I forwarded your question to a friend who has worked in the porn industry. He makes a number of excellent points, so I reproduce his advice in its entirety. I'd suggest anybody just coming out, and anybody with this many (good) concerns about safer sex when doing sex work should not get into the biz (at least at this time). Here's some of my thinking behind my answer: Coming out: Coming out is a long-term, wave-like process for most guys, and I'd recommend anybody take a year to get through the inevitable ups and downs before stepping before camera. If you're getting into porn for the right reasons, then it can be a great job -- I know people who love the work, pay cash for their medical care and make huge amounts of money from the side prostitution work they are able to generate off of their stature as a porn star. But before you take the leap, you should FULLY understand the social harms you may be exposing yourself to (pressure to perform, stigma, people finding out that you'd rather not find out, potential for discrimination in employment, insurance, etc.) not to mention the potential medical harms you may experience. Your STD concerns are valid: Most companies will insist on condoms being used for anal sex, but the only time I've ever seen a condom used for oral sex, in my 4 1/2 or so years doing this off and on, was when one of the models said up-front that he had Gonorrhea. We know HIV can be transmitted through oral sex, but think the risks are much lower (especially without ejaculation). We also know that HIV is much easier to transmit when other STDs are present. People doing porn are quite often active sex workers, thus their chances of exposure to all sorts of things are higher than most other populations. I've seen warts and scabies on models before, and I've known a guy who got hepatitis A from a shoot that I was on -- all these things that can you can get through non-fucking sex (on average people who get hepatitis A loose 27 days of work!!!!! And I ain't talking about just sex work! Hepatitis B can fuck up your liver for life, and 10 percent of people who get B become chronic carriers, meaning that they can pass it on and on and on...). Anyone who is planning to enter the porn industry should be sure to get his hepatitis A and B vaccines if he goes into the industry or not, because both A and B are much higher in the gay male community than in almost any other. Anal and genital warts are a virus, which you sometimes can get rid of on the surface, but that you always have in your body. Anal warts are thought to be the cause of anal cancers in some gay and bi men. Condoms don't protect the skin around the base of the penis allowing exposed warts to shed virus. Sex on the set is WORK People also need to understand that sex on a porn set can last 14 hours -- it's not the 1 hour sex you enjoy with a friend, it's WORK a lot of the time, and can have some serious wear on your body. Probably the best reason to be in a porn is for the money. While, you won't make a ton off of porn itself, it does open doors for other "personal service" work. This is only a good reason if you just LOVE having sex, you're not picky about who you're having it with. It's important to remember that you don't get to choose your partners -- the director does that, and sometimes you don't get to choose if you're a top of bottom either. I've been on sets before with "tops" who couldn't get hard with all the pressure on the set, and then had to get fucked -- not a lot of room to back out once you're there. Think about 10 years from now: When you're deciding to be in a porn, you also want to really think about why you are doing it. You can get sex elsewhere and attention and an ego boost at a gym. Chuck Holmes, the owner of Falcon said in an interview in a gay magazine that some guys do a porn video because they want to have a visual record of themselves in their prime. Another thing to consider is whether you care who sees you getting fucked for the rest of your life (America's biggest gay porn companies are still selling their first silent films from over 25 year ago -- now on video). Re-reading this, it sounds really negative, and I guess I want it to sound that way for somebody having any kind of questions or concerns in advance. I've seen some guys have nightmare experiences on the set, and I've seen others in heaven (and others who weren't quite sharp enough to figure out where they were). You've got time do think about it more. Keep going to the gym, and if you think it's still something you want to do in a year or two, you'll be all that much more ready (physically and emotionally) to come out nicely on video -- and if you decide that it's something you're really glad you didn't do, think how happy you'll be! Anyway, I hope those thoughts are helpful, and if there are anymore questions that I might help on, send them my way. xo Back to: Questions sorted by topic | 
