Porn Firms Sue Over Condom Law!

[TotallyOz]

It is a proven fact that youngsters are influenced by role models. Cigarette companies pounced on that truth more than half a century ago. Product placement in movies is a key part of the marketing budgets of several major companies and it is designed specifically to associate those products with pleasing environments, successful people, etc. etc.

If porn stars are role models, I assume you would agree that movie stars are as well? If that is the case, I have seen a few hundred movies and TV shows in the last year, I don't recall any of them breaking out a condom before they had sex. Should we make it the law of the land that each and every movie and TV show that has sexual content be required to open a condom BEFORE sex happens?

 

I wonder how Hollywood would comply? Would they agree? Would they follow through?

[Guest fountainhall]

Yes, movie stars are. But then how many movies have you seen in the cinemas or on TV last year with graphic images of the erect penis prior to and/or in the act of penetration? In Thailand and in the US, my guess is none!

 

And how many times have you seen movie stars advocate sex without a condom? Again - I guess none!

[TotallyOz]

Yes, movie stars are. But then how many movies have you seen in the cinemas or on TV last year with graphic images of the erect penis prior to penetration? In Thailand and in the US, my guess is none!

Do you really need to see the erect penis and penetration in order to know they are having sex and with our without a condom? Is that really your requirement? Have you not seen movies where sex and you don't see that penis?

[Guest fountainhall]

Michael, you are straying from the point and, with respect, your arguments are becoming faintly ridiculous!

 

What porn actors do or do not do (or can and can not do) in porn films is the subject of this thread. The possible effect of this on impressionable minds is a secondary theme. You really cannot be serious in suggesting that when Michael Douglas and Glenn Close had sex on the kitchen counter in "Fatal Attraction", the first thing young people thought was whether Douglas wears a condom or not! I doubt if it crossed the minds of anyone watching that movie - or others with such scenes. Sorry to say that's just plain ridiculous!

 

You just cannot compare that in any way to porn actors stripped full frontal with ultra close-ups of penetration.

[TotallyOz]

Michael, you are straying from the point and, with respect, your arguments are becoming faintly ridiculous!

With all due respect to you as well, the real point of the thread is that some have their mind made up and refuse to see any other points. Sad in my opinion but as it seems pointless to debate with anyone who has already decided the desired outcome I'll leave the thread alone from this point.

 

If you declare that porn stars are role models and that movie stars are role models and yet set them to different standards, you are deceiving yourself and creating your desired outcome. When 100,000,000 people see one film as opposed to 5,000 for another one and you really believe that the one that has 5,000 views is so much more relevant to the discussion of the spread of HIV, then I am worried about all of you.

[Guest fountainhall]

There are role models and role models! With perhaps a handful of exceptions, there is just no comparison between the settings in which movie actors appear and what they do on screen with those in which porn actors appear and the things they get up to on screen. They're as different as chalk and cheese!

 

And even amongst movie actors, the role models are very different. Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly were role models, but there was precious little comparison between them apart from their being popular actresses and great beauties. One all but came across as a drunken bitch (her words!); the other as a virginal idol (later proven to have slept around more than a bit).

 

Yes, I do firmly believe that a condomless porn movie has more influence on the sexual habits of the younger people amongst its "5,000" or more viewers than the vast number in the same age grouping who watched "Titanic" with diCaprio and Winslett having sex in that car. 

 

Please remember I have never talked about audiences in general; only the young and the more impressionable, the ones you suggest should be taught the basic facts of sex and HIV by parents, schools and teachers. But you seem not to acknowledge that parents, schools and teachers mostly fail in that duty. And you then seem to feel it is perfectly acceptable for such youngsters to be exposed to condomless sex. By extension, that encouragement can lead some to assume that such sexual practice is both safe and the norm. I believe everyone in the sex industry should be doing everything possible to ensure that the safe sex message is firmly driven home. If they do not, their selfish and profit-driven actions deliberately undermine the efforts being made by all health authorities worldwide.

[Guest fountainhall]

Spurred by the differences in opinion in this thread, I did some reading last night. I remembered that there have been conflicts before between the commercial sex industry and medical health authorities. So I re-read passages in what is virtually the definitive history of the early years of the HIV-AIDS crisis, “And the Band Played On” by gay author Randy Shilts, who was himself to die of the disease.

