This is really starting to hurt my head. Again i’m on the fence. I like my porn latex free but i’m only watching it, I’m not performing in it. Anything for the health and safety of all those involved, I am for. But now the industry is fighting back.
First, this happened. Now, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) announced today that it would be filing complaints with the California Labor Commission against nine licensed adult talent agencies, claiming that each agency has violated the California Labor Code by “sending or causing to be sent, any artist to any place where the health, safety, or welfare of the artist could be adversely affected, the character of which place the talent agency could have ascertained upon reasonable inquiry.”
The industry retaliates by indicating that similar complaints apparently are not being filed against talent agencies representing professional football, boxing or other sports-related players, where blood-to-blood contact is common, nor against agencies which recruit medical personnel for hospitals and other healthcare provider facilities, where such workers are exposed daily to airborne communicable diseases.
“Most workers in the adult film industry, including those represented by [fill in name of talent agency here], perform sexual acts without any protection from exposure to communicable diseases that may be contained in bodily fluids and discharges,” wrote AHF President Michael Weinstein to State Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet. “The Los Angeles Department of Public Health (‘LADPH’) estimates that condoms and other protection are used in less than 20% of hardcore heterosexual pornography.”
But currently all talent working in the hetero side of the adult industry are given “protection” by the fact of being tested on a monthly basis for HIV, chlamydia and gonorrhea, and less frequently for syphilis and hepatitis. There have been no reported cases of on-set transmission of the as-yet-incurable HIV virus within the hetero acting community since 2004, and on average, less than 2 percent of performers test positive for any other tested STD in a given month. Moreover, the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) provides vaccinations against the cancer-causing HPV virus and various forms of hepatitis on a regular basis.
My reaction upon reading the statements is that the porn industry is retaliating with semantics. And that’s ok. We all know how well it worked out for Bill Clinton while on trial for his infidelity. And really, if this is our way of outlining things in a manner so that we don’t get fucked later, then I think it’s brilliant. My only concern is that we don’t foxhole ourselves into a pattern of sounding like defensive whiny babies who are perceived by the Federal Government, and all of pornodom as well, as only worrying about profits and comfort of having things remain the same. If for no other reason than to not have to take the time and money to change it.