone. Love you all (including all of the IML organizers).

Race Bannon is a sexual adventurer, writer, organizer and businessman with a long history of active involvement with the leatherfolk community. You can read more about Race or contact him through his blog at www.bannon.com.

Comments

[Patrick]

Anything that you push against will only become more of a problem. Pushing against or resisting something is no way to make it go away. Force is not the same thing as power. Go ahead and make barebacking taboo. It will only make it seem that much more appealing to men.

In my honest opinion someone is cow-towing to a fear based way of thinking.

And IML's decision is more than just about hiv prevention. I can guarantee you there's some financial aspect involved.

No one will ever tell me how I can have sex. Race you are right. I am a hell of a rebel especially when it comes to sex.

What other institutions dictate what is good and bad regarding sex? hmm... Boy have times changed.

[Jay Harcourt]

I just finished reading all of the posts in this discussion, and I think there are some points missing that when taken together, Race in his post, and Roger in his comment, hint at.

Race, you point out that we as leathermen are supposed to be the rebels. I agree that many of us are, and that we take our rebel status seriously, and accordingly choose our risks consciously and with the knowledge of possible consequences. I believe that it is one of the things that sets us apart from the mainstream. Call it what you want: SSC, RACK, whatever, but it’s a responsibility I take seriously.

But as Roger points out, many of the guys who attend IML aren’t necessarily connected to the conscious and responsible ways that leathermen approach sex (and play.) These men, attracted to their perceptions of how we exhibit our rebel ways, drag out their starter-harness for the weekend and go at the weekend with wild abandon, acting out their fantasies of what they believe leather is, completely removed from their day-to-day life in the mainstream.
Here’s the thing about adding bareback studios into that mix: with the vending of the material in the mart also comes the producing of the material in suites in the hotel. How many of us have been handed the postcard with the room number inviting us to come participate in the weekend’s filming of the next “X’s 60-load weekend?” Add that invite to the abandon above, and I think you have a problem. I personally talked a friend out of his debut in one of those productions last year.

My background is in Public Health and Prevention. I would argue that in and of itself, removing the bareback studios from the mix is not an effective prevention message. Race, you point out ways that IML could provide a more effective prevention message and I agree with the argument. But whether intended or not, in removing the studios and the production of the next 60-Load film, it might just be a somewhat effective prevention mechanism.

As pointed out by many of the posts here, there is a slippery slope to this move by IML and the argument I present—if you remove the filming, what about the private “parties” in the hotel rooms, etc… But organizationally for IML, and personally for Chuck, the liability (if even moral) of allowing the studios to produce such films and recruit participants from IML attendees may be more threatening than an individual’s decision to participate in a private party.

[Gary Rhoades]

Such an intelligent man - you and I have discussed this specifically. I have to agree with everything you say. To pretend the issues is not there and criticize the participants effectively severs communication. We have to find the point of view where we all intersect and educate from there.
There is so much research and reviews being done at this time. Even the medical establishment is split on sero-sorting and harm reduction so the dialogue has to continue. I get tested annually or semi-annually and even my Dr. will have me skip the test if, from his POV, I have engaged in low risk behavior. I love reading your blog.

[Roger Klorese]

There probably aren't that many things you and I disagree about. And we probably don't disagree all that much about this, either. But...

One thing that's extremely frustrating about this issue is that for a lot of people it becomes a proxy for every possible thing about IML and Chuck Renslow. I know you're not coming from that place, but if I hear one more person dismiss the issue simply because when they hear the words "moral principles" and "Chuck Renslow" in the same sentence their ears turn off...!

To the point, though, I think you're looking at the issue through the lens of the leather community you and I love, what it means to you, and who the people that make it up are and how they think.

And if that was the world of IML, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly.

But we've more and more reached the point where, as much as it is about Leather (and the multitude of things you and I would put in that category -- not just the skins, but the kinks, and even more, the spirits), IML is also about Circuit. I'd say probably half of the guys at IML take their leathers (or other fetishwear or what-have-you) out of the closet for IML and the occasional circuit party, sneer at the people that make the event for you and me (including, well, you and me), and if asked what makes them Leather, would probably say first and foremost that they bareback.

The fact that barebacking is one of the activities that can be listed as a fetish at many profile sites encapsulates what the issue is. It's about barebacking being normative within a transgressive context.

Of course serosorting is a valid choice many of our brothers make -- although I still hold with the idea that, absent a closed, 100% trust-based, and tested partner pool, the only things you can say with certainty are that you are positive or that you don't know. But even then, that implies a level of self-examination and rationality that I frankly don't think is at hand here.

The issue with the Leather Market is that, ultimately, IML isn't even a circuit party -- it's high school. The porn stars are the cool kids, and the barebacking porn stars even more so. And it's the message we send the "freshmen" that is at stake: for the guys who are just starting out, the ones who want to run with the cool crowd, whose table is at the center of the cafeteria? To me, not giving center stage to the "cool factor" is part of a harm reduction strategy: know the facts, take the irrelevant emotional aspects out of it while then being free to consider the relevant ones.

As for safer-sex tables mixed in among the vendor booths: that's putting the AV geeks and drama fags and math team in the mix, expecting they can provide an alternative. There are lots of contexts in which that can work -- but just as I don't think it's been truly effective in MOST sex clubs, I don't think it can work within the Leather Market.

Are there risks to the IML decision? Of course -- making the barebacking that is going on behind closed doors more transgressive and, in the process, more attractive -- but I don't think that's anywhere as much a problem as what we have now, where being a cumdump is tantamount to being Prom Queen.

Perhaps you're just orders of magnitudes more optimistic than I am about how many examined lives are being lived at IML...

And: big love to you.