No Love For The Glove

Porn Coalition Lifts Moratorium, Refuses To Budge On Condoms

The adult film industry coalition has announced that shooting can begin again this Friday.

A two-week moratorium prompted by bisexual adult film performer Rod Daily testing positive for HIV shut down production for the second time this summer.

The first industry shutdown came after Daily’s girlfriend, adult film actress Cameron Bay, tested positive for HIV in July.

The couple is expected to hold a joint press conference later today at an event in Hollywood hosted by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, an advocacy group that has long pushed for legislation requiring condom use on set.

Last year, AIDS Healthcare Foundation backed a Los Angeles County measure passed by voters to require that actors wear condoms during shoots. They also backed a state bill that would have done the same. That bill died last week, however, after it was held up in the state Senate’s Rules Committee as being too similar to another bill that had previously been held in the Assembly.

Daily and Bay will be joined by another performer who tested positive for HIV this year but whose case has not been officially confirmed by the industry, as well as two other former performers, Derrick Burts and Darren James, who contracted HIV in 2010 and 2004, respectively.

In addition to lifting the moratorium, the industry coalition announced a revision to its STD testing protocols: Performers will now be required to test every 14 days as opposed to every 28. They will also be required to test again on or after Thursday to be cleared for work.

Condoms, however, are off the table.

For years the coalition has strongly opposed mandates that require the use of condoms on porn sets, and they will not let the recent HIV outbreak influence their stance on the issue.

In regards to the performers who tested positive for HIV this summer, the industry coalition maintains that all of the performers’ on-screen partners had tested negative for any STDs, and that none of them contracted the infection on set.

This has many people unhappy.

“Whether or not [Cameron Bay] was infected on set, she performed with HIV between her tests,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein pointed out. “If you think that Russian roulette is a great way to protect workers, then the present system is perfect.”

Photo credit: LA Times.

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