It is hard to remember now, that ‘safer sex’ literature had to be invented.
Having lived with it for so long now, its messages, modes and constructs are ingrained into most gay men of a certain age’s consciousnesses. But at first there was nothing. Just rumours, news articles, and the awful government advertising campaigns, with those tombstones. ‘Don’t die of ignorance’ said John Hurt, compounding the hurt (I still hadn’t completely forgiven him for Quentin Crisp).
It is often fascinating to see how we manage and assess the ‘risks’ we take in our lives. Obesity & smoking are two prime examples, where there is a high risk attached but many people do not perceive this to be the case. Driving, whilst using a mobile phone, is another. For more elderly people, it’s the slips, trips and falls caused by stairs & home furnishings that present a very high risk, that many hardly consider. Risk assessment, when you get down and dirty with it, is a fascinating thing. Moral panics often exacerbate our risk assessment and in the initial stages of HIV/AIDS the government actually created a moral panic about the perceptions of ‘catching HIV’ by airborn transmission, the use of public spaces (bus shelters for example), toilet seats and so on and, arguably, there are elements of a moral panic attached to the public perceptions of coronavirus. Equally, in certain situations of course, there are indeed very real risks attached.
For most of the population, not at high risk, to some extent they exacerbated a sense of moral panic that was being fuelled and fanned by the ‘red top’ newspapers. Equally, for gay men who were at risk in certain situations, it is pretty safe to say they generally went down like a lead balloon. Nowadays, so many programmes about those days rake that tombstone up, and to be fair it did have an effect on spreading fear which engaged some caution. But for many gay men rather it stopped discussion, it closed minds and created its own climate of fear.
On Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, on the night shifts, in the wee small hours however, people opened up to us about those dark fears. The rumours, the pervasive climate of never really knowing; was oral sex safe? You couldn’t catch it by being coughed on could you? From a drinking glass? By deep kissing? Doubt, fear, worry, unease, concern. These were the prevailing feelings that many gay men encountered, lived with, worried about at night, in those times. Those on such gay switchboards across the country provided moral support, a listening ear, compassion and concern in those troubled times. All sorts of other medical issues became wrapped up as well with worries about the possible relation with HIV. If I’ve had herpes or gonnorhea before am I more at risk? There was only so much known at the time and sometimes we simply had to say we just didn’t know.
What became clear though, as time went on, was that there was a need for information and that it wasn’t right or fair that gay switchboards and sexual health clinics across the UK were shouldering this massive burden. The idea of a need for a national HIV or AIDS helpline became established, but who was going to pay for it?
What had happened however was that the community & community businesses had responded by offering its support in the form of donations and its time in the form of involvement in the creation of places like switchboard where people could be counselled, consoled, supported. One of the first such organisations was the development of the Terence Higgins Trust named after the first man to die of AIDS in the UK. He had died aged 37, on the 4th July 1982 at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. By naming the trust after Terry, the founder members – his partner and friends – hoped to personalise and humanise AIDS in a very public way. The following year, a public meeting was organised by London’s Gay Switchboard and the Gay Medical Association (GMA) at Conway Hall in central London followed by a second public meeting held at the London Apprentice in August and the Terrence Higgins Trust was the result from which a small group of very committed volunteers came together. In particular this included Tony Whitehead, who went on to become the first chair of the trust’s steering committee. A leaflet about HIV/AIDS was produced by the Trust in 1983 (and in fact further north, the Scottish Aids Monitor (SAM) was set up in 1983 as a privately funded initiative, to specifically educate gay men about the threat of HIV and AIDS, though soon branched out to offer its services more widely, particularly in relation to drug injection which became endemic in eastern Scotland in 1985). By January 1984 the Trust had gained charitable status and was providing a range of targeted direct services immediately, including buddying/home-help, counselling, drug education and sex education.
They were the first charity in the UK to be set up in response to the HIV epidemic and to their eternal credit have been at the forefront of the fight against HIV and AIDS ever since. In 1985 they received a grant to employ two full time paid members of staff and produced a range of leaflets aimed at gay men (and others high risk groups) discussing what was known about the virus then and encouraging safer sex (and the use of a condom specifically). The Health Education Council (HEC) a health authority with some autonomy from direct government also produced its first literature on AIDS.
