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Several years ago, after one of the few times my roommate and I went to the same club (he's straight), we found ourselves on 8th Avenue, at a place where I often went to buy porn.

He went to his isle and I went to mine. I had never gone over to the straight porn section. I had no reason...but on this day, I decided to go over and take a look. What struck me was that while the gay isle featured a bareback section, virtually every movie in the straight isle featured bareback is so 2008 sex. I assume the rationale was that the risk level for straight people is perceived as minimal and a requirement for condoms was not necessary.

Flash forward several years, and a friend who knows I contribute to this blog sent me a link about invisible condoms. It seems that Raging Stallion director Chris Steele has been working behind the scenes to develop a condom that is virtually invisible on standard televisions. From Chris Steele's January 2009 blog posting:

"In the past I used to argue that showing bareback sex educated viewers to practice unsafe sex. Today, however, this argument does not hold up. Viewers seeking bareback movies can buy them from more than a dozen bareback companies and from studios who have large libraries of pre-condom classics. Today my reason for not producing bareback movies is simple and precise--as a director and company owner, I cannot have a potentially unsafe work environment on my sets. I am not willing to ask actors to have unprotected sex while under my direction.

So we have come up with a solution that, I think, may change the industry as we know it.

Over the past year I have undertaken a huge (and secret) research and development project aimed at filming safe sex so that the viewer cannot see the condoms. In short, the condoms are still on the dick but not in the viewer's face. Just as Hollywood studios can remove street signs or unwanted images from their movies, Raging Stallion now has the capability of making condoms barely visible in most cases.

You will soon see scenes from us that have what looks more and more like condomless fucking. We will be including footage on special features of the discs that prove that condoms are being used. And a viewer with an large HD screen TV will still be able to see the condom on close up or freeze frame.

Our new invisible condom technology does not work in every scene--skin color, lighting environment, temperature, humidity levels, hardness of the hard on, etc. are all factors that play into how visible the new condoms are. Since a huge amount of post-production time is also used to make condoms invisible, we do not always have time on every movie to remove all condoms. In some scenes you will see condoms in some shots, but not in others.

Going forward Raging Stallion is going to make condoms as inconspicuous as possible as a way of making the hottest erotic images possible."

Prior to posting on this, I spoke to a friend and asked him what he thought. He said that he understands that as a business man, it is understandable that Mr. Steele would want to take advantage of the growing bareback niche, but has concerns that folks not aware that these condoms are invisible may take these movies as permission to not use condoms.

I don't think folks need permission to not use condoms, but I do have questions:

What's with cum? When did cum become such a big fetish that the condoms need to be inconspicuous in porn? It took me a long time to allow anyone to get their cum on me...and it's still not my favorite thing. But people clearly like it...so why?

Is it the chicken or the egg? Do people have bareback sex because they see it in porn films or do porn films feature bareback sex because that is what people are doing?

Do porn companies have a responsibility to make films that advise against unprotected sex and risky behavior?

What are the implications when a porn company goes to the extremes and expense of removing condoms in post production. What does this mean?

Please drop a comment and share your thoughts. Courtesy of queerclick.com, you can see a side by side comparison of pre and post production versions of the "invisible condom" here.