Seeing bareback sex in gay porn is common these days.  That has not always been the case over the last few decades. There was a time when sex with condoms was the standard. When HIV/AIDS appeared in the public conscience in a big way in the late 1980’s many adult studios began to change their production requirements to protect the actors and to present examples of safe sex practices.  Condom VS Bareback was a very polarizing topic in the adult industry in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  There was even a moment when risky sex was viewed as a fetish. We wanted to revisit the data from those years and see how things have evolved.

 

Using AEBN sales and transactional data, we created the charts below with stats going back to January of 2001.  Almost all the gay content that appears on AEBN is classified as either Bareback or Safe Sex (Condom).  When you compare the two categories on the same chart you will see they closely mirror each other.  If there is penetration in a movie then the movie is going to be in one category or the other.  The main exception to this is movies that we index as Pre-Condom, which were created prior to 1990.  The 1990 cutoff date is one that we applied long ago as we felt it sufficiently signified the start of the moral dilemma that some studios and models faced about shooting with or without a condom.  Non-intercourse movies like solo masturbation will fall outside the context of these charts.

 

 

In January of 2004 the category of Bareback first surpassed the Condom category we refer to as “Safe Sex”.  Between January of 2001 and December of 2003 no Bareback title had ever generated more sales than the most popular Safe Sex title in the AEBN theater system.  We suspect that trend had been going on much longer, as so much of the content in that era was condom only.  We were surprised the first time this data was compiled to see a such a striking visualization of the two categories and their parallels though the years.

 

In January of 2004 the first Bareback title surpassed the Safe Sex/Condom titles to become the most popular for the month.  The title was Cobra Video – A Boy’s Raw Urges.

 

In the three months leading up to this transition date, the same Cobra title had been gaining popularity month over month.  Prior to this Cobra title, Active Duty had seen success with Bareback Barracks Buddies in late 2003.

 

 

Top selling Bareback content producers leading up to the initial tipping point in January 2004 included, Cobra, Hot Desert Knights, Sub Tropics, Active Duty, Naughtyboyz, Sable Productions, and MaxxxCock.

 

Many of the early Bareback studios during the late 1990s and early 2000s were new upstart studios that were looking to provide the products that the market was seeking.

 

 

A sampling of Safe Sex / Condom producers in 2003 include, All Worlds Video, Channel 1, Falcon, Private Man, Oh Man Studios, Active Duty, Defiant Productions, Lucas Entertainment, and Jet Set Men.

 

We found it interesting that Active Duty showed up in both the Bareback and Safe Sex categories of content in 2003 and 2004.  We believe that the producer was shooting content that the stars felt comfortable with, as the content’s emphasis was on military men fantasies and the use or lack of use of a condom was secondary.

 

 

Pre-Condom studios from the 1980’s included Bijou Gay Classics, French Connection, Dreamland, Gentlemen’s Video, Hollywood Sales, Scorpion Entertainment, YMAC, Pleasure, HIS Video, and By Attractions.

 

With today’s advancements of improved testing, PrEP, and casting choices have made onscreen sex safer, in much the way it used to be in the era before HIV/AIDS. The moral dilemma that stars, studios, and directors faced in the past have changed, often influenced by both the model’s preferences in their own sexual choices as well as societal acceptance of condom-less sex. The porn vocabulary we use to describe this era of content will continue to evolve. For now, the concept of safe vs bareback sex is still hanging on, and until the terms fade from adult content, we will continue to catalog content using this language.