Whilst the Gay Mens’ Health Crisis (GMHC) had produced a 50 minute long ‘erotic video’ aimed at gay men in mid 1985 (first screened in October 1985 in New York) this took ‘dedicated’ watching (at home), it was also not available here in the UK and had a very american-centred feel to it. However, there was little else coming from ‘official sources’ that was aimed at gay men and early in 1986 it became clear to the Trust that there was a need for further positive promotional material aimed at encouraging gay men to have safer sex using ‘protective gear’: condoms in particular. Their office manager Nick Partridge, (now Sir Nick Partridge, who went on to become their Chief Executive Officer in 1995) and had also worked on Switchboard, approached us at Cleancut, to ask if we would like to make a short video that encouraged this and from that approach was born a 90 second short called ‘Gearing Up’ (for safer sex) , the first video of its sort actively promoting safer sex to gay & bisexual men.
The video from the start ran into issues, as we decided we wanted to show it in as many venues as possible, as many times as possible. We had the idea that it would be shown as part of the on screen presentations shown in gay bars and clubs at the time. However the rules on what could and could not be shown publically were very strict at the time and our initial discussions with bar managers suggested they were loathe to show anything too explicit for fear of being prosecuted by the local authorities and that they would also lose their licence. There was already a palpable fear by bar and club owners that they were viewed by the authorities as places where people met to find sexual partners, which in turn promoted more sexual activity, which was felt to be spreading the virus more rapidly.
Whilst they were not adverse to promoting the basic message of safer sex (some for example already had leaflets in their venues) they said they did not want to be seen to be encouraging it ‘too much’. There was a- genuine- concern that a ‘raunchy video’ would be one step too far.
So our small production team at Cleancut (myself and business partner Paul Turner) in consultation with my then partner Dennis Gray, as an artistic director who was working for the Millivres publishing empire, run by Alex Mc Kenna, who produced the popular monthly magazine ‘Him Monthly‘ (which by then had become an early incarnation of Gay Times which reached its 500th issue in October 2019) and a veritable string of ‘porn mags’ such as Mister, Zipper & Vulcan. In discussions withNick at the Trust, we decided that we needed to be fairly careful in the approach we used. We wanted to be pro-community, positive in the support that the gay community could offer and upbeat about the message, which we felt needed to be as simple as possible. We soon ruled out having any spoken commentary or voiceover, as the video would usually be played in bars and clubs with loud music ongoing and a lot of background chatter.
We developed the idea of a rapidly cut piece in the form of a music video, influenced I recall by that (now infamous) laundrette ad with Nick Kamen for stonewashed Levi 501 jeans, cut to’ I heard it through the Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye. This 51 second commercial was beautifully shot and cut (it still stands up to repeated viewing even today, thirty five years later) and we were especially aware- having heard it through the grapevine -how extremely popular it had been with a gay audience, whether intentional or otherwise. We envisaged promoting (selling) a concept (safer sex) like a product with a brand. We decided we needed a great track and some great looking -but believable- men. We wanted to find young men that wouldn’t mind being associated with safer sex and that was not an easy task in 1988 when HIV and AIDS was still an extremely negative concept in the popular press and public imagination.
Paul had the idea that we should recruit from ‘normal people’ (as opposed to models like Nick Kamen) who went to gay bars, identified as gay and hence with the target group and above all understood why trying to produce such a positive piece was so important at that time. This was agreed and so begun a quest to go to all central London gay bars on the lookout for our community stars. I think we approached about forty or fifty guys whom we thought might be suitable, over the course of about three evenings, in venues like Brief Encounter on St Martins Lane and the Black Cap in Camden and gave them a flier with details of the shoot and a contact number. About ten then got back to us as being keen to do it (we were paying expenses only) and we then chose five from that group to represent a reasonable cross section of the young gay community, albeit ones that might stand out in the crowd.
