By Rodger Jacobs
If California is emblematic of Apocalypse Culture, then L.A.’s billion-dollar porn industry is the haunted house attraction in the carnival of damnation. The problem is most of the ghosts bouncing off the moss-covered walls do not yet realize that they are dead.
Thanks to the latest HIV scare affecting the porn biz, the haunted house is getting a lot of visitors these days in the form of mainstream media. Greeting the guests at the creaky front door is heavy-lidded, soft spoken Tim Connelly, publisher and editor of AVN, who warns the guests that there won’t be much to see today, sorry to say, because a 60 day moratorium has ground production to a halt.
Connelly directs the media guests to Dr. Sharon Mitchell of Adult Industry Medicine (AIM), once known throughout the industry as just “Mitch” but aptly referred to now as Dr. FrankenMitch, the former porn star’s face cosmetically rearranged like a Picasso painting, a living monument to the Chandleresque notion that L.A. is a place of rebirth and reinvention. I don’t know when Sharon Mitchell reinvented herself as a “Doctor” but I can assure you that she is no M.D.
“Mitchell spends much of her time counseling young men and women on the pitfalls of the industry,” wrote Beth Barrett in an excellent look at the porn HIV crisis for Los Angeles Daily News, “and (she) shows them safe sex videos warning that HIV is an occupational hazard.”
The opening paragraph of Barrett’s article (written with Daily News staffer Gregory J. Wilcox) asserts that the HIV outbreak in the blue movie capital of the world has “raised concerns about risky sex practices to an unprecedented level.”
One is left to ponder whether resident mad scientist Dr. Mitchell clued Barrett and other journalists in to what exactly these “risky sex practices” are.
From October of 2003 through April of 2004 I worked as a freelance video reviewer for Adult Video News, the porn industry’s unchallenged trade publication. What I witnessed in those seven months convinced me that grave diggers, morticians, and coffin salesmen plying their trade in L.A. are in for an economic boom in the years ahead if current trends persist.
And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the Powers That Be at AVN are privately investing in companies that manufacture embalming fluid, culpable as they are in this whole nightmarish mess, willing and eager to profit from the plague to come. And it will come. Maybe not this time but soon and with a Biblical vengeance.
Consider, for instance, AVN’s Editor’s Choice Review in the February 2004 issue. The title of the video is “Gooey Buns 2”. Reviewer Simon Auch gushes:
“You like ass to mouth, there’s plenty of that, too. And every scene sports an anal creampie. Millena and Romanova’s hired cock literally rains cum into the blonde’s bunghole, and Brandi slurps the cum from her gal pal’s pucker … A cum-filled asshole is a rare treat, indeed, so savor it. Plus, if the guy blows too soon, the director has the performers keep fucking until another load can be spilled into the proper pink receptacle. And did we mention the trademark stacking, where dick can fluidly flow from one ass to another?”
Okay, so some of the readers may be confused by some of the colorful jargon in Auch’s rave review. A “creampie” is a porn niche that came along a couple of years ago. Simply put, the male performer, sans condom of course, ejaculates inside the female performer’s vagina at the conclusion of the sex act, and while the camera rolls the young lady tries to squeeze out the ejaculate as proof that the event occurred. But some enterprising young lad with a camcorder decided to go one better and offer anal creampies. Same concept except the internal cum shot happens in the girl’s rectum. But wait. That’s not good enough either. What if we put two girls in the scene and one girl literally eats the ejaculate out of the other girl’s vagina or rectum? Now that’s an AVN Editor’s Choice, that’s a title that gets the coveted stamp of approval from the industry’s most powerful voice.
Here are some of the standard non-condom “risky sex practices” that are happening every day in Porn Valley, all caught on tape, assembled and manufactured for AVN’s praise or (rare) condemnation:
A2A: Ass to Ass. Male performer slides his cock out of one girl’s rectum and into another girl’s rectum.
A2P: Ass to Pussy. Male performer slides his member out of girl’s vagina and into girl’s ass (or into another girl’s ass).
P2P: From one girl’s vagina into another’s.
A2M: Ass to Mouth. Self-explanatory.
It is as if these high-risk acts are deliberate taunts at the spectre of HIV, a sick contest to see who contracts the virus first. And AIM gives performers the false sense of security that an AIDS test every thirty days protects them from the ramifications of said deeds.
As Holmes said to Watson, “The game is afoot.”
Another Porner Writes:
Hi, I’m a shooter/performer in Porn valley.
What is amazing is the lack of updates and information.
I just talked to a performer that wants to work, stating that “I’m not on any list,I’m fine”
Where is the third generation and related performers lists?
