So how amazing is XTube? For the unfamiliar, XTube is pretty much a variation of YouTube, but for porn. It's just incredible to see all these guys from across the world fucking. We've had porn for ages, but it's not a stretch to claim that porn is hardly a representation of what really happens when we turn of the lights and climb into bed (or, perhaps, into an elevator or rest-stop). The glistening muscle bodies; the hairless crevices; the strained grunting and groaning. It's performance art.

Now, XTube has a bit of that, of course. Anytime you turn on the cameras, you're bound to get even amateur folks in their bedroom doing a bit of acting. But this happens even without a camera around, so I take much of what I see on XTube to be a reflection of what's actually going on in queer men's bedrooms.

So, now that I've praised XTube's democratic potential, I think it's also very interesting to look at the kinds of porn that are making it to the coveted "Top Favorites" block. Basically, members can after watching a video push a button to indicate to save it as one of their favorites. The videos with the most number of folks adding it as their favorite get added to the "Top Favorites" page. Makes sense.

It may come as no surprise to most of us that the *vast* majority of these videos are guys fucking without condoms. More precisely, of the 20 vidoes from the top 25 that feature anal sex, only one explicitly shows condom use. Two are ambigious, and the rest (18) are explicitly bareback.

So this tells us something about barebacking, I think. Many of the folks I know who say they enjoy bareback sex put sensation at the forefront. Condoms reduce sensitivity, and also make it difficult for some guys to keep an erection. But the fact that some many guys are pushing these bareback videos to the top tells us that fantasy is a *big* component of what the drive for unprotected sex is all about. After all, why does seeing a condom in a video seem to be such a huge turn-off for many guys? It's about ruining that fantasy.

Now, curiously, there are a few dominant scripts that seem to be playing out in these barebacking videos. One is the "boyfriend" script (see photo below). These include videos, like the one from the top 25 titled "Enjoying my Boy Friends Horse Cock," basically alluding to the fact that the two men in the video are romantically involved. Another script is the one of the "buddy" or "friend" -- with videos titled "My New Pal" or "Bike Dude fucks his buddy's hair ass in garage." Again, the titles suggest a level of familiarity and intimacy, although somewhat reduced from the boyfriend narrative. And finally, we have the casual encounter hookup scripts, which vary in explicit language about the nature of the encounter. Some rely on a kind of controlling / S&M-light kind of rhetoric ("Big Dicked Punk Twink Fucks Young Skater BareBack"), while others rely on scripts about anoynmous sex ("me getting fucked in public toilet").

The point of this all is to say that, although XTube is allegedly just video clips of the sex gay men are having, users are relying on and constructing porn-like narratives to background the video. This is obviously about fantasy. So I think we should be paying attention to the kinds of stories that guys on XTube are enjoying, since I think that tells us a fair amount about what's generally "hot" right now in the minds of gay men.

And right now, the hotness is barebacking. There is no question about it. I think the fact that bareback porn is so prevalent and popular dispels the idea that barebacking is popular primarily because of sensation. It's about fantasy construction. We can use this as a potential prevention tool. Making hot amateur porn for XTube that features safer sex practices may very well be a tactic that prevention organizations will want to consider.

So my prevention message today to all you hot sexy guys out there with a exhibitionist streak: Make some porn!

xoxo

Trevor