“The prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.” -Tom Hanks
Over this past year, a total of four confirmed plus one additional public admission of HIV positive status has halted work in what is perhaps the last Hollywood based industry: PORN.
TMZ had the headline in June, ‘Buttman’ Never Told Me He Was HIV Positive, which details how a female performer is suing John Stagliano for not revealing his HIV status to her even though they had non penetrative contact. ?The law is clear though that an HIV positive person is supposed to notify a partner before any “sexual contact.” So there is a chance he will lose his case or have to pay this person that he did not have sex with simply because he did not reveal his status.
People who follow the adult film industry know that Los Angeles passed an ordinance requiring all performers in adult films produced there to use condoms. The measure was backed by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF,) whose founder Michael Weinstein ($380,000 salary as of 2011) has led an assault against the adult film industry for years. He was instrumental in getting the “condoms only” law passed in Los Angeles and is currently trying to get the same bill made into state law.
Let’s focus on the latest two “victims” of the adult film??industry. The male, Rod Daily (get it), is heterosexual but worked exclusively on gay adult film?sets that follow safer sex protocols and probably became infected either from his girlfriend, the second “victim,” or by some other behavior that did not occur on set. Cameron Bay, Rod Daily’s girlfriend and the second performer to come out publicly as having contracted HIV, also is a professed sex worker off camera.
Ms. Bay gave an interview to The Huffington Post?where she describes the horrors and humiliations she went through in filming ten adult scenes before finding out she was positive. ?Apparently, Ms. Bay’s first scene entailed her servicing five guys. ?Casey Jordan (an?adult film? star and composer from back in the day when people in the adult industry were talented performers)?in EXCLUSIVE comments to Liberal America said:
“I think it is fairly clear that if your adult film??career starts where most end that you are not being groomed for stardom and should rethink. Cameron talks about being treated as if she was disposable but she chose roles for girls who are not serious about having a lasting career.
There is no kind way to say this other than bluntly: There is no evidence or proof that no matter how bad her treatment was in this industry that Cameron was infected at work, and, secondly, when a plain girl puts herself into the position to be used poorly just so that she can call herself a “adult film?star” ?it is a recipe for disaster. There is only one way that story ends and it never ends well.”
??The Huffington Post ?in their piece on Bay explained, “The pills she needs to temper her HIV — which already left her with severe flu-like symptoms for a week — cost $2,000 for 30 days worth. She (Bay) ?said:
“I spent more in one day on medical stuff than I did on rent for two months,” she said. “I had a safety net of three months of not working and that cut into it a lot.”
This excerpt from The Huffington Post I find troubling. First of all, living in Los Angeles, home of the already mentioned AHF and the world famous Jeffrey Goodman Clinic and several good FREE clinics tells me that the non-adult film system is failing MORE than the adult film system. So AHF will use these adult film victims for their press conferences but won’t provide them with life saving medication?
Isn’t AHF’s mission statement, “To provide the best health care regardless of the patients ability to pay?” If the “best” calls for Ms. Bay to be on medications now, and she can’t afford those medications, then it is AHF that is failing, NOT the industry that allowed her to make what little money she has.
FIVE or SIX actors in five years have become HIV positive. NONE of them can trace their infection back to their work on camera. However, almost ALL of them were held up by AHF as a reason to censor the free speech of making sexually explicit films exploiting “HIV panic” in the general community. If AHF is so worried about this almost non-existent problem rather than trying to legislate speech, even offensive speech, why not offer working adult film??actors post exposure prophylaxis? Micheal Lucas, adult films empressario, Cadinot model, legend (both good and bad) in the adult industry recently “came out” ?as HIV negative and as a user of Truvada to prevent HIV infection.
Rather than trying to legislate action, behavior, speech, or whatever you decide to call it why not instead FIRST try to limit the risk, ?prevent the infections, and treat the wounded?
Also I find it offensive that an HIV organization like AHF would use “HIV panic” as an excuse to legislate morality. Using AHF’s own criteria for mandating condom use in adult films shouldn’t we then also mandate the usage of condoms and dental dams for everyone? If the producers have no choice but to use condoms, if the actors have no choice but to use condoms, regardless of their own desires or wishes, then that freedom of choice can also be denied to others. What behavior is right and wrong and who gets to make that decision?
Here is an example of the hysteria passed into law, from Section A of the measure:
” The crisis, and the ongoing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections as a result of the making of adult films, has caused a negative impact on public health and the quality of life of citizens living in Los Angeles.”
I am not quite sure how the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases is the RESULT of adult films. I thought viruses did that. We are condemning behavior that some people find offensive and using other peoples irrational fear of contracting HIV, which according to AHF, the country’s largest HIV care provider, is caused by watching adult film??videos. ?Demonizing and criminalizing behavior is never the best way to solve a problem. Blaming an industry for an “epidemic” that it is clearly NOT responsible for it is insane and dilutes from the ACTUAL treatment of those infected.
Edited/Published by: SB