The last we heard from Sharron was Thursday!
I personally shot a scene in late march, where one girl had just come from performing a double anal,(think she had some rips?) I shot a g/g scene where she “gaped” her asshole open and a girl from the first generation list spit in her ass. why is she not on a list?
I guess everyone is on a “List’ as Sharron has called a halt to all production, but being a performer herself she should know better.
No one is giving up to the hour?, day? 48 hour? info.
We all know the risks, just as when we get in our cars, but at least we get traffic reports and cars get re-called when they are found unsafe.
Basically we know for sure that We can’t count on A.I.M. They just can’t handle even the press in an emergency , and we sure as hell can’t trust a test that does not show results for weeks and months.
Someone explain to me what the test is good for? A positive test means something, but a negitive one ? what does that really mean? that the performer can still pass on HIV ? DAMN!
What we DO know is who is positive. A.I.M. should be listing EVERYONE that came in contact with them all the way down the line. And keep adding to the list. There are boyfriends and jon’s involved too, as girls escort on the side.
I understand if AIM can’t handle this alone, they are small and staffed with ex performers and (until recently) HIV infected workers, BUT
DR. (joke) Sharron is careless enough to state “We consider this a successful containment” and “buy I’m off to the beauty parlor , talk to you next Thursday”
Please don’t bother calling us–WOW Let’s all trust this bimbo with our very lives.
The reason you aren’t seeing up to date info from AIM or anyone else is because they cant track it, plain and simple, I can’t fault AIM for that 100% but I can fault them for no having even a bare bones disaster recovery plan. Thats a damn shame it wasnt a matter of if this would happen really but when.
That negative test in reality only means that everyone you worked with 30 days ago or more was probably not infected by you.
To Make a bad Situation Worse: from adultfyi.com
A friend of James who went to his home on Thursday found the actor’s wallet, mobile phone and car but no sign of him, said Jim South, an agent who has guided the careers of actors and models in the business for 31 years.
“No one’s seen him since Monday. We can’t find him. We are all very, very concerned about this,” he said.
Steve Lane Writes:
Morning Mike
This is one of those, “we disagree a bit” letters. While I think you are asking some great questions as to the current situation and AIM, let there be no doubt, the industry is much safer today than it was 10 years ago due to AIM. Many people volunteered their time to start up AIM and no one is getting rich from it. Has every thing gone perfect? No. Can there be improvement? Sure. But, think what the industry would be like should there be no AIM. They are most likely under-staffed and under-funded. I haven’t seen any other competing testing facility posting potential life saving links on their sites.
You asked about everything under control. How much more can AIM do? Talent are still working, even those on the list. Producers are still shooting, come hell or high water. Add to this, the agency that may one day take over the health concerns of the adult industry seem to be saying adequate steps are being taken.
Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health and health officer for Los Angeles County, said the agency did not consider the HIV case a threat to public health “at this point.”
“I think in general, they’ve done an appropriate job in terms of the quarantine measures taken,” he said.
Medicine is not an exact science. Never has been. I’m not saying stop asking the questions. They should always be asked. But, during this time, cut AIM and Sharon a little slack. People are not being exposed today because of the work they are doing.
I Welcome people who disagree with me to respond.
Rio Shooter Writes:
Hey Mike,
Here is something that came to me today as I gear up for my trip to Brazil, and not a single word has been said about it… What about the girls in Brazil?
Lets just say that he DID catch HIV from Lara or even early on in his Brazil trip, and lets also say that he was shooting 1 scene a day, probably anal. In theory, there could be a lot of infected sex workers right now in Brazil because of this guy, who would be spreading it like wildfire to their clients, day in day out. This one man could of created a serious mini-epidemic in Rio.
If everyone is so sure he did catch it in Brazil, wouldn’t it be easy to just have the girls they shot tested to see who is positive? Contact their pimp or the brothel they work in (or the girl if she’s a freelancer) and urge them to get tested. That may not only slow the spread in Brazil, but it may pinpoint where it came from in the first place.
Lets also not forget that Americans will not stop shooting in Brazil. Rio specifically. How many of our guys are going to go down there, shoot some of the same girls, and bring it right back to where we are right now? Think of how many Brazilian lines are out these days, and the majority is shot in Rio, recycling many of the same girls.
Since the adult community never learns from it’s mistakes, there is a huge possibility that this is going to start happening over and over unless the girls in Brazil are tracked down, or at the very least tested in the first place, which is not happening.
Someone needs to get down to Brazil with a quickness or history will repeat itself. Soon.
Truth is we don’t even know how Darren James got it, Brazil is an easy place to blame because its far away but we really do not know.
