Bareback to the Future

Since porn is all about acting out deep, dark sexual fantasies, it's hard to come down on it for not being p.c. enough. ("That rape sequence was totally hot—but so very wrong, by the way!") But barebacking videos bring up different issues. While forced-entry scenes are played out by actors who are simply pretending to violate each other, barebacking—i.e., rear-ending without condoms—is done for real, the stars taking a life-threatening chance by going skin-to-skin and possibly exposing themselves to HIV. (Allow me to add that even if they're already positive, the reinfection threat looms as large as a dildo.) But put down that spermicide and wait a minute, say the barebacking purveyors. The actors are OK with the risks, and the box even has a disclaimer for the viewer ("Barebacking is considered an unsafe sexual practice. We present this movie only as a fantasy . . . "). So is this inevitable genre really any more dumbheaded than, say, an actor smoking in a Hollywood movie, or all those people barebacking in straight porn? Gosh, I don't know, that's way too hard—and so is my dick!

Those willing to check out this scary new terrain—in Barebacking USA (Hot Desert Knights Productions, Inc.), for example—will learn reams about contempo adult-entertainment thinking. Condom use is never negotiated in the film or even discussed; everyone simply plows ahead with their raw torpedoes as if AIDS had never happened. (It's a fantasy, remember?) No hint of protection is allowed, and in the first scene, when mucho macho Will West rummages through his bag for some sexual aid, you'd be a gay cuckoo to think it's a scumbag; it's lube, so his exposed dick will slide easier into Al Buck's eager asshole! What's more, if you feel a tiny bit reassured when West pulls his schlong out of Buck's fuckslot to shoot his spray, fuhgeddaboudit; still coming, he shoves it right back in for a fizzy finale.

That scene brings some moisture to the parched Arizona desert, and from there, the flick purports to capture bareback action in glitzy Las Vegas (a four-way in a hotel room) and down-home Texas (an interracial threeway in a dark boudoir). If there are any places where condoms are used, they're just off the map, honey. The results are undeniably hot, but disturbing, but creepy, but fascinating, but appalling. And you eventually learn what real terror is in the Texas scene, when a studlet named Rocky carefully sucks Albert Prince's pierced dick, which has a giant silver ring on the tip. One false gulp and that mother could really kill you!

Puppy Productions' "Forced Entry" Club (HDK Distribution, Inc.) starts off with a double disclaimer saying the rapes presented are just visual fantasies, and the barebacking is too. (I guess the rationale behind the unsafe action is "Would a rapist really use a condom?") The flick is meant for those who think it's oodles of fun to see someone forced into submission, as opposed to the boring majority like me who feel nothing could be hotter than a guy getting some dick after being desperate for it. But there's no denying the power, if not the allure, of some of the scenes. It all starts weirdly, with lithe Thomas Bjorn, in a ski mask, barging into a naked guy's bedroom, blindfolding him, and having his way with his mouth and anus. All through this alien invasion, Bjorn gives a steady line of angsty commentary about how he's always wanted a piece of that hot ass. But the victim hardly says anything and fails to resist much, so it doesn't seem like any more of a rape than a lot of other porn encounters. By the end, the guy even likes it!

The next scene—based on the very same setup—presents more of a struggle, which makes it harder to watch, yet somehow more dramatically sound. The victim—who's not only blindfolded, but has his hands tied up with phone cord as well—squirms in agony, actively resisting the cock from hell. ("You bite that dick and it'll be the last dick you ever bite," says Bjorn—yeah, it's Bjorn again.) It all leads to a gang rape on a sling and so much whimpering that you can only watch with one eye, if not necessarily one hand. But maybe the most shocking news of all is that a lot of the rape talk ("Take that dick! Yeah, eat that meat, you bitch!") isn't all that different from the language used in consensual sex. Food for thought, no?

After watching a few dozen more bareback videos—hey, it's my job—I also realized that if the makers of these flicks really knew their audience, they'd play up the dangers and have characters say stuff like, "You want my dick without a condom, don't you?" and "Ooh yeah, baby, feed me that deadly load." Instead, they set the flicks in some nebulous netherworld where risk isn't even an issue, which I guess makes it appealing enough for the queens of denial. In Billy's Bareback Adventures (Puppy Productions), you're shocked to spot the bases of condoms on some of the studs, but naturally they turn out to only be cock rings. (No rubbers are used—not even galoshes.) The same goes for Raw (Hot Desert Knights), in which Argentine studbunny Jeff Palmer comes in a guy's ass and licks it out rather than eat crow. But the ultimate homage to caution-throwing is Puppy's Bareback Lovers (HDK Distribution, Inc.), which goes so far as to make barebacking seem like an exalted romantic gesture. The two-part video focuses on "male couples who are very much in love," according to the intro seen on the screen. In the segment called "Good Morning, Love," "Scott and Matt wake up to an affirmation of their love." Yeah, no condoms! And in "Good Evening," Dear, "Thomas greets Keb with a surprise tender seduction." Yeah, unprotected sex! The result? You can quote me in the ads: "Utterly infectious!"