Quote:
Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude
In the last month, local bareback producer Treasure Island Media (link NSFW) began promoting a serodiscordant couple (one who's HIV-negative and one who's HIV-positive) as role models because they were performing bareback scenes together, and "living their lives with honesty and integrity" outside of the "HIV-positive closet."
The HIV status of gay porn performers is a particular taboo subject, with a kind of don't-ask-don't-tell attitude proliferating in the industry, which mostly tries to keep performers safe by requiring condom use and which fears bad publicity from performers' revealing their statuses.
In reaction to this, Treasure Island Media head Paul Morris spoke out to the Bay Area Reporter about the couple, Brad McGuire and James Roscoe, saying that his company's move to promote them "signals (for each man who has had the experience) a shift in the nature of the struggle: the virus is a fact of life for the poz man, no more or less manageable than other chronic life-long factors. The real battle is against prejudice, ignorance and unfounded and useless fear."
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I haven't researched what's happening in the gay side of the industry and Treasure Island Media. But if the above is true, I would expect gay advocacy groups and HIV/AIDS prevention organizations to be outraged and horrified by this.
Yes, there should be no stigma towards people who are HIV positive. But in that case, one of the performers isn't/wasn't HIV positive. The virus isn't a fact of life for that performer.
Contracting the virus isn't inevitable if you are a homosexual man. Brushing it off as a fact of life is like saying male gay sex is inherently pathological. That's a huge step back for gay rights and increases social stigma.
Let's not forget that unprotected heterosexual intercourse is the main source of HIV transmission worldwide.
If the government makes condoms mandatory for straight porn, then condoms and testing should be mandatory for the WHOLE industry. There shouldn't be a gay and straight industry. There is just the porn industry.
No one should be profiting by encouraging complacency that HIV/AIDS is a manageable chronic illness.
Yes, it is wonderful that it is a manageable chronic illness for those who can afford and have access to medication. But it is still avoidable. I have a chronic illness that is managed with medication. But I was born with it. No one wants to deal with the inevitable side effects, and constant med adjustments when symptoms resurface.