 

In early 1982, the issues of personal liberty and the profit motive were again front and centre in the USA. At that time, medical researchers in the US were clear that the strange new disease was spreading mostly amongst homosexual men who had had a considerable number of sexual partners. One scientist came up with the acronym GRID – Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. But Dr. Marcus Conant in San Francisco wasn’t sure for how long the virus would stay confined to the gay community. “This is going to be a world-class disaster”, he said. “And nobody’s paying attention.”

 

Four months later, in May 1982, some medical researchers called for the closure of bathhouses as a way of limiting the spread of GRID –

 

the bathhouses were a horrible breeding ground for disease. People who went to bathhouses simply were more likely to be infected with a disease - and infect others - than a typical homosexual on the street. Doctors like David Ostrow and Dan William did not consider themselves prudish . . . but they were uneasy about the health implication of the commercialization of sex.

 

Later, as more and more mostly young men were showing symptoms of the new disease, another doctor, Dan William, seeing “catastrophe ahead”, took the owner of the famous St. Mark’s Baths in New York to dinner.

 

The overwhelming preponderance of his patients were people who went to the bathhouses. Obviously, bathhouses existed solely to provide the opportunity for the maximum number of sexual contacts, Nobody was saying the places should be closed down, William explained to the proprietor, but the bathhouses had a great opportunity to take a leadership role in promoting a new type of gay club.

 

William was quite taken with this idea, “The New Safe St. Mark’s,” he said. The bathhouse could take the doors off the private rooms, turn up the lights to discourage orgies, and orient the sex more towards video eroticism in which gay men could masturbate with each other but avoid the exchange of semen that probably spread the thing.

 

William was actually surprised when the businessman looked at him as if he were crazy.

 

“People can do what they want to do,” he said. “ I have no right to direct their behaviour.”

 

But people were going to die and die horribly, William countered.

 

The bathhouses weren’t going to be changing, he was told.

 

It took 22 more months and countless more deaths and infections before the bathhouse owners finally put up the closure notices.

 

I fully accept that circumstances in the early 1980s were vastly different from today. It had been little more than a decade since the Stonewall riots. At that time, the gay liberation movement had only just begun to make major strides towards some sort of acceptance in some communities. Any attempt to restrict the hard-won freedoms of gays was regarded as an invasion of individual rights and privacy, and as such understandably met with resistance. But the voice of reason and the need to do something about the exponential rate of infections and death amongst gay men eventually won out.

 

For many, HIV is no longer a death sentence; it’s a manageable chronic illness. Those with access to medication and who can afford it enjoy a quality of life similar to everyone else. However, those infected - like all males not in a strictly monogamous relationship – have a duty to protect those with whom they have sex.

 

Equally, we have read several times on various gay Thailand forums about young Thai guys who return to their villages to die of AIDS complications? In how many other countries is this scenario played out? For the issue here is not merely access to medication. Despite decades of publicity, the stigma against those with HIV remains very high, especially in underdeveloped and less developed nations. Many of those infected do not have access to counseling and remain in a state of denial, sadly until it is too late.

 

It’s all very well to say that this has nothing to do with the commercial vdo sex industry. I beg to differ. In its desire simply to maximise profits, the industry is perfectly happy to put out product which it knows conveys a message that is the total opposite of what all medical health authorities wish conveyed. It doesn’t matter to me how many companies are engaged in this intransigent behaviour. If one city or state puts a stop to it, perhaps others will consider doing so. And if even one life is saved, it’s worth doing.

 

Quoted excerpts from "And the Band Played On" by Randy Shilts, published by Penguin Books

[Guest Jovianmoon]

For many, HIV is no longer a death sentence; it’s a manageable chronic illness. Those with access to medication and who can afford it enjoy a quality of life similar to everyone else.

 

 

Yes, and that's fine for people like me who who live in places where the medication and medical consultations are free. But in many countries including Thailand that's not the case. I may be wrong but I understand that in Thailand, treatment comes to several thousand baht per month. For a bar boy that's a substantial chunk of their earnings. For a large number of them its prohibitive, and I guess that's where the "returning to the village" scenario comes in, as you mentioned later in your post. 

 

However, those infected - like all males not in a strictly monogamous relationship – have a duty to protect those with whom they have sex.

 

Undeniably. But I would also say that the duty is two-way. The onus on both participants - an uninfected person should not be relying solely on the duty of the infected. I would say rather that everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves as well as others.