May 10, 2004
Porn: Bad Time for 'Pizza Boy's' Return?

By STEVE FRIESS

As the porn industry wrestles with the news that two of its actors are HIV-positive, gay pornographers are honoring the pre-AIDS era by rereleasing titles from the '70s and '80s as "precondom classics." That label is affixed to dozens of DVD reissues from Catalina Video (e.g., "The Pizza Boy—He Delivers"), the largest purveyor of the so-called classics. Most gay-vid makers barred unprotected sex in the late '80s (straight porn still features it), and the scarcity created a demand.

"It's erotic because it dates to a reckless time," says a watcher. Titan Media defends reissues, comparing them to rereleases of Hollywood classics in which stars smoke. (Catalina representatives didn't return calls.) But this marketing campaign says "the old practices of not wearing a condom are still OK when they are not," says a Gay Men's Health Crisis spokeswoman.

Director Chi Chi LaRue, who forbids the sale of his films as precondom classics, agrees. "Porno is an educating tool," he says. "My new movies teach that we can keep people safe and have hot, nasty, good fun."

###