A Case For Condoms: Will They Ever Look Sexy In Porn?

"Woe is me," cried the owner of a condom-only gay porn website. "All these new bareback movies are ruining my business!"

It's a conversation I've had with a handful of producers that feel ostracized and discounted by the sudden resurgence of barebacking gay porn. While they all have reasons for continuing to produce porn with condoms ("safety" being their primary concern), few of them are confident about the survival of their companies. "How am I supposed to compete with a business model I'm morally opposed to?," one recently asked me.

This issue has divided the entire industry and triggered a change of heart for some of its biggest players. It seems to me that the real issue is not one of safety—everybody wants their models to engage in the safest practices possible—but one of making condoms more appealing for a demographic that largely opposes them.

Opponents of barebacking have long claimed that bareback producers "fetishize" condomless sex as if it were some new fad or recent discovery. At the same time, not one has made an effort to apply that logic to their own films—if someone else can "fetishize" or make popular a sexual act literally thousands of years old, why can't you fetishize the thin piece of latex you so adamantly deify?

No, condoms are not inherently sexy. Unless you're a condom fetishist, there's nothing sexy about the mere appearance of a condom. The condom isn't manufactured for the purpose of looking sexy, either, which is why it's lazy and irresponsible for industry producers to proclaim "Condoms Are Sexy!" without providing material that asserts it or finding a creative way to sexualize the condom.

We're constantly reminded that the condom is not sexy. Nearly all major condom-only studios shield viewers from the application and removal of a condom, some even go as far as to digitally alter production photos to remove the presence of a condom. They do it to essentially enhance the profitability of their product—we've already established the fact that bareback porn does in fact yield higher profits.

But if if producers opting to use condoms are profiting from the implication that their performers are having bareback sex, whether by downplaying the condom's presence or Photoshopping it out altogether, does it not place them in the same camp with so-called "bareback profiteers?"

Bareback porn is not going away, and attempts to regulate the use of condoms will never succeed. Perhaps it's time to rethink the way we treat condoms in porn and find a way to make them more appealing?

Take, for instance, this photo of the recently un-retired Leo Domenico, chained to a chair while a cum-filled condom slowly slides off his dick. I'm shocked by how incredibly sexy the whole scenario is, but even more surprised by the condom in general—I can't remember the last time I saw a condom as the primary focus of a promo photo.

So you tell me. Is it worth it for condom-only producers to explore new ways to "make the condom sexy" or give it heightened visibility? What would make you jerk off to a condom?

Until next time, check out Leo Domenico and Damien Crosse making the condom look totally stellar in "Stockholm Syndrome 2", the latest from Stag Homme:

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· Watch Leo Domenico and Damien Crosse flip fuck at Stag Homme (StagHomme.com)

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