At best some adult film studios require health tests and infection-free certification before actors go on camera, but this is not universally required. The actual extent of infection among adult film stars is unknown as there is no regulatory medical agency to monitor the industry. I believe it just proves the system works.Recently the Los Angeles Times Magazine on Sunday carried an article which examined the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among performers in the straight adult film industry. But it was only one and it was dealt with immediately. "Look," he said, "I wish it would be zero. He considered it significant that there has been only one confirmed case of HIV in the industry in the past five years, a period during which he estimated the business churned out as many as 100,000 films. "If they're unable to work they are not making any money." "People in our industry have sex for a living so they are hypersensitive when it comes to disease," he said.
With so much at stake, Hirsch said it makes sense that the industry would do everything it could to police itself. But it is still an enterprise that Kernes estimates generated $8 billion in revenue last year.
LIST GAY PORN STARS WITH HIV FOR FREE
Like other businesses, the porn industry has been affected by the recession and the increasing availability of its product for free on the Internet. He, like others, hopes it will spread no further. Mark Kernes, senior editor at the Adult Video News media network, said word in the industry is that she is an older woman who only acts occasionally in films targeted to young men's fantasies and thus is believed to have acquired the virus from a non-actor. The woman who tested positive hasn't been identified by AIM officials, but Fielding said he expected the foundation would turn her name over to county authorities soon and when it did they would counsel her and any of her sexual contacts. Devereaux said this has reduced the forging of test certificates, something she said was more common during the '90s, a time when tests were required only every 90 days. That brings the number of known HIV cases in adult performers to 22 since 2004, according to the data requested and reported by The Los Angeles Times.ĪIM, founded by former porn star Sharon Mitchell, who left adult movies to earn a doctorate in human sexuality, maintains a computer database that film producers can check to determine that actors have passed their tests. Late Thursday, county heath officials released data indicating that there were 16 previously unpublicized confirmed cases of HIV in adult film industry performers since 2004. We're very comfortable with what AIM is doing with the 30-day testing." As a result, we decided to go condom optional. "They came to us and said repeatedly, 'Could we have choice?'. "What happened was the talent didn't want to use condoms," said Steven Hirsch, co-Chief Executive of Vivid Entertainment Group, one of the multibillion-dollar industry's largest filmmakers. But they said both actors and audiences quickly rebelled.
He called for the use of condoms on all adult films as one means of providing necessary worker safety.Īfter an HIV outbreak in 2004 spread panic through the industry and briefly shut down production at several studios, many producers did indeed begin making condoms a requirement.