The multibillion-dollar porn industry crashed to a complete halt this week after an actor tested positive for HIV on Oct. 9. This tragic revelation should serve as a powerful cautionary tale that gratuitous and reckless sexual behavior has dire, and ultimately fatal, consequences.
Mark Kernes, senior editor at Adult Video News, says PinkVisual Productions is slated to halt production for at least a few weeks until it is known from whom the person contracted the disease. Adult Video News reported additional shutdowns at Hustler Video, Digital Playground, Jennaration X Studios, Girlfriends Films and Kick Ass Pictures.
Although only a tiny fraction of African Americans work in the adult entertainment industry, too many black people possess a porn mentality. They act on their sexual impulses without restraint and fail to take precautionary measures to avoid contracting or spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
HIV is spread most often through sexual contact but can also be contracted through sharing contaminated needles, infected blood products, or by babies born to or breast-fed by infected women. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is an autoimmune disease that gradually destroys the body’s ability to ward off illnesses.
County public health officials and state occupational health officials have said the widespread lack of condom use on porn sets puts performers at risk of contracting HIV and other diseases. Adult film producers have said viewers find condoms to be a turnoff.
Last year, a woman tested positive for HIV after making an adult film, and in 2004 an HIV outbreak affecting several actors spread panic in the industry and briefly shut down productions at several California studios.
Since the 2004 outbreak, 25 cases of HIV have been discovered at the AIM clinic and at least 8 of those were adult film performers, said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, the communicable disease director of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.
“We strongly feel that condom use should be required in this industry; just like a construction worker wouldn’t go into a construction site without a hard hat, an adult industry performer should not be having sexual acts unprotected without a condom,” said Kim-Farley.
The identity and gender of the HIV-positive actor have not been released by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, the clinic where the case was discovered. The clinic was working to identify and test on-screen partners of the actor.
This could be another devastating blow (no pun intended) to the adult film genre. Filmmakers have been hurt by the recession and the Internet, where pirating and free downloads often cut producers out of profits. Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild chief executive Joe Francis said adult DVD sales and rentals have decreased 22 percent. –terry shropshire
