Last year voters in Los Angeles County passed Measure B, which mandates the use of condoms in the adult entertainment industry. Relying on testing to prevent the transmission of HIV is a bit like using a pregnancy test as a form of birth control.Īs the industry continues to push testing as the best form of prevention, it seems to have forgotten that using condoms is a legal requirement not an option, at least in Los Angeles where the majority of all porn films produced in the US are made. As Ged Kenslea, spokesperson for the Aids Healthcare Foundation put it: While testing has its place, it doesn't quite hold up as a preventative measure, however. Now the industry requires performers to be tested every 14 days (at their own expense) before they can be cleared for participation in a shoot. Prior to the three cases of HIV being detected in September, performers were being tested monthly. To the industry's credit, it has a fairly rigorous testing system in place. Basically female performers are left with a rather dismal choice – use condoms and risk being afflicted with the painful but treatable condition of floor burn, or don't use condoms and risk contracting chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and even HIV.įor now the only recourse most performers have to protect themselves against HIV and other STDs is to be constantly tested and hope that their fellow performers do the same. Yet this rather lame argument against condom use, that has been embraced by an industry that claims to care so deeply about its performers' wellbeing, kind of leaves a lot of them (the female ones in particular) stuck between a rock and a hard place. If performers consistently use condoms, which have been proven to provide protection against disease, then the risk of transmitting infections can only be reduced. While floor burn is a legitimate concern recognized by doctors, the second part of this argument (that using condoms ultimately makes it easier to transmit infection) makes little sense. The industry claims that these abrasions could make it easier to transmit infection, and that this is the reason that many performers prefer to not use condoms at all. Some female performers say that in shoots that last several hours, condoms can be irritating and can lead to internal abrasions. Porn sex, as aficionados will attest, is not the same as civilian sex – put simply, performers go at it for hours on end, while for most of us mere mortals the penetrative part of the act can be over in a matter of minutes. The arguments put forth by the industry against mandatory condom use are as creative as they are varied, ranging from violation of performers' first amendment rights (the industry's trade association is not called the "Free Speech" Coalition for nothing) to the risk of condom-induced vaginal irritation known as " floor burn".
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At the same time, the industry's justification for its opposition – that performers just don't like condoms and that they prefer to rely on testing systems – is getting harder to swallow. Despite these repeated blows to the industry's bottom line, never mind the pain and suffering of the infected performers who have been hit with the double whammy of contracting a life-long disease and losing their livelihood, the opposition to mandatory condom use persists. This is the third time in the past four months that the industry has had to shut down production after performers tested positive.
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Last Friday, the FSC announced that one of their LA-based performers had tested positive for HIV, and that all filming would be suspended while they try to determine if anyone else in their talent pool had been exposed to the virus.