Rumor, recriminations, and the recurring dread of outside regulation hang over Porn Valley this week after it was learned that a porn performer tested positive for HIV and, despite this, worked with another performer.
The performer, rumored to be a 42-year-old woman, tested positive June 4 and worked the next day. At issue is how and when the performer was told and if the producer of the shoot on June 5 knowingly exposed the performer’s partner to HIV by letting her work.
Performers are required to furnish up to date tests certifying they do not have everything from chlamydia to gonorrhea to HIV, and most productions have the results on display to reassure other performers. Furthermore, producers can access test results online from Adult Industry Medical (AIM), the STD clinic of note within the adult industry.
Since the porn industry’s last HIV scare in 2004, AIM has worked more closely with studios to ensure no infected person works, and to alert the performer and those he/she has worked with, as well as producers.
The 2004 incident centered around Darren James, a performer who had recently worked in Brazil. Returning to L.A., he infected three women before the industry mobilized. Filming stopped for a month and dozens of performers were placed on a sex quarantine until they were cleared.
While it also spurred demands to invite (or submit to) county or state regulation as well as an industry-wide condom-only policy, the 2004 scare resulted in increased monitoring and transparency between studios and AIM. But performers can provide a test that is up to 30 days old, leaving plenty of room for infection to creep in.
Wicked Pictures is currently the only major studio in whose films condoms can be seen, and last week’s revelation has led to increased calls for the industry to mandate condom use.
And this is where money comes in. Even as work has been scarce recently, productions are loathe to send a performer with a “bad” test home and look for another actor. That is not to say they let her work. But if the location has already been rented and a cast and crew hired, it is easy to see that other concerns are also on the table.
And then there’s condoms. As irritating as they are to wear, their presence also affects the fantasy element of porn consumption. This is why most of the major studios, including the health and bottom-line-conscious Adam & Eve, do not mandate condoms.
Both Cal/OSHA and the Los Angeles Public Health Office are concerned with AIM’s reporting of the incident and others since the last outbreak. It has been discovered that there have been at least 15 other HIV diagnoses since 2004.
Calling the incident “isolated” (true) and “not a major event” (ill-advised, especially if you’re the performer), AIM spokespeople Sharon Mitchell and Brooke Hunter, both of whom have been performers, speak to the fear the industry has of having some “adult” supervision.
The performer was Patient Zero in a chain that resulted in six other performers being exposed to the virus, sources say, though none of them has tested positive. They are being “encouraged” to test again in 14 days, which is a tacit admission that the current 30-day testing window is an accident waiting to happen.
(image: Dark Figure by Loretta Markell)
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: American Swing – the heydey of Plato’s Retreat; Shane Diesel on Porn Valley Dispatch (fleshbot);
See also: AIM Healthcare, The Lara Roxx Foundation
In the current atmosphere, this has the potential to really cripple the industry, I'm thinking. Government regulation, media lynchings, typical industry in-fighting and finger-pointing, not to mention the already-damaged bottom line… we might be witnessing the beginning of the end of all we hold dear. Oh noes.
The Industry only offers the bare minimum Pay and the bare minimum health care, Since the last outbreak the Industry has only offered the bare minimum to prevent state regulation. Porn Valley failed and now it is time for State and county regulation and the replacement of AIM with an impartial professional health care service. The world will not end if performers have basic workplace safety.
Watching Belladonna tonight I realized that if more producers and companies ran their sets like her, this industry would be a lot better off. A clean safe workplace, with sterile toys and Tests that are days old not weeks.
And only the ocassional jaw broken!
I am a performer for 2 years now. I told one of the producers at Bangbrothers I had the clap, and exactly as the artical states, they had flown another girl in from LA, rented the set, and hired the crew. I strongly insisted I should not work, and it was basically understood that if I “flaked” today, they would not call me again. I even begged to use a condom, for the girl’s sake. Nope. (Now to be fair, if I had HIV, Id never do a shoot again or have unprotected sex with anyone..) but still, they had a blatant disregard for my condition, and for the female talents health, and that of the people shed work with that week. We are being STUPID and GREEDY to not require WEEKLY, or at -least- BI MONTHLY tests, and OPTIONAL condom use. (Dont kid yourselves- its NEVER optional.. Sure, a girl can insist on it ONCE, and we all know that studio will NEVER call her back again. The only -OPTIONS- are to go raw or don’t continue to keep working.)
These slimey, piece of shit studio owners treat us like meat. They think were stupid whores, and we know the risks, so why should they care, or even PAY US A DECENT WAGE FOR RISKING OUR LIVES?
If the studios don’t start voluntarily mandating stricter regulatons as far as testing and allowing performers to use condoms, the government will. The only way to stop the governments involvement is to PRE-EMPT it..
Dont start crying and bitching when your inactions due to laziness and greed cause the government to step in when you should have. By then it will be too late, and you dipshit owners and producers will bitch about how unfair it is and act suprised. Wanna save money? Maybe you should risk your own lives and try performing.. if you can even get it up.
Thank you Anonymous. The nature of the web suggests you might be someone other than you say you are, or perhaps that you just have a grudge against BangBros, but the details of your story are ones I’ve heard in a number of situations: Condoms lose you work, refusal to work one day is close to a death warrant to your chances of working again.
Would you agree that money , the want of it, the lack of it, clouds our judgment?
Getting a “casual” STD lie the clap or chlamydia, or MRSA or even herpes is basically unavoidable in the business. It essentially creates a separate set of people, the way you can tell a carpenter by his hands. You’re saying that, ad you refused to work based on your dose of the clap, you ouldn’t have worked for that company again. So you worked with the clap.
And the rationalization for that would be the fact that a huge percentage of the performers in the business will get or have had the clap as a result of the job, and that the economic reality the company believed dictated that you work, and possibly infect (or re-infect) the girl. Cost of doing business, occupational hazard.
But someone reading this site for the first time might say that you should have turned and left rather than knowingly expose someone to gonorrhea.
I’m not hoping your story is true because I like knowing this happens every day, but I am hoping it’s true because you added somethingn useful that I couldn’t.
Best of luck to you. Hit me up if you want to talk off the record.
Gram