Aug
17
Advocate Mag Examines HIV Testing in Gay Adult
August 17, 2009 | 6 Comments
The LGBT newsmagazine The Advocate has published an article examining workplace safety in gay adult entertainment through the prism of HIV/STD testing. The story by Matt Siegel is titled “Business Before Pleasure?” and was published last week on Advocate.com, the magazine’s official website. “The porn industry operates like an adult version of the CBS reality show Kid Nation; the one where a gaggle of children settle into a ghost town with no adult supervision and have to create their own system of governance,” the article begins. The Advocate story then summarizes the case of “Patient Zero,” the publicly unidentified female performer whose HIV-positive test in early June was complicated when it was revealed she had filmed a scene the day before her diagnosis with an outdated HIV test. The news prompted a quarantine of several dozen individuals, including non-performers, until they had been retested. The resultant scandal prompted a call by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) for California to legally mandate the use of condoms in all porn production. In July, AHF filed suit against Los Angeles County public health officials, claiming they have not made any moves to require condom use on porn sets. Pro/am adult site NextDoorMale.com is among the very few adult studios that test their performers, both male and female, and also mandate the use of condoms. Company principal Stephan Sirard is quoted in the Advocate article. “Condoms break. Condoms come off. And with testing there are window periods. Combine both for best practices. Studios that don’t use condoms and don’t test should be in court for murder,” he said. [Photo illustration © The Advocate/Getty Images.] CLICK HERE for the full story at XBIZ…
Comments
6 Comments so far
“Studios that don’t use condoms and don’t test should be in court for murder,” he said…
Gee, I must have missed the story where American porn companies have been abducting young people, coercing them into having unprotected sex with infected partners and having them die as a result. I can see (even if I don’t agree with) safe-sex advocates thinking bareback porn as a ‘crime’ maybe even ‘assisted-suicide’ but murder it ain’t. Last I heard, murder victims don’t CONSENT to the action that leaves them dead!
Articles on this topic always use hyperbole and over-the-top language, which never helps. Nevertheless, this is the first time I’ve seen an article on the bareback issue that approaches the topic with a more even hand (which is not to say this one is even-handed but its a start), and maybe we in the industry can have an honest discussion and debate. The point Siegel makes, that HIV is not the only STD begs the question: how far will the industry go to protect the performers? Are condoms for fucking enough?
Jamie, I’d like to see the industry have an ‘honest discussion and debate’ too… but how close do you really think we are to seeing that happen when you’ve got one studio rep saying he wants to see other studios charged with ‘murder’?
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The original article has been pulled by The Advocate. The full, un-Advocate-edited version is much more revealing: http://www.theunabashedqueer.com/2009/08/too-unabashedly-queer-for-the-advocate.html.
HIV is a disease that is still incurable today. We should always practice safe sex and also educate our people how to avoid the spread of this disease.