When Next Door Studios became the latest big gay-porn studio to produce bareback scenes a few weeks ago, it raised some eyebrows. Stephan Sirard, Next Door’s CEO, has been a prominent critic of bareback films, even stating in an interview with The Advocate in 2009 that “studios that don’t use condoms and don’t test should be in court for murder.” The Next Door Studios team was one of loudest advocates for condom usage in porn — so why the sudden change of heart?
“The reason is very simple,” Sirard told us from his office in northern California. “The tests have changed.”
“We are the only one in the entire industry, straight, gay, bi, she — we are the only one that will do full panel testing. We will test you for HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, hepatitis C. And on top of that, now with the bareback, we are adding two more tests.”
Not all of Next Door’s releases will be bareback; in fact, it will continue to film scenes with condoms. “I want the model to decide,” Sirard says. “If they choose bareback, they have do three tests. Three weeks prior to their arrival, they have to test for HIV, 10 days prior to their arrival they have to do the full panel testing . . . and the morning of the scene they still have to test,” using a drugstore HIV test, similar to a pregnancy test. “According to the medical field out there, the doctors, our labs, that’s plenty of documentation.”
Sirard is against mandatory condom usage in gay porn because “condoms break, condoms come out.” And “what about rimming? What about sucking?” he asks. “To me, personally . . . if I see a medical record of someone I am about to play with, I would feel a lot better if I see all his medical record(s) and STD and it’s all clean.
“I think what we have in place is safe, and it’s very safe for the model’s sake.”
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