Bareback studio

A gay porn studio that shoots anal sex without condoms as its house style: once a controversial niche, now most of the paid market.

A bareback studio is a porn company that shoots anal sex without condoms, as its house style rather than as an occasional exception. The label used to mark a niche, almost an outlaw corner of the industry; today it describes most of what paying customers actually watch.

On a studio's own site the word does marketing work: "100% bareback" promises raw fucking, visible cum and usually a creampie or two. It is not a genre about a type of man, like twink porn or bear porn. It is a production policy, and almost any genre can be shot by a bareback studio.

From the margins to the mainstream

After AIDS, the established gay studios agreed in the late 1980s to shoot only with condoms, and for years that was the rule. The companies that broke it were small and controversial, and they were treated as a different, darker business. That line blurred in the 2010s. Bareback studios took a large share of the gay customers still paying for porn online, and condom rules loosened across the industry. In 2014 Michael Lucas said his studio, once condom-only, now shot bareback because it was hotter and because that was what viewers wanted, with every performer tested before filming.

That is why the condom era is now a history word, and why "bareback studio" sounds less like a warning and more like a description.

The health side

The shift went hand in hand with HIV prevention changing. Studios that shoot raw usually rely on regular HIV and STI testing, and many performers use PrEP or are HIV-positive with an undetectable viral load (U=U). PrEP greatly reduces the chance of getting HIV from sex, but it does not prevent other STIs. What works on a set with tested performers is a professional arrangement; if you want to go raw at home, talk to a doctor or a sexual health clinic about PrEP and regular testing.

Close relatives

Bareback studio sits next to bareback and raw, which describe the sex itself, and next to studio, the word for any professional producer as opposed to amateur or creator content.

Related terms