A positive test in the industry is especially alarming because the vast majority of straight porn is shot without condoms, despite the fact that California law requires condoms or equivalent protection on porn sets. (By contrast, the gay porn industry is largely condom-compliant.)
The porn profession comes with inherent health risks, and the industry seems to have made a fairly serious effort to address them. The porn industry, however, is dangerously insular--like another profession we write about often here:
In the latest case of HIV, the actor tested positive through an industry-sanctioned program administered by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation. If you've heard of AIM, you probably know it as the "clinic for porn stars." AIM does provide medical and social services to porn performers, but AIM's true niche in the ecosystem of "Porn Valley" is much more complicated.
AIM is also the STD testing and record-keeping clearinghouse of the San Fernando Valley's multi-billion dollar straight porn industry, according to Dr. Alexandre Padilla, a professor of economics at Metropolitan State College of Denver, who analyzed the structure of AIM in a 2008 working paper.
"With the help of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM), the adult film industry developed a corporate culture to facilitate widespread coordination among members and to make the industry similar to a private club," Padilla writes.
Is AIM effective? Apparently it is, but the system is not foolproof:
AIM is a private nonprofit whose primary function is to test performers for STDs and make the results available directly to producers, directors, agents, potential co-stars and other industry insiders. Working actors are required to test every 30 days for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
Testing isn't a panacea, even if everyone does everything right. The latest infection "shows how testing just isn't equivalent to protection," according to Deborah Gold, a senior safety engineer at Cal-OSHA.
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