Porn producers across the San Fernando Valley have put the brakes on production after an adult film star tested positive for HIV. While the performer’s name and gender are being kept private, he or she is being retested and on-screen partners are being notified. “Retesting and confirmation is underway as is the process of identifying and testing first- and second- generation partners,” said Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition, a porn-industry nonprofit.
An article in the Los Angeles Times stated that Hustler and Evil Angel were among the studios participating in the voluntary shutdown, suggesting the outbreak was within the hetero-porn community.
But the incident raises the ongoing issue of condom use in adult films: While they are often mandatory in more reputable gay studios, that’s not the case in straight porn—or in any number of smaller gay productions. Last year, the porn industry was similarly shut down when porn actor Derrick Burts, who starred in both gay and straight titles, revealed he was HIV+.
“The question remains how many performers must become infected with HIV and other serous STDs before the industry will clean up its act and government will do the right thing,” asked AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein in the Times story.
That’s a good question. Another is when will porn consumers stop patronizing studios and websites that don’t require condom usage?
Brutus
Probably never. Condomless sex is way hotter, and it’s probably better that people are able to enjoy it via porn while using condoms in any real-life nonmonogamous sexual encounters they have. Patronizing only studios that rigorously test is an option, however; but only if the product is equally hot.
Jack
ugh I’ve lost my appetite and feel ill and have spots on my penis I hope I’m not dying 🙁 I’m probably just being a hypochondriac, I’ve only gave and recieved oral from guys but still 🙁
slanty
I do my part. I don’t pay for any porn that’s condomless.
james
@slanty but who the fuck pays for any kind of porn? haha you can get it all for free
Jimmy Fury
Corbin Fisher’s condom policy is especially confusing to me.
The gay porn on the gay site almost always uses condoms.
The same actors go do straight porn on his straight site and nobody uses a condom.
THEN, the guys go do a m-m-f 3some on the straight site, spend more time barebacking each other than touching the girl, then go back to the gay site and wear condoms again…
I swear it’s like somoene over there thinks vagina’s have magical STD preventing auras and just putting one in the room is good enough.
Justin
This simply is showing that studios are reacting the right way. It is to bad we do not handle our personal lives this way. Shutting down and testing all models that have been exposed is execellent. Personally, I don’t want to see condoms in my porn. I can’t have in real life, so at the very least I would like to have it in my fanatsy. And I should point out that there are many porn production companies that test their models and are still hiv/std free since they started their companies.
jj
@Jimmy Fury – you nailed it (no pun intended) and until HIV seriously begins to affect the white hetero masses, nothing will change.
yaph
@Jimmy Fury: It’s harder to catch HIV from a woman but considering the amount of sex going on they are suffering under a false sense of security.
Tom Breston
This is fucking absurd. If condoms are being used then working with a poz model should not matter! There are no cases of anyone contracting HIV from a condom safe porn set. If anyone tries to bring up “Patient Zeta”, he did NOT contract HIV from a porn set. He was a male prostitute having bareback sex with clients.. That is most likely how he got it, not from porn.
QJ201
@Jack: Do a google image search for bowenoids. They are caused by HPV-16 and are treatable. HPV-16 is one of the four strains that Gardasil vaccinates against.
Gay Veteran
For the most part I like how porn companies conduct themselves. Porn stars have safer sex.. compared to a lot of people not in the industry.
Just taking someone’s word that they’re not HIV+ is b.s. Getting tested every couple of years(if ever) is b.s.
I’m sure people will come out of nowhere talking about how nasty and degrading the porn industry is but more than likely porn stars are having safer sex than they are.
Dan Avery
@Brutus: “it’s probably better that people are able to enjoy it via porn while using condoms in any real-life nonmonogamous sexual encounters they have”
But for the (at least) two performers, porn IS A “real-life nonmonogamous sexual encounter.” If you and I should use condoms in our daily lives, why shouldn’t they? Our power of fantasy enables us to imagine we’re involved in an act we see on a screen. Is it somehow impossible to fantasize that a milimeter of latex isnt there?
Stringent testing in every single studio would be wonderful, but is unrealistic.
jason
Porn performers are promiscuous prostitutes. Once you get into the promiscuity business, you open yourself up to all sorts of venereal diseases.
The industry will probably try and blame bisexual men, yet again. Bisexual women, on the other hand, are considered goddesses who don’t spread anything. It’s an extremely hypocritical and homophobic industry in terms of how it perceives male-male sexuality. They are terrified of male bisexuals, basically.
