Well, it seems that while I was off in San Diego partying with the likes of Brent Everett and Brent Corrigan, there was a storm brewing in Berlin! Do you remember when I reported about both Titan Media and Channel 1 Releasing being nominated for David Awards (the European equvalent to the GAYVNs), that there was no complete list of categories and nominees? Well it turns out that there was a reason for that: The vast majority of films being nominated were bareback films, which were excluded the year before. Needless to say, quite a few of the American studios, that would normally NEVER be associated with bareback porn, that were in attendance felt bamboozled, like they had been the victim of a good old-fashioned bait-and-switch. One of the people to voice her concern about being tricked into attending was none other than the legendary Miss Chi Chi La Rue, who won for Best Boxcover for In His Dreams and also for best US Director. It was upon receiving this award that Chi Chi at the podium expressed disdain at being tricked to attend an awards show that honors bareback, which is against everything that she believes in. In fact, the next award-winner after Chi Chi was Treasure Island Media, who said “Fuck you,” from the stage. Now that’s mature, but this was the same company that hires Paul Morris, who said in a recent interview with Out Magazine, that HIV
negativity “is the new virginity,” a boring and bourgeois state from
which we’re better off freed. Whoa.

Also somewhat in attendance was Titan Media. Keith Webb, who originally was supposed to accept (or refuse) on behalf of Bruce Cam, who was absent due to illness and set to receive a lifetime achievement award, was actually refused access to the stage when producers learned that he planned on turning down the award. That prompted a press release from Titan when they got back to America. Here’s an excerpt:

“I cannot in good conscience accept a Lifetime Achievement award from an
organization that glorifies and promotes bareback content alongside my own,” says
Bruce Cam, President and CEO of Titan Media. “I have worked my entire adult industry
career to promote and eroticize safer sex content in all of my films. It would be
against every single fiber of my moral being to accept this award. Silence is
acceptance and I can no longer sit by and watch the industry where I have worked and
helped shape be destroyed by others seeking financial gain at the expense of
performers and the entire gay community. I cannot and will not accept this award as
it is tainted with the blood of others.”

Chi Chi had this to say: “I was really disappointed that the DAVID Awards seem to have taken the focus off
good film making and quality movies in many of the categories and turned to honoring
and promoting all things bareback.”

Chi Chi and Titan aren’t the only ones chiming in though. “We received an award of “Best Actor Europe”, which was totally unfair,” says Thomas
Virsov and Ulrich Jung, CEO and Producer of XXX-Project Germany. “We got the award
because we paid to sponsor the show, and other awards were given to companies which
paid for adverts in the GAYeLINE magazine. We tried to communicate this while we
were at the stage, but they took away our microphone. We gave back our award and
didn’t take it. We are more than happy that also Titan refused to accept their
award.”

It’s interesting that the whole paying-for-awards issue was brought up, because the NEXT press release I got was from none other than Michael Lucas, who always has something to say about everything. “First, I want to say that I applaud TitanMedia for their decision.
Secondly, about the so-called DAVID Awards, they asked us point-blank
if we were going to be sponsoring the show and said point-blank that
only under the circumstances of giving them money were we going to
get an award. We ignored their e-mails.”

I find it interesting that Michael Lucas should come out against this version of payola. After all, many insiders swear that his sweep of the GAYVNs this year was bought and paid for. That has never been proven.  But in all fairness, just speaking about the quality of the filmmaking alone, condoms or no condoms and putting all ethical questions aside, it is difficult to hold up a Treasure Island Media (or any bareback studio movie for that matter) alongside Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita or Chi Chi La Rue’s Wrong Side Of The Tracks and say they are the same caliber. Maybe soon that will change, but right now, there is still a glaring quality difference between bareback porn and big-studio condom porn, which makes the DAVID awards look suspicious at best.

Now if it were all about who is selling the videos that’s one thing. It’s pretty cut and dry. We have awards like that here in America that are strictly based on sales, like the Billboard Music Awards. But awards based on artistic merit and quality shouldn’t have anything to do with sales. That would be like giving the Best Picture Oscar to Spider Man 3 because it sold more tickets than The Departed.

So essentially there are three issues here: 1) Condom studios have issues with being at ceremonies that honor bareback producers. 2) The DAVID Awards specifically withheld the information as to who was nominated, leaving certain attendees feeling tricked, and 3) There is now the allegation that the awards are bought and paid for anwyay.

Before we leave this topic for now, I want to leave you with a comment that Raging Stallion Exclusive Steve Cruz left on J.C. Adams’ blog:

“I think Chi Chi and Titan and Lucas may have a point.

I came out young at
14- it was 1986. It was a dark time in The Castro District of SF, my hometown.
Everyone was getting sick and dying. I have lost friends. What is ‘ridiculous’ is the
sad truth that Anon is probably right (that barebacking videos aren’t going anywhere). And I’m a little confused as to how we
got here. Its sells like crazy so yeah the barebacking fetish is probably here
to stay. So I ask us to ask ourselves if its healthy… and are we on a
destructive path?

I don’t want to revisit 1986.
I don’t want another generation of men to
just disappear.
Will we regret it later? Only time will tell.”

We will keep you all informed as to the latest in this ever-brewing controversy.