How to Put Condoms in the Picture (Barf Alert)

New York Times ^ | 5/2/04 | SHARON MITCHELL

[wagglebee]

Another young performer in pornographic movies tested positive for H.I.V. last week. She is the third to do so in the last month, prompting a 60-day industry-wide halt to filming so that actors can be tested and re-tested for the virus. The testing has taken place at the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, the organization I founded in 1998 to provide sex-film performers counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Each month we give about 1,200 actors a test that can identify H.I.V. as early as 14 days after infection. We also test for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

It's very difficult to get sex-film actors to adhere to any regulation, but most of the performers follow our rules when the rest of the industry — the producers, directors and distributors — cooperates. They are the "parents" in this business, since a number of the people who act in these films are not emotionally healthy. Some are young and troubled, and their careers are short: the typical sex-film actor works in the industry for three months to three years.

The self-policing has worked. Two of the largest film companies, Vivid and Wicked Pictures, regularly use condoms and the other companies will if the actors insist on it. In 80,000 tests my organization has conducted since 1998, there have been only 14 diagnoses of H.I.V. infection. We're doing an excellent job. But if a crusading government takes advantage of the three positive diagnoses to try to shut down the industry or mandate condoms, it won't work. The segment of the industry that refuses to use condoms will simply go underground.

That has happened before. In the San Fernando Valley — or "Porn Valley" — where much of the sex-film industry is based, it has been legal to shoot films that show actual sexual intercourse only since the late 1980's; before then, the makers of more graphic films simply operated underground, and made plenty of money. If Los Angeles County mandates condom use, the filmmakers who refuse to follow these regulations will just move elsewhere — avoiding even the opt-in testing we have at my organization. Then we would truly have a public health issue: remember, these men and women have nonprofessional sex lives with husbands, wives and partners who are not in the industry.

What we can do is reward the producers, distributors and actors who use condoms with a "seal of approval." The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, state and federal health departments, and my organization should act together to give approval to the films made by companies that use safe workplace and health care practices. Most mainstream companies don't like to discuss their lucrative dirty secret — that they make huge profits off sex films. But if hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott, and cable companies like Time Warner and Comcast, showed only those films with the seal of approval, filmmakers would have a financial incentive to follow the rules.

Pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry — some put the figures as high as $9 billion per year. Almost all of the national cable providers offer a pornography channel, millions of sex videos are sold each year and 50 percent of hotel guests watch pornography on pay-per-view channels.

With the explosion of the industry, the business has changed drastically. In 1975, when I started as a sex-film actor, it was more like the mainstream film business: the same agent who helped get me roles on Broadway sent me out for my first pornographic film. Back then, films had to have "artistic merit" to be shown in theaters legally, so the films had plots. But the San Fernando legalization and the proliferation of video changed things. Films have become increasingly hard core because that is what sells. Rejection of condom use is purely and simply a financial issue. Filmmakers believe that viewers prefer the "reality" of unprotected sex. But the reality of unprotected sex is risk of H.I.V. infection.

Pornography has been around for a long time, and it's not going to go away. If we can make it financially attractive for the people who work in the industry to use condoms, they will. And that's the only way that we will be able to further limit the risk of infection to sex-film actors and to the people they come in contact with in their private lives.

Sharon Mitchell is the founder of the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation.

[wagglebee]

What we can do is reward the producers, distributors and actors who use condoms with a "seal of approval."

Why yes, condoms have worked so well in teen sex use, etc. Better idea, ban the whole industry.

[jocon307]

"They [We] are the "parents" in this business, since a number of the people who act in these films are not emotionally healthy. Some are young and troubled, and their careers are short: the typical sex-film actor works in the industry for three months to three years."

And she's helping them. She enabling this, and she doesn't even have the soul to be ashamed of it.

A dame like this really puts the "ick" in pathetic.

[traumer]

San Fernando Valley —> "Porn Valley" —> Death Valley

[SpyktRose]

I just saw a segment on Entertainment Tonight that featured "The new faces of 'adult entertainment'. I often put on E! and they are interviewing "adult stars." Yet I haven't heard anything from them about this HIV break-out.

When I was in high school, I belonged to a youth group. One of the adult counselors was a registered nurse, and we had a talk about AIDS. She showed us what she had to wear to protect herself from ER patients who were bleeding and might be infected. She looked like a nuclear power plant worker- even her shoes had to be covered. Yet we tell the youth of this country to trust their lives on condoms. Why? Oh, wait, that's right- it makes money.

[Mark in the Old South]

Why do I smell a Nobel Prize for humanitarianism or did puppy have another accident?

The caring, the concern for their fellow human genital, why it is is so touching (sniff) I... I... I think I'm gonna cry. Shut it down. It is prostitution.

[HHFi]

This is just a wild and crazy suggestion, but if someone has some bizarre need to watch people having sex without condoms, why doesn't he just watch one of the 20 million (or whatever) porn videos that have already been made and show that? Granted, this is not a field I know much about, but aren't there enough of these things already on the shelf that if you started watching them one after another, 24/7, you'd die of old age (or sexual exhaustion, or boredom) before you ever got close to seeing them all? Or do we desperately need more new ones because we have to keep the plots up to date?

[GladesGuru]

You're correct, it does smell. But the first film ever made was a skin flick. To have founded a successful facility which tests an at risk population is no small feat.

For a sex film performer to have founded such a facility seems more worthy of a "Good Show!!" than a shower of insults.

[A Simple Soldier]

Your last sentence hits the nail on the head. The plot lines are so compelling, filled with twists, nuance and unexpected turns. The sex is just incidental and simply designed to move the story along.

[Tacis]

We will see a lot about this especially in the ultra-left wing media! They want to push the faggot agenda and stories like this will continue to be used to try to prove that normal people, not just deviants get AIDS. They, in fact, would like nothing better than "proof" that someone got AIDS from a toilet seat.

[wagglebee]

Yeah except for the fact that I at least have never known any normal people who have sex with say 200 different people a month (although Billy Clinton should be a little concerned).

[Destro]

More people die in fishing boat accidents then from AIDS inflicted in the porn industry. Tuna is dangerous business!

[PropheticZero]

Yeah...this is alot like deaths from airline crashes. Many more people die from car crashes and other ways but airplane crashes are much more "spectacular".

Don't know this for a fact so don't quote me, but I bet the AIDS contraction percentage rate for non-pornstars people is more than it is for pornstars (atleast those that do the regular testing procedures, as some of the studios require).

Alot of people however from all sides of the all manner of fences like to jump at a few people getting infected to show how justified whatever their agenda against the porn industry is. I'm not saying is a physically, emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically healthy profession, but to jump on your soap box and declare this evidence of anything is premature.

I think its a pretty good idea to use the hotels and cable channels and what have you to "Financially" regulate a industry rather than trying to impose govermental regulation.

[beckett]

I don't want to get into the whole debate about whether porn is an ineradicable fixture in all human cultures. I just want to point out that whenever the lives of the participants in the porn industry are examined, pain, loss, confusion, despair, waste and exploitation are the staple ingredients.

Porn degrades.

[Tax-chick]

50 percent of hotel guests watch pornography on pay-per-view channels.

Is this for real? That sounds absolutely insane to me.

[goldstategop]

Its different from the old days when people had to go to an adult movie theater. Or even to the adult section of the video store. Now people can get racy material online or on cable without fear of discovery.