Just watch this happen. The industry will scapegoat bisexual men. Mark my words, this is what will happen.
wtf
Millions of hours of f*(king and there’s only ONE instance of a possible infection via a porn set? Really?
That’s highly unlikely considering the amount of barebacking porn going on. This is such non-news.
Dallas David
How much porn does the world actually need?
It’s not like that people change all that much from one generation to another; we all look pretty much the same. The last time I walked into an adult XXX shop, it’s not like they suffered from a lack of titles. It seems to me that a ten or twenty year output of porn could be recycled from one generation to the next.
I’m not complaining . . . I’m just sayin’ . . .
James
I believe the porn industry DOES need to be regulated and that condom use should be mandatory. I won’t watch a bareback movie no matter how hot the models are. I think its disgusting.
christopher di spirito
Cream Pie niche porn is all the rage right now in both gay and het porn.
As long as there’s a market for it, I don’t think condoms will be a prevalent item in adult movies.
ggggb
@Dallas David: because who wants to look at porn when the people are dead. that’s like necrophilia or whatever. even when they’re old, that’s disgusting. jesus, do i have to explain everything? and people totally change. who wants to watch someone fuck with a bad haircut? i mean, it’s bad enough that sometimes you need to get people with bad style and stuff, but the wrong haircut can ruin everything for me. and the wrong video quality
Adam
Porn stars who bareback always seem so desperate. The absence of condoms makes me think someone’s jingling a bag of meth behind the camera (not that the presence of condoms makes means everything’s a-okay, but at least it means the actors and directors have some scruples.)
Jack E. Jett
No one in this day of Tumblr should ever pay for porn. I saw a guy getting fucked with a carrott and it looked pretty safe to me. Amatuer porn 4 ever.
B
No. 14 · wtf wrote, “Millions of hours of f*(king and there’s only ONE instance of a possible infection via a porn set? Really? That’s highly unlikely considering the amount of barebacking porn going on.”
One thing that mitigates (but does not eliminate) the risk is if “models” get tested
shortly before a porn production starts filming, something some (many?) porn studios supposedly require. It’s not foolproof – someone may get infected after the test, and there is a window in which one can be infected and have a test come out negative, but it certainly helps.
Royalpeach
I think it was Brian Pumper.
Lin Wong
@#13 Jason; Judgmental much?
Promiscuity isn’t always a business matter, and not all porn performers are promiscuous.
I’m glad I made porn back in the day (VCR/magazine as opposed to DVD/Internet) not only was it safer back then, but because it was still semi-underground, it paid better. Plus, now I’m an old man. I never tried to be a porn “star” I only had small parts. (See, when a guy in porn says…oh, never mind.)
Know how I got all of my work? Someone I was dating or someone who was dating someone I had dated called me up and left a message on the machine; “Hi! There’s someone who’s looking for a performer who can do XXX. It pays $$$, if you’re interested, let’s talk.” (Yes, I had an answering machine with a little tape in it. I told you I was old.)
rick
Blacks have more HIV than other groups. Its just a fact.
ewe
Sad.
christopher di spirito
@rick: Watch yourself, Rick. Someone will call you a racist.
harper
@jj:
I am giving away my age, but I have heard that reasoning for almost 32 years. There hasn’t nor will there ever be a significant number of straight, white, non I.V. drug using people becoming HIV+ in this country. I work in an industry in which 90% of the men are gay, and the women in my line of work travel the world and tend to be more promiscuous than the average woman. In 30 years I have seen 320 of my male friends die from AIDS. I have known 1 female who has contracted AIDS and she had been with a Black man on the DL. But the MD’s opinion was that had she not already suffered from an immunity disorder, she likely would have not sero-converted. The truth is, a large number of gay males have immune suppressing conditions which render them sitting ducks to exposure to HIV+. Trust me this is not a political statement, I find the reality tragic.
Chris T
@rick: Not relavant in this case. Most HIV positive pornstars alive or dead are WHITE.
jason
In any case, HIV is no longer fatal. People have had HIV for years and years and are still healthy and living normal lives. Just look at Magic Johnson.
It’s time you got over the HIV scares. They’re so yesterday.
Tom in Lazybrook
And when will people stop patronizing businesses like the Ramrod in Fort Lauderdale, that has a huge banner promoting the bareback studio, Treasure Island Media on their patio.
ewe
@jason: you are one fucking idiot.