We had to think about concepts that would be easily interpreted by the community and particularly popular at the time was the use of the -then relatively new- fabric: coloured lycra, contour fitted, protective padded gear, which was mainly used then by pro cyclists. We thought about how the cyclists, though individuals, worked as a team together in pro races such as the Tour De France, how they built camaraderie and took risks, safely protected by the gear they wore. We came up with the central notion of the need to use ‘Protective Gear’. In the script our team of riders then would initiate a novice into their ranks and encourage him that to be part of the team he would need to wear this ‘protective gear’.
Obviously this story needed to be told in 80 seconds and have some kind of positive conclusion, a reward for becoming part of the team & wearing protective gear. The last shot then should have shown James stripping off his cycling shorts, putting a condom onto his erect dick and having sex using it with Michael, with the take away message coming up being ‘PROTECTIVE GEAR’ followed by the THT helpline number and Gay Switchboard’s number. However it was pretty clear to us, even as we scripted it, that this wasn’t going to happen. We could not be that explicit in 1985 and get away with it being shown in public venues. Interestingly, there was also the view that some -albeit a minority – gay men would find it offensive too, though I am not sure that would have stopped us.
The compromise (which still blunts its message in my opinion)was to show James taking a condom from a pack and then cutting to the two of them in bed hugging or holding each other, presumably post coitus. This was eventually what we filmed. We were also worried we would fall foul of the British Board of Film censors if it was too explicit, a very real concern in those days when the board was very much more restrictive than it is nowadays, in its requirement of necessary cuts in publically released film & videos to make them available for public viewing & use.
We also fell foul of the fact that most gay men by then were used to seeing- usually pirated copies- of far more explicit porn created by American studios, much of it featuring the legendary Jeff Striker , a pen name, he was born Charles Casper Peyton and famed for his language in the shoots: you want my big cock, you like my big cock, yeh, yeh? , which werealmost completely devoted to fantasies around penetrative anal sex, whether passive or active. In 1986 and 1987 his studios released immensely popular titles targeted primarily at gay men such as Powertool and Bigger than Life (both 1986) and The Look, Stryker Force, In Hot Pursuit and Powerful 2 (1987).
In fact this phrase became so closely associated with British gay men’s concepts of fantasy sex, that it became a gay meme and you could hear it played out in one night stands across the UK; personally I came to dread it happening during sex, as it felt like some awful gay ‘stepford wives’ version of interaction, killing emotion stone dead but undoubtedly it worked for some men in relation to the fantasy concepts it recreated. It was initially another driver of the Cleancut idea behind trying to create our own more nuanced versions of gay men’s sexual encounters. The video porn that was being created then in the UK was very tame indeed by comparison, in order to be acceptable to the UK’s far more restrictive censors. Of concern though at that time, was the fact that most of the American actors were not portrayed as practising safer sex in the shoots. In fact this was to only slowly change in the next decade, although change it did.
We also decided to shoot it on 16mm film rather than using a video camera, as we felt that the colour saturation or vibrancy of film stock would be better suited to the message and then transferred to broadcast quality video. I was influenced particularly by Derek Jarman’s work at the time that was shot on 16mm film stock, as it possessed a depth of field and ‘image quality’ that wasn’t easily reproducible on video cams (even broadcast quality cams) at the time.
Production was at the relatively spacious Millivres Studio in Camden Town, courtesy of Alex, the owner. There were a lot of people involved who gave their time and resources willingly and often freely to enable the budget of the whole thing to come in at under £4000, the funding from the THT. On the day we had borrowed all the gear and the cycles from Evans Cycles in Camden Town and were under strict instructions that it all had to be returned in perfect condition the following day. On some of the production photos taken on the day I can mainly be seen stomping around moodily looking at paintwork on the bikes to ensure it wasn’t scratched or at least not visible if so. I never dared to enquire what happened to the cycle gear afterwards, when it went back to the shop.
Gear on, and with some deft sweaty make up, the guys all sat, rode and looked up, centre and left as directed. Chris, a local lad living in Camden, whom we found in the depths of the Black Cap, looked especially convincing I thought, beckoning to the stragglers to get with the pack. We started filming about ten and had wound it up by about six.
