User Reviews

From a first look, this film looks more like pornography than a documentary. But there is a provocative undertone that jumps out and asks the audience: why, why, why. Why does he do that, why do others do that, why do you feel the way you do when you watch it. The documentary doesn't tell you the answer, in fact I don't think anyone on the planet is able to give a detailed answer to these questions yet. It's got to do with the darker side of our very being, an almost self-destructive drive that overwhelms us with or without us noticing it. It's got to do with that haunting desire that rules over every single aspect of our society and our individual lives from the shadows: sex. To answer these questions without prejudice, we need to look in-depth into psychology, into physiology, into sociology.

It brands itself as "disgusting", "shocking", and to that end it has achieved what it was aiming, hence I'm giving it a high score. Staying rather true to the documentary format, the film maker was presenting a glimpse into something that many of us may not be familiar with, without judgment. And that's what documentaries do best, they show you something that's happening somewhere on earth yet you don't often hear about, you are free to feel disgusted or violated all you want, not everything on earth makes people feel good about themselves. The point is, if it's there, and it's significant, and they've captured it and shown to us, then it's worth considering, it's worth evaluating and if you don't like it, it's worth trying to figure it all out so you'd know what are some possible ways to stop or prevent it instead of brushing everything off to the side of the table and call things "bad". And this documentary has done just that, granted if you have the stomach to stay till the end.

Ultimately, it showed one thing to the viewers: bareback gay sex is prevalent. There are many who enjoy it. It's got risks that we all are very aware of including those engaged in it, but this desire can't just be brushed aside. Do they get these psychological thrills from media, from porn? Or is it something innate and biological? How do we go about preventing STDs in these men? Simply saying "you just stop" is being responsible, it's just like telling someone "you just don't eat sweets" or "you just don't have sex" and expect it to be easy, or even achievable at all. Perhaps there's better ways to bring control to the scene, by first understanding what it is that they're truly after, and what factors may go into changing the scene. To do that, documentaries like this, though controversial, can certainly shed some light into the mentality of the target population.

You get enough people talking, and you get enough people shouting angry slurs without any constructive suggestions, and eventually you can get a few rational experts on the scene and really work at trying to change things for the better, be it social engineering, media control, or technical support.