The Porn Industry Is Rethinking How It Works With HIV Positive Performers (Jezebel)
Read the full article by Tracy Clark-Flory at Jezebel.com
In late January, tucked away in a fluorescent-lit conference room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, dozens of porn industry insiders gathered for a panel on the latest in HIV research. In the neighboring exhibit halls, the annual Adult Entertainment Expo was underway, and fans lined up for autographs from performers and poked at the surreal flesh of sex dolls. The expo’s seminars are always a sober affair compared to the raucous exhibit halls, where music thumps and watered-down drinks are poured, and this panel is no exception.
But the panel became a lightning rod for industry debates around HIV, sex worker rights, and homophobia because it raised the possibility of introducing a testing system that meets the needs of performers with HIV. Currently, the industry’s centralized opt-in testing system, Performer Availability Screening Services (PASS), tests performers every 14 days for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Anyone who tests HIV positive is permanently barred from the system.
The HIV panel, which featured a mix of porn performers and health experts, began by surveying the latest research, including well-documented evidence showing that when antiretroviral treatment lowers an HIV-positive person’s viral load to 200 copies per milliliter of blood—what’s often called an “undetectable” status—they pose “effectively no risk” of sexually transmitting the virus, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has put it. A 2016 statement signed by several dozen major global HIV organizations similarly said that the risk of transmission from someone with an undetectable viral load is “negligible to non-existent.”
Then, partway through, panelist and porn performer Bella Bathory said that the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the adult industry trade association which manages the adult industry’s centralized bi-weekly testing system for STIs, was considering the creation of a separate and additional testing system that could be used by HIV-positive performers who are undetectable, as well as HIV-negative performers “who are woke and aware and comfortable sleeping with [HIV-positive] performers.” Anyone who opted into the system would get a “drastically discounted testing rate,” she said, garnering a huge round of applause.
In the wake of the panel, rumors started circulating on Twitter, including claims that PASS had been suddenly changed to allow HIV-positive performers into the general talent pool. As one performer tweeted, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the fucking room. Are we just going to let it be ‘okay’ for HIV+ performers to be allowed to perform with in the industry ?” FSC responded with a statement clarifying that the testing system had not actually changed, and that there was no “current plan to change it.”
But the theoretical discussion had fired people up; then the whispers began that HIV-positive performers were already working within the tested talent pool.