The video was cut to ‘Disenchanted’ by the Communards with its lead vocal sung by Jimmy Somerville, and written by Richard Coles & Somerville, which we were given permission to use, again royalty free, by Colin Bell, their manager at London Records at the time. Taken from their debut album, then just released in 1986, and released as a single in May 1986, this very strongly positive track about a lost or disenchanted boy making supportive friend(s) fed into the ideas behind the safer sex video very well we felt:
So boy, now you know what to do,
Hey there boy, don’t be blue
There’s future, there’s hope, hope for you
Hey young man just believe in what you do.
I’ll be your friend, I’ll be around, I’ll be everything you need
I’ll be your friend, I’ll be around, I’ll be everything you need
Pride is something good for you, believe in yourself.
More importantly, the condom itself also becomes the friend, being everything he needs to keep him safe and the final line that Pride is something that’s good for you and the encouragement to believe in yourself was we felt also perfect for the message. Interestingly there are also strong echoes in the lyrics of the Village People’s hit song ‘YMCA’, from 1978, with its refrain ‘Young Man, there’s no need to feel down’. Now, nearly forty years later I have still never heard a song I believe fits the video as well as the one we used. More importantly, it still sounds as fresh as it ever did and it is, in my opinion, the Communards and Jimmy’s finest output, in what is, all in all, a very fine back catalogue.
Kudos must also be given to the producer Mike Thorne for this, who had also remixed Soft Cell’s extremely successful version of ‘Tainted Love’ in 1981. Interestingly, their own video for the single release of Disenchanted with Richard playing a slightly unconvincing market spiv in porkpie hat, was partly shot at the much missed ‘First Out’ coffee bar in St Martins Lane, where we would also film a lot more safer sex material in the ‘Sex, Love and Life’ trilogy of videos, which all came a few years later.
Post production of the final film cut, was at the Four Corners Media Centre on Commercial Rd in Bethnal Green and this was transferred onto a broadcast master from which VHS copies were made and a copy shown to THT board for their final approval and acceptance and eventually released by THT in November 1986. The day it was released ITV’s News at Ten picked the press release up and showed a short section of it on the News at Ten, again the first time a safer sex video had been broadcast by a national news programme, as far as I’m aware!
We also got the front cover of Gay Times that month with a fetching shot of the lads in full gear. I received an anxious phone call late at night on the day it came out into the shops, from Bastian, one of the guys though, who worked as a model, worried about the exposure. He hadn’t realised it would be on front cover of magazines he said. It turned out he worked for an agency after all and was concerned about his career taking a potential nosedive. I wondered exactly what he had expected when he had agreed to it all.. in the end I managed to placate him and I didn’t hear any more from him but it was a big deal for the guys then, a different time when just being gay and out at work could have got you fired. The AIDS worries had just exacerbated , enhanced, all the issues.
One of the first orders we had for the video was from the COI (Central Office of Information) who wanted a file copy for their records. We hoped this was a positive and not a negative sign. The video is still out there, on You Tube, with about a quarter of a million views now. This is far higher than the figure we would have ever hoped to reach through views in pubs and clubs but social media wasn’t something we even dreamed of then and accessing your specific target market was far more difficult in those days.
In retrospect there are things we should have done that we didn’t. An obvious one would have been to ask the makers of gay porn videos to add it in the front of their titles and indeed this was something that some companies did do in later years. The problem is these were nearly all American imports in those days and these were still illegal in the UK at that stage and most American producers would have wanted a more targeted American message. We had at least sent VHS copies out to all the key UK clubs and pubs, this being included in the funding that THT had made to us.
It is all a long time ago now and it is genuinely difficult to imagine or recreate how it felt then to be involved in producing something of this nature; we are all so used to producing our own ‘media’ nowadays and interacting with it and if you were doing something now of this nature you would approach things very differently think. Even when video uploading began decades ago now on a fledgling ‘You Tube’ it was immediately taken down when I uploaded it as ‘not being acceptable’ content. We were however still pretty much at the beginning in the UK and things would get worse before they got better.
