Details have been trickling in since last week’s ball-busting and buzz-killing announcement that a porn performer had tested positive for HIV at AIM Healthcare in Sherman Oaks. While not much is yet known, it’s been made clear by the industry that despite the mainstream media’s doom-mongering and AIDS Healthcare Foundation hysteria, the jizz biz has stuck together like the large and highly incestuous family it is to keep its members safe.
Industry bigshots Vivid, Wicked, Girlfriends Films, Jennaration X, and Kickass Pictures have all shut down filming until the infected performers’ first and second generation partners have all bee quarantined and tested: “Thanks to the continued efforts of AIM the entire industry was all made aware of this possible threat on the same day. Even though Wicked Pictures is condoms mandatory, we have postponed our upcoming productions to give AIM a chance to create a comprehensive quarantine list,” said Steve Orenstein, President at Wicked.
Of course, our good friends, the zany zealots at AHF, have been calling for LA County to pull all adult film permits until the hubbub dies down — the county office has declined, citing that the council decidedly lacks “interest in this subject.” …Which could be taken as an insult, but more likely is meant as the “calm the fuck down and stick your thumb up your ass” we’d all so love to give the AHF reactionary activists, who, by the way, have been trying to have the adult industry regulated and/or shut down ever since last June’s well-contained and well-handled HIV case. This time they’re claiming: “That a performer tested positive for HIV … was totally preventable. It is also living proof that testing is not adequate protection against HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases among porn performers.” Well…
A little food for thought while we wait for a complete quarantine list, though — with all those studios shut down temporarily, it’s not like any of you jerk-jockeys will have anything else to do but ponder the bigger issues at play in the porn production biz for a while anyway. The infected performer this time around, dubbed Patient Zero, is rumored to be male and to have hailed from the condom-heavy world of gay porn, doubling as a straight performer for extra work and cash. This situation would throw the question of whether condom-mandatory filming would actually help prevent HIV in the adult industry into an even harsher light; whereas the heterosexual industry operates largely without condoms and relies heavily on mandatory and comprehensive AIM testing, the gay industry relies almost entirely on condoms to prevent the spread of disease on its sets. This only makes sense; the gay community, after being devastated for years by the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s, treats condom use as the norm. And the gay porn consuming public likes to see condoms in use on its stars. Straight porn is an altogether different animal, however — its consumers demand the fantasy aspect of barebacking, and thus far constant testing has proven an effective foil against the threat of HIV and AIDS, with the exception of an astonishingly few amount of outbreaks over the years.
While AHF and other ill-informed activists rail and rage that all porn performers should be forced to use condoms, the purported gay-to-straight performer who it’s rumored has brought HIV into the straight porn world might point to the ineffectiveness of condom use in containing the virus. After all, on a typical porn set, scenes can last for hours of hardcore penetration, during which erections and lubrication alike come and go; vaginal tearing and condom breakage are standard. Were the industry to go the AHF route and stop testing in favor of using condoms, disease could easily spread faster via broken condoms, micro-abrasions, and unknown disease status in on-screen partners.
Just spend a few minutes thinking about that while you’re waiting for your next VOD from Vivid. We’ll keep you posted, peeps.
—Miss Lagsalot
The problem is that ‘straight’ porn allows guys who are doing crossover work in ‘gay’ porn to work in their productions. If that practice was eliminated, you’d most likely not have yearly HIV outbreaks.