In a world where transmission of HIV can be controlled through U=U and PrEP, ‘bareback’ porn – porn without condoms – has become the standard. Clearly, there is no longer a market for porn scenes where the performers wear condoms.
Cum play and cum fetishisation remain a feature of a lot of porn, including a celebration of cum-dumps who receive multiple loads of cum in gang-fuck and group sex scenes.
Fan subscription
One of the most significant transformations in gay porn in recent years has been the emergence of fan-subscription platforms such as OnlyFans and JustFor.Fans.
These platforms enable performers to film and distribute their content directly to fans who subscribe to their channel.
This creates opportunities for performers to work autonomously from studios and creates an alternative distribution system for the leading studio operators.
What porn is illegal in the UK?
Regarding porn, different parts of the UK are covered by other pieces of legislation. For England and Wales, the Obscene Publications Act is the relevant legislation.
One of the challenges with the Obscene Publications Act is that it’s pretty vague. Effectively, it makes it an offence to own or distribute content that is ‘obscene’, but it doesn’t define what ‘obscene’ means.
To help try and clarify matters, the Crown Prosecution Service – the body that brings charges and seeks a conviction under the terms of this Act – published some guidelines to describe the sort of content that could lead to a prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act.
The Crown Prosecution Service has now removed all of the examples that it had previously listed within its guidance. The updated guidance now focuses on what sort of content is unlikely to be considered an offence under the Obscene Publications Act.
Under the terms of this updated guidance, you are unlikely to be prosecuted for owning or distributing content if it features consenting adults. The people featured are consenting adults, where no serious harm is caused, no criminality is involved, and the likely audience is not under 18 years of age.
The allure of vintage porn
The concept of “vintage” porn depends a bit on your frame of reference. If you’re a young guy just discovering the joys of porn, you could look at the early work of Brent Corrigan and describe that as vintage.
In general, when we’re talking about vintage porn, we’re talking about porn that was created during the era of VHS tapes. The emergence of VHS tapes made the production and distribution of porn exponentially easier.
This was a time before the internet – the only way to get porn was to buy a magazine, or go to an adult cinema, or buy a VHS tape to watch at home.
The period that we’re talking about is the late-1970s into the early 1980s. The emergence of HIV in the early 1980s forced porn studios to adapt their content to feature condoms. Then, in the 90s, the internet took off and changed the game completely.
