Bareback porn: does it influence the sex we have?

The past few years have seen a huge proliferation in the number of gay porn studios shooting bareback films... but does watching such imagery increase the chances of us practising unsafe sex ourselves? Freelance writer David Duran looks at the evidence...

What influences us to act in a certain way or to emulate certain behaviours that we see? Imagine watching a cooking show and your favourite chef is always cooking with the same pan, or perhaps always using the same cooking oil. How much influence does that have on you when you are in the kitchen? Will your food only taste as good if you use the same pan or oil as the chef on TV did?

Now bear with me as I smoothly transition food and cooking to sex and porn. Does the porn we watch have any influence on how we have sex, or is porn just a fantasy world that we don’t try and recreate at home? It’s a complicated subject because the porn world is a diverse one, and there is pretty much every type of sexual preferences portrayed for the world to enjoy. But what about when it comes to bareback sex in porn? Does visually seeing raw sex influence us to potentially have unsafe sex when we are having our own personal at home porn scenes with our partners?
 

A bitter pill?

For most who watch bareback porn, there is a reason they're watching it, and that’s most likely because the thought of it turns them on. Now whether they are actually going to be tempted to have unsafe sex just from watching porn is subject to debate, but a lot of partners enjoy watching porn together before engaging in sex, and if bareback is on the screen, what’s to stop them from being so turned on by what they see that they skip the condom too?

This conversation and debate has been one that has been going on for a while now in the porn industry and mostly because unsafe sex can potentially lead to HIV infections, but luckily, that antiquated debate is starting to fizzle with the introduction of Truvada as PrEP, the once a day pill that, if taken as prescribed, can significantly reduce the risk of HIV transmission.

Now before all the PrEP haters or fanatics chime in, I realise that PrEP is super controversial and not even available in all countries as it’s mainly just now becoming semi-available within the United States. But the point is, at some point in the not so distant future, bareback sex shouldn’t be treated as such a taboo since condoms are no longer the only form of protection against HIV, which is one of the main factors it’s so frowned upon, at least in the gay world. But since we are not fully there yet, let's get back to the realities of bareback sex within porn.


 

From the small screen to the bedroom

Earlier this year the Gay Men Fighting AIDS (GMFA) organization based in the UK released findings of their porn study. According to their findings, 87% of gay men report watching porn at least once a week (1 in 4 watching porn every day). The most watched sex act watched was anal sex (91%). The number showed that 69% reported actively choosing bareback porn with 96% having ever watched bareback porn. Seven per cent of the survey takers agreed that watching bareback porn lead to them having unsafe anal sex, with almost all (96.8%) saying that this would not stop them from watching bareback porn.

But most shocking was that more than 50% of the survey takers said that yes, watching bareback porn was likely to make other people have unsafe sex. This wasn’t the only study this year either. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam in collaboration with the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service published their findings from two studies in the May issue of the academic journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour. In one of the studies, gay men at a gay bar were asked to view short film sequences that either depicted protected or unprotected sex. After watching the clips, participants were asked to indicate if they would use a condom were they to have sex at that very moment. According to the findings, the results show that men who viewed barebacking had a lower intention to practise safe sex than those in the group presented with scenes showing the use of a condom.



So what’s the end result in the great bareback porn debate? Research proves that watching unsafe sex can and does lead to unsafe sexual practices by those who watch it. But we kind of already figured as much, didn’t we? The porn industry is going to continue to make all types of films, including those where bareback sex reigns supreme.

We as viewers need to take it for what it is: entertainment. Our own sexual practices in the bedroom are nobody’s business but our own, and what we decide to do behind closed doors ultimately is our decision, but by continuing to keep the HIV discussion in the spotlight, the hopes are that people are aware of their status and are taking a proactive approach to their own sexual health, in whatever form that may be. If someone chooses to partake in unprotected sex, hopefully they are doing it responsibly and not just because they saw it in their favourite porn flick.