Why stop now when we’re on a roll?
In the mysterious ways that these things happen, barebacking has become the theme of the week here at Nightcharm. Triggered by a casual aside from a porn star, developed in a report on a report, the subject has set off a cascade of irate comments. To acknowledge the practice without condemning it, apparently, is a deal-breaker for many readers and some veteran Nightcharmers have vowed never to break bandwidth with us again.
We hope they will reconsider. Still the muse calls. In keeping with our theme, we bring you the contrary view, a herald from the opposite camp, who comes through the battlefield out of breath, loaded with news, telling us of the latest in the Trojan Wars.
For it is not only barebackers who don’t believe in condoms. The American religious right — a scandal throughout the world — has long waged a campaign against them with all sorts of ludicrous misinformation about their supposed ineffectiveness. It is their way of policing morality, to make sex as deadly as possible. And so the latest skirmish is taking place over a witty new ad for Trojan condoms:
In the ad, beautiful women sit listlessly in a singles bar while all around them big, hairy hogs are looking for some action. But the piggies don’t rate so much as a glimmer until one of them gets the idea to buy a Trojan from a vending machine. Poof, he instantly turns into the cutest Prince Charming ever to need a sweetener to enhance his sales pitch (Odd, but the actor reminds us of Sanjaya – except hot and manly! Who knew? See for yourself.)
“America is not a sexually healthy nation,” the company tells us, underlining the striking metamorphoses in the ad. “Evolve.”
Evolution, as it turns out, is not on the summer lineup for either CBS or Fox, which have both refused the ad.
Fox objected “to the message that condoms can prevent pregnancy” — which — hello — they do, when used correctly. But then what would you expect from Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid network, ever a creature of the Right Wing Noise Machine?
CBS, for its part, found the ad “inappropriate” — this from a network that gives us such maidenly pastimes as the bed-hopping Big Brother and the dog-eat-dog Survivor. Meanwhile neither network bats an eye at the — actually, quite wonderful and subversive — cries of “erections lasting over 4 hours” that always prick up our ears during the daily 24/7 blitz of Cialis, Levitra and Viagra plugs.
The organized resistance to the Evolve ad — due probably to the ad’s setting in the sexual free market of a singles bar rather than the comfy Cialis-stocked marriage of some cheeky old bastard who wants to be “ready when the right moment strikes” — did not go unnoticed by the AIDS community, nor by a chorus of public gay voices, including that of pop-sexologist Dan Savage.
The New York Times reports:
Dan Savage, who writes the syndicated sex column “Savage Love” and blogged about the Trojan situation, said in an interview from Seattle: “I’m offended by the reality that television is so hypersexualized and glorifies sexual excess and promiscuity, and then runs screaming into the megachurch and drops to its knees when someone wants to run an advertisement that urges people to be responsible about their sexual expression.”
On July 9, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation conducted a protest at CBS production headquarters in Los Angeles. Evoking the commercial, two live pigs at the event were identified on their cage as “Rupert” and “Sumner,” after Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, which owns Fox, and Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of CBS.
“These networks are celebrating a free sexual lifestyle in their programming, but refusing to talk about it in their advertising,” said Michael Weinstein, the president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “The big problem in this country is we’re hedonistic in our behavior and moralistic in our attitudes. We don’t have an open discussion about our sexuality, and the price of not being open is millions of sexually transmitted infections.”
Being open about barebacking, then — about its very real existence and popularity, and that some gay men prefer it with partners whose HIV status is at parity with their own — should not be the end of the conversation for those readers at odds with us. But the beginning.
Across the pond (Sweden)I read a report the other week that gays are using condoms nearly twice as often as their straight counterparts when having casual sex. Nonetheless, I’m going to have myself and my bf tested, so we can get rid of the rubber. It’s better sex, and you all know it.
Peace!
If you are with someone and you can both be 100% certain that you’re both clean, the use of a condom becomes strictly a hygienic one. In our quest to promote condom usage against the moralistic right, we should avoid making the use a condoms a moral decision itself.
Really, it makes no sense to me how so many people are upset by this issue of barebacking! I personally believe in safe sex, but if others are comfortable in having bareback sex, I have no right to denounce them. Indeed, no one does! Surely, I would argue if they insisted that it is safe. Anyone can tell that it isn’t safe; but it also isn’t 100% deadly. It’s very risky, but that is their decision, their right, their freedom. We might as well ban snowboarding, or S&M because someone may “choke”.
If anyone argues, “Well, I think it’s wrong because it makes other people do it” they need to seriously stay out of other peoples business. That person should speak for themself! Also, they may need therapy.
Life is a risk, let those who live on a riskier side live it, and let those who live on a safer side live it!
Keep posting, Nightcharm! I want to get back to your normal articles and pics! Keep up the good work!
Bush taped the Surgeon General’s mouth shut. No surprise it’s a big shock to the panicky right wingers that people actually use rubbers to avoid getting preggers. Everything’s news to Team Bush these days. They should just tell kids to jump up and down afterwards or that doing it in a pool kills sperm. Hell, why use birth control at all when you can go to a fucked up Purity Prom and promise to be Daddy’s special little girl forever?
Healthy. Yeah.
Yeesh. Those Purity Prom things make my skin crawl.
as condoms protect from plenty beyond some bizarre notion of abstinence adventures being on par with reality….then again, visiting some gay establishments, one can surmise that men (being pigs and god love ‘em) that some may very well need equal protection from the garbage programming distancing them equally to a healthy space beyond so much scripted news or dramatic experiences….if anything, it surprises me to see a demographic move from a space where i knew plenty of brilliant, beautiful, and talented people to some semblance of a retarded amoebic puddle.
anyhow…..i’ve been reading nightcharm for a decade if not more. there are a few places i may approach — yet, there has been plenty of misrepresentation in spaces that are not giving just breath to the actual voice of a culture or location. in turn, one gets pandering denial of running pieces of voice, song, or dance — shall we say — with presentation to simply roll over with a mixed message such as rampant sloppy sex on television yet nothing to bring forward healthy protection let alone health in so many senses of the concept. yes, look babe — isn’t runway fun?? it’s the spring collection bouncing into a sense of ignoring plenty of other vital facts of existence beyond what covers your body that maintains a buttoned-up anal projection while adjusting to the redundant peeking a poke at the neighbor. grow up — if you’re men and not simply pigs.
thank you, david.
I will still visit this site (which I love), specially if you have BB material. I only have sex with condoms. You see? Look at my case: watching BB videos doesn’t make me stop using them!
More pix of the hot boy with the pigs in the banner at the top
Gee, first the God Squad fights teaching safe sex/birth control practices in Third World nations ravaged by famine, warfare, and disease. Y’know, because keeping a child from being born into that horror is so wrong. Now they want to undo decades of sex education here in the U.S. Is there any pressing social concern that they haven’t taken an archaic position on? Next up: Holistic medicine and the need for preemptive witch burnings. I used to think it was the forced conformity of the 50s that they’re obsessed with. Now I know it’s the religious hysteria of the Middle Ages that they miss oh so much.
Love Dan Savage by the way. He can hold his own against money-hungry, hypocritical corporate windbags any day of the year.
Isn’t it my own decision to be fucked without a condom? Really…do you presume to make that decision for me? If so, why?
I like sperm in my ass. I know the potential consequences. You can view that as “insanity” but you don’t live my life, so you can’t make decisions for me. Why is it anyone’s concern whether I get fucked with a condom or without? I like sperm in my ass…with all due respect…so what? In all seriousness…look carefully at your life and ask yourself why this is a concern of yours. I can afford the consequence of bareback sex…so why do you think your opinion should have any validity to my life?