KeithW
@jason: Seriously??? Thats a pretty fucked up attitude! As someone living with AIDS I can tell you it still kills you, it just takes longer to die these days. Average lifetime cost of care for HIV+ these days is over $600,000! I could think of much better ways to spend $600,000 then on HIV meds and care!
Dallas David
@ggggb: OK, then . . . I had no idea anyone kept tabs on which porn stars were still alive. Personally, it makes no difference to me. I still watch WC Fields and Mae West and Clark Gable and listen to 1930’s Jazz, and never thought about being entertained by people were are now dead. As long as it’s a recording from their better days, it’s good for me. As far as I’m concerned, entertainment is entertainment; it’s the same for regular flicks as for porn.
Nevertheless, to each their own . . .
CMObrero
If porn star are regulars then I don’t think condoms should be mandatory. There should always be some sort of control to prevent STDs though.
Mark
@Jason
Sure, there have been great strides in making HIV a more manageable disease, but it is not just an STD. Average life span has increased, but the chance of living a healthy and long life with HIV is slim, even if some people do it. Some people manage to live with cancer for decades too, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not deadly. You’re an idiot and it’s the attitude that you peddle that helps explain why the AIDS rate in the gay community is not decreasing despite the enormous advances in education and medicine.
Red Meat
Am I the only one who is grossed out by gay bareback sex? I mean, you are sticking your penis in the ANUS. Its were shit comes out and farts go by unexpectedly. I also have a sensitive penis so I could literally pass out watching bareback porn, all I see is pain. Maybe its because I’m of a younger generation but sex without a condom is just disgusting.
jason
Red Meat,
Are you also grossed out by straight bareback sex? If not, you’re a hypocrite.
Women do shit out of their anuses, you know. Oh, and they also piss and bleed through their vaginas. You should be doubly grossed out with straight sex, shouldn’t you?
jason
Face it – the straight porn industry is highly homophobic. It has a bisexual double standard which treats bisexual women (fake or otherwise) as goddesses but bisexual men as creeps.
It’s an industry based on recorded acts of prostitution. You’rewatching people have sex not because they wish to enlighten humanity but simply because they’re being paid for it. It’s all about the money. The women who do porn are whores. The men are less whorish because men would do it for free.
Cam
So hetro porn is for Straight Men. Straight men would supposedly be looking at the women.
So what would it matter if there were condoms or not when it would seem that their primary focus would be on the women?
Red Meat
@jason: Yes I very much find straight sex disgusting for a variety or reasons (not because I’m gay, no really). When the penis goes into the woman’s vagina without protection I wanna puke. When the penis goes into the vagina with a condom I don’t feel anything. omg I’m gay.
chrism
@Red Meat: While I “sorta” understand where you’re coming from I’m curious about your take on the disgusting act of oral sex (straight or gay). After all the genitals of both sexes are used for the elimination of urine. So, mouth to penis contact would seemingly (?) be as disgusting and offensive to you a anal/penis (straight or gay) activity.
Your attitude is rather puritanical (but you certainly have every right to it) but after all they’re just body parts and, if properly cared for, shouldn’t be at all repulsive. I don’t personally think sex without a condom is gross – but I do think it is irresponsible and stupid. I am however, glad that you feel the younger generation is more attuned to condom usage but unfortunately recent studies show that isn’t the case because if the recent spike in reported HIV cases.
Red Meat
@chrism: I don’t find urine as disgusting as feces, I mean bear grylls drank his own urine to stay alive and I would do the same in those circumstances. And as you pointed out it’s not that hard to keep a penis clean after urinating, but a vagina?
I don’t think those are ever that clean. Women can sometimes get their period unexpectedly, I find that bloody mess more disgusting than urine. As the anus, the vagina is a hole so it is harder to clean and keep clean after it does its business. I’m just glad I like penis.
Guillermo3
@Jimmy Fury: Right,Jimmy Fury___It’s about as sensible as the belief in some African countries that boffing a female virgin can prevent, even cure, AIDS.
Alex
Question: “when will porn consumers stop patronizing studios and websites that don’t require condom usage?”
Answer: NEVER
Porn is meant to live out your fantasies. I would love to have bareback sex with a beautiful stranger and not worry about the consequences, but I just can’t do that in real life. Well, unless I find a remote Polynesian island somewhere. This is what makes bareback porn even better. These studios did the right thing by shutting down, however.
Judykins
I was told that some major companies do test for the major STDs (STIs) when filming condomless porn.