The recent announcement that a female porn star had tested positive for HIV has led to the usual crowing from opponents of pornography. Whether these critics be in the religious or philosophical circles of moral disapproval or whether they are in the 'law & order' fearmongers, they paint the standard campaign of disinformation, vilification, lies about the state of the industry and its effects on society and flat-out negation of the viewpoints of the actual people in the porn industry. These campaigns traditionally use the myth of porn as evil and victim-maker to gin up the morality base and either line their own pockets with donations or garner votes for their alleged ability to rescue us all from these wicked times.
(Cross-posted at sexgenderbody)
Ernest Greene has been in the Adult Entertianment industry for a while now. He currently serves as Board Chairman for Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM). He has taken the time to post a fact-based and honest response to the disinformation and misrepresentation campaigns that we are hearing now.
First, some facts:
The performer, who was tested for HIV and other STIs on June 4, is a 42-year-old woman who had been working in porn for approximately one month prior to that date. Obviously, all details regarding the identity of this individual are subject to California’s strict medical privacy laws and will not be divulged here.
Like all new performers, she was tested prior to her first scene and received a clean bill of health at that time. During her brief career, she had sex on camera three times preceding June 4 and once, while her June 4 results were still pending, on June 5.
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Both her primary contacts and their secondary contacts have been tested and are HIV- as of now. They will be retested twice during the coming month and if those tests are also negative, which is highly probable given the nature of the contacts (vaginal intercourse without internal ejaculation and female to female exposure), the quarantine will be lifted and those performers will be able to return to work at no unusual risk to their partners.
In short, this single, isolated case was caught early, notification was given promptly, including to governmental public health agencies mandated by law for notification of new HIV infections, and the infected performer has already been referred for treatment. She’s out of the business. Her few contacts are HIV- and likely to remain so, but will not be working until that is certain.
Ernest then addresses the various smear, lies and ignorance campaigns being spread about the industry, the performers and the all around wonderful sanctity of the critics - of which there are many. What gets my attentions is this one (emphasis mine):
AHF’s Weinstein, who has characterized the porn industry overall as "a poster-child for heterosexual HIV transmission"
I couldn't fail to notice the built-in devaluation of LGBTQ in that statement.
He then looks forward to the choice we face between legislated, mandatory condoms usage in films or testing.
The choice is pretty simple and pretty stark: condoms or testing. It is legally impossible to have both. At the investigative hearings in 2004, lawyers for the ACLU made it clear that numerous challenges to the anti-discrimination laws sought by specific professions to weed out HIV+ potential employees were successfully resisted in court challenges and that the ACLU would vigorously resist any attempt to gain such a waiver for the porn industry.
I repeat: testing or condoms: that is the choice. If you’re HIV-, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.
Even if people were to pass a legislation demanding the use of condoms in all porn, which would not stop the problem at all because people fuck in their spare time. He also points to the inefficiencies of devoting police to enforce such legislation:
"A government agency the size of Los Angeles couldn’t stop it (the making of non-condom porn). It’s not going to change."
He concludes with a measured view of the way forward and the realities of a business that will not lose customers - ever!
No matter what we do, we will find ourselves back here from time to time, dealing with the worst outcomes as they inevitably arise.
No occupation is without hazard. When compared to things like commercial fishing, mining, logging, construction, fire-fighting and, of course, military service, porn rates very low on the list of dangerous occupations according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s no accident that porn is as safe as it is. The porn community’s own efforts, free of the ignorant and sometimes malicious attempts to interfere with them, have kept it that way.
But three is no absolute guarantee that any system will always work, and attempting to require that guarantee in porn, when it is not required in any other occupation, carries with it the prospect of truly catastrophic failure.
The existing system is not perfect, but it is far superior to any of the schemes proposed to replace it.
